PRETORIA, South Africa - Oscar Pistorius vomited and sobbed in court Thursday as graphic close-up images of the body of his slain girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp were shown during his murder trial.
Images of Steenkamp's gunshot wounds appeared very briefly, and seemingly by mistake, as the court's screens scrolled through other pictures of the scene.
Reeva's body was pictured on the floor, followed by a close-up of her bloody face. Pistorius immediately started to vomit and sob after seeing the close-up.
Pistorius denies murdering Steenkamp at his home on Feb. 14 last year. He says he shot her by mistake because he thought she was an intruder.
Earlier in the day, defense lawyer Barry Roux showed the court a picture of Pistorius' blood-stained prosthetic legs during his questioning of police forensics expert Police Col. Johannes Vermeulen.
Attempting to point out alleged missteps by police, Roux also said fragments went missing from the door after investigators took possession of it.
Roux also asked Vermeulen to watch a video made by Californian Alexander Jason, who describes himself as a "certified senior crime scene analyst," comparing the sound of a gunshot to a cricket-bat strike.
Pistorius' neighbors told the court last week that they were woken by the sound of gunshots and screaming on the night Steenkamp was killed. Roux suggested that this was in fact the sound of the athlete smashing through the door with a cricket bat and his own high pitched screams when he found out what he had done.
In the video, Jason tries to shed light on the gunshot-cricket bat question by comparing audio of the two sounds. The footage was uploaded to YouTube on Saturday and had more than 135,000 views as of Thursday morning.
Jason concluded that heard from 180 meters away "you would have a very difficult time just understanding that the bat strike against the door is not a gunshot. Because when you hear that it makes a definite crack ... that you could think is a gunshot, especially if you could not compare it."
The day ended with state prosecutor Gerrie Nel taking the court on a step-by-step photo tour through the athlete’s blood-stained house, finishing in the bathroom where Steenkamp died.
One of the pictures, taken by investigators and displayed on the court's television monitors, showed blood splattered next to Pistorius' cricket bat lying on the ground. Another photo showed blood-stained towels.
