Pretoria, March 24 (CNN): Reeva Steenkamp told Oscar Pistorius she was afraid of him and his temper less than three weeks before he shot and killed her, the judge in his murder trial was told Monday. "I'm scared of you sometimes, of how you snap at me," the South African model told Pistorius in a long chat message.
"You have picked on me incessantly," she wrote, calling Pistorius "nasty" after he apparently accused her of flirting with someone at a party.
"You have picked on me incessantly," she wrote, calling Pistorius "nasty" after he apparently accused her of flirting with someone at a party.
"I was not flirting with anyone today and I feel sick that you suggested that," she told him via WhatsApp, according to the police officer who downloaded their chats after Pistorius shot and killed her. "You do everything to throw tantrums," she said, concluding the message: "I'm certainly very unhappy and sad." Police Capt. Francois Moller, who downloaded the messages from Steenkamp's iPhone, said that 90% of the chats between the two were normal and loving. But there were several that accused Pistorius of jealousy and possessiveness. Less than a week before he killed her, she wrote him another long message after he apparently lost his temper with her as they left a public event together.
She reached the exit before he did, she wrote, adding: "I didn't think you would criticize me for doing that, especially so loudly that others could hear.... I regard myself as a lady and I didn't feel like one after we left."
Pistorius admits that the killed Steenkamp, firing four shots through a closed door in his house in the early hours of February 14, 2013. Three hit her, with the last one probably killing her almost instantly, according to the pathologist who performed the autopsy.
But Pistorius says he thought she was a nighttime intruder in his pitch-black house and believed he was firing in self-defense. He pleaded not guilty to murder.
'Terrified screaming'
Moller's testimony came after a neighbor of Pistorius said on the witness stand that she heard "terrified, terrified screaming" the morning the Olympian killed his girlfriend.
Questioned by prosecutor Gerrie Nel, Anette Stipp said she awoke early the morning of February 14, 2013, and heard "terrified, terrified screaming ... It sounds to me as if there's a family murder, why else would she scream like that." Stipp described hearing a series of three shots, a woman screaming, also a man screaming, and then three more shots before the screaming stopped.
Her husband, Dr. Johan Stipp, testified earlier in the trial. The trial was originally scheduled to last until March 20 but will now continue until the middle of May, the South African court hearing the case said Sunday.
