The Cycle   |  February 20, 2013

In Pistorius trial, what neighbors heard and what police found after the shooting

NBC’s Michelle Kosinski reports from the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa about the latest details; then The Cycle hosts spin on the Olympic star fallen from grace.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> what neighbors heard the night pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend and what investigators found in his home afterwards. michelle kosinski is there with the latest. michelle?

>> reporter: we really didn't expect to get this level of detail today. during this bond hearing, with the chief police investigator on the stand, he said the night of the killing, he would have had to walk down this 23 footlong hall way and go in the bathroom and fire four shots through the door of the small enclosed toilet. he would have been wearing the prosthetic legs because of the trajectory of the bullets. it was downward. he said he was not wearing his legs and in his account he said it was pitch dark and he woke up and heard a noise and immediately thought it was a burglar because he thought his girlfriend was in the bed. police said they have witness statements, from a woman who lives nearby. she claims what heard like fighting for a full hour between 2:00 and 3:00 aim and soon after heard gunshots. another man said that night he heard the gunfire and went on to to his balcony and claims the lights were on in pistorius 's home and heard a woman scream two or three times and then heard a few more gunshots. also today, police started out by saying we found steroids, testosterone and needles for injection in pistorius 's home, but once the defense started hammering him with questions, he finally admitted no, i don't know how that was testosterone and i don't know what it was. the officer said it's being tested, but the defense claims substance w as merely an herbal remedy . still we don't know whether or not pistorius will be released on bond. court adjourned early today and will be picked up again tomorrow.

>> all right, thanks michelle. you know, guys, i am just not optimistic about oscar being able to get out of this one. not that i necessarily want him to or have a dog in the fight at all but his story doesn't make sense to me. he hears or thinks there's an intruder in the bathroom. he yells at that person and he does not respond and he shoots through the door. it seems a lot more simple to think that this is a case of domestic violence.

>> well, the facts certainly don't look good for him, although we still are learning all the facts so we want to make sure to put that caveat out there. but if we take the best case scenario and believe his story with all the flaws that we're seeing in it, that he heard a noise in the bathroom, went there and then just started shooting into the bathroom thinking it was an intruder, it's crazy to me that there is any place on this earth where the first thing that you think when you hear a noise in the bathroom is not, oh, it's probably my significant other who i know is in the house going to the bathroom and you think it's an intruder, let me shoot it right now. that's crazy. that seems crazy.

>> yeah, and i'll just, you know, join the chorus of people talking about how we put athletes on pedestals. i just don't understand how every time we're surprised when an athlete turns out to maybe me, you know, fallible or in some cases a terrible, terrible person. how many mickey mantles and tiger woods and lance armstrongs do we have to have sort of running around to no longer be this invested in the morality of these athletes and then this disappointed when they let us down. it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

>> yeah. no, i agree. we like heroes. we look for them and probably manufacture them too much.

>> he's a fast guy. that does not a hero make.

>> and it's also the idea of his public persona being so potentially different from who he really is that i think is very jarring and very confusing for people.

>> i mean i think him overcoming what he had to overcome with his body made him a hero but i think the idea that athletes are heroes is incredibly difficult to swallow at this point in history. up next, kornacki attacks mr. and mrs. whiner.