5 things you didn’t see happen at the Oscar Pistorius trial

PRETORIA, South Africa — There were tears, there was vomit, there was a re-created toilet stall in the courtroom.

But after 41 days, the murder trial of South African double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius over the Valentine's Day 2013 shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp is finally over. That is, at least until the verdict on Sept. 11, when we will learn whether the court has found him guilty of murder, or of culpable homicide (aka manslaughter), or of nothing at all.

While it was a lengthy trial, bogged down by a surfeit of expert witnesses, endless cross examinations, and far too many breaks, several people and events that were expected to come up during court proceedings, surprisingly, didn't.

Here are five things we didn't see (or hear) at the Oscar Pistorius trial:

1. Oscar screaming like a woman

Neighbor-witnesses called by the state testified that they heard a woman screaming on the night that Pistorius shot and killed Steenkamp. This evidence contradicted Pistorius's statement that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder, and didn't realize it was her in the locked toilet cubicle until after firing four shots through the door.

Setting their client's dignity aside, the defense lawyers argued that, in fact, the neighbors were actually hearing Pistorius, because he sounds like a woman when he screams. An ex-girlfriend later disagreed, testifying that when she heard Pistorius scream, "it sounded like a man."

After all of this, there was an expectation that the pitch of Pistorius's screams would be tested in court. But to the relief of our ears, this never happened.

2. The re-enactment video

In the run-up to the trial, there was talk of a fancy American forensic animation firm, specializing in crime scene re-enactments, that had been hired by Pistorius' uncle. We heard nothing further of this — until a video was apparently leaked during the middle of the trial from the Cleveland, Ohio-based company, The Evidence Room, to an Australian TV news channel.

The video shows Pistorius running awkwardly on his stumps and carrying a woman's body from a bathroom, re-creating the events of Feb. 14, 2013. Pistorius' lawyers said the video had been filmed as preparation for an animation that in the end wasn't shown in the trial.

3. Previous assault charge

Pistorius was arrested in 2009 for allegedly assaulting a young woman named Cassidy Taylor-Memmory at a house party in Pretoria. Taylor-Memmory alleged that Pistorius — who had been dating her friend — slammed a door against her, injuring her leg. After a drawn out legal battle, an out-of-court settlement was reached just before the trial — and we heard nothing more of the incident.

4. The ex-detective

Detective Hilton Botha was the first police officer on the scene after Pistorius shot and killed Steenkamp. But he was not called as a witness during the trial.

What happened was that during Pistorius' bail hearing, Botha was beyond disastrous on the witness stand. He gave confusing testimony, at points agreeing with the defense, who said that officers had no evidence contradicting Pistorius' claim of having accidentally killed Steenkamp.

It soon emerged that Botha had allegedly been involved in a murder a few years ago — the charges were originally dropped, but later reinstated. Botha was dropped from the Pistorius investigation less than a week after it began, and resigned from the police force soon after.

In his closing argument of the trial, Pistorius' lawyer Barry Roux criticized the way police handled the crime scene, telling the court that investigators had paid it "no respect." He also criticized the prosecution for failing to call Botha, which meant that Roux had no chance to cross-examine claims that police had tampered with the crime scene. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel, for his part, had reason to try to keep Botha off the stand after his performance at the bail hearing.

5. Reeva's final messages

There was a rumor in the days after Steenkamp's death that she had sent a so-called "message of death" — a text message to another man — leading to a fight between her and Pistorius, and then to her allegedly being killed in a fit of jealous rage.

There was never any proof of this, but talk of a fight between the couple in the early hours of Valentine's Day persisted, and many thought Steenkamp's iPhone messages might hold the clue.

During the trial, we only heard about the lovey dovey, "boo boo, baba" WhatsApp messages exchanged between Pistorius and Steenkamp, as well as the one in which she infamously wrote: “I’m scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me."