he keeps saying i've done this. when you've go through an experience like this, whether you are found to be a cold-blooded murderer or not, that kind of emotional devastation is real. >> beauty, celebrity, turned deadly. tonight just days before the trial, a new look inside the case of murder and the blade runner. >> his lawyers are going to

present a very novel legal argument. >> heart-stopping new pictures of the crime scene, and a new examination of the evidence. bullet holes, smartphones, clothes in the bedroom. will it add up to a smoking gun? or will it clear this olympic icon? exclusive new information on both sides. the prosecution -- >> what everybody will be watching for is whether or not you can prove he intended to kill her. >> the witnesses. >> this doesn't feel like it's really happening. >> the trial the whole world will be watching. >> you want to believe him. you really, really, really, really want to believe him. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." tonight keith morrison with oscar pistorius, the race of his life. four shots at close range from a 9-millimeter pistol of the the bullets blew through the

door like it was paper. behind that flimsy barrier, the beautiful celebrity, lawyer and model, reeva steenkamp, shot dead by her olympian boyfriend, oscar pistorius. it's a tragic tale, almost shakespearian and frankly tainted with myths, embellishments and contradictions. the story you only think you know. here in south africa's capital city, pretoria, hordes of media are assembling to watch the murder trial of the most famous disabled athlete in history. tonight you'll hear in an exclusive interview the state's case against oscar pistorius, a case kept secret for months. >> he knew that reeva was in the bathroom and he intended to kill her. >> and about the remarkable strategy the defense is going to use to fight back. >> very novel predent setting legal argument. >> the events began just before

6:00 on valentine's eve, february 13th, 2013. here on the surveillance camera, you can see a smiling reeva steenkamp driving her silver mini past security guards standing watch over oscar's walled and debated subdivision. reeva was followed ten minutes later by oscar, driving a white bmw. by 10:00 p.m., oscar will claim, he had removed his prosthetic legs and was in bed watching tv while she practiced yoga on the floor nearby. this crime scene photo, not intended for public consumption but leaked to the media reveals a never to be opened valentine's gift from reeva to oscar, ossie as she liked to call him. it wasn't much later, according to oscar, they were both fast asleep. and then 3:00 a.m., this. more leaked photos show where four bullets blew through the bathroom door, two bullet holes marked by police appear to be about waist high.

one of the bullets ended up in the base. after firing the pistol oscar bashed an opening in the door with a cricket bat. and then oscar carried reeva's body down these stairs and into the living room. >> mr. pistorius himself used his firearm to kill reeva steenkamp and that's a fact that cannot be disputed. >> reporter: attorney nathi mcnube spoke to dateline. >> who did he phone to tell him please come help? was it the police? >> well, we know for sure that it was not the police. i don't think it's in dispute that he phoned his friends. his friends were the first on the scene and then the police after. >> the lead detective got to the house, saw reeva was dead, had

been hit three times, in the hip, right elbow, above her right ear. in the bathroom he found two iphones. as you'll see, those might become key evidence at the trial. he listened as oscar said he thought he was firing at a burglar. he didn't buy it and oscar was charged with murder. >> double amputee olympic runner oscar pistorius was charged overnight with the valentine's day murder of his girlfriend. >> it was, simply, shocking. oscar pistorius was admired around the world, of course, but in south africa he was a white-hot celebrity. the blade runner, a double amputee who set records and fought for the right to compete in the 2012 olympic games. karen maughan of enca has covered this story from the start. journalist. i'm a south african actually. this is a very conflicted narrative because you want to believe him.

you really, really, really, really want to believe him. >> in the days after the shooting, many south africans did believe oscar. many, in fact, still do. >> the support has been overwhelming from all across the world. >> pete van zill, oscar's hrg, spoke to us two weeks after the shooting. >> it's not just support for oscar, it's support for him having lost someone really dear and close to him and it's been overwhelming. >> could it be that oscar in a panic and fearing for his life fired blindly into the door, that it was all a terrible accident? with the trial coming up, both sides will claim they know the truth about that night. not just what happened, but why. >> he killed her, they have no doubt of the fact that he killed her. but what was his intention? >> the truth, as we've discovered, it's more complicated than you may have been led to believe.

still to come, an inside look at both sides. can prosecutors show this was a cold-blooded killing? >> we would not have charged him if we didn't believe so. >> can the defense show that it wasn't? oscar's bold ground-breaking strategy. >> this is a person in a state of fear and you need to judge him by that standard. before using her new bank of america cred card, which rewards her for responsibly managing her card balance. before receiving $25 toward her balance each quarter for making more than her minimum payment on time each month. tracey got the bankamericard better balance rewards credit card, which fits nicely with everything else in life she has to balance. that's the benefit of responsibility. apply online or visit a bank of america near you.

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as oscar pistorius prepares to go on trial for murder, his defense is already pretty clear. he was terrified. he believed he was shooting through his bathroom door at an intruder. it's a defense that will have a resonance in south africa, where home invasion robberies are common, and the murder rate is almost seven times greater than in the u.s. >> in south africa, there's no safe place because if criminals want you in your house, they will get you in your house. >> reporter: an oscar acquaintance is both a man of will and a robbery victim. >> a lot of people have been robbed of money in their houses. >> you kind of buy oscar's story then, that he thought there was an intruder in the bathroom? >> yes. >> it makes sense to you? >> it makes so much sense. >> and oscar may have unintentionally bolstered his

defense, his fear of an intruder, when three months before shooting reeva, he tweeted he thought he heard an attacker hiding in his laundry room. nothing like getting home to hear the washing machine on and thinking it's an intruder to go into full combat recon mode into the pantry. >> oscar didn't sleep well, oscar didn't sit still. he was restless all the time. >> journalist michael, while working on the preolympics profile of oscar for "the new york times" said that he observed in private oscar was often afraid. >> he seemed to have a great deal of fear, reasonable or not, of people breaking into his house. one day when i was with him, we came back to the house and he said, by the way, there was a noise in the house last night. and i thought it was an intruder. and i came downstairs with my gun. >> back then as this video revealed today, oscar seemed proficient with a gun. we don't know if oscar will

testify in his own defense at the trial, but we already have this testimony, the sworn statement he gave after the shooting. his most detailed account to date of the night he killed reeva. he described himself as a man living in fear who heard a bump in the night. i heard a noise in the bathroom. i felt a sense of terror rushing over me. i believed that someone had entered my house. i was too scared to switch a light on. i grabbed my 9-millimeter pistol from underneath my bed. on my way to the bathroom i screamed words to the effect of him, them to get out of my house and for reeva to phone the police. i heard movement inside the toilet. it filled me with horror and fear. i did not have my prosthetic legs on. i felt extremely vulnerable. i fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to reeva to phone the police. i was still too scared to switch on a light. >> the defense will be that this is a tragic accident. >> and in fact that defense has been used successfully, said

reporter barry bateman. that was ten years ago after a heart-breaking shooting involving a south african rugby star. >> he accidentally shot dead his daughter. early hours of the morning she had snuck in and was taking the father's car to go out. without warning shots or anything, the father out the bedroom window shot at his own daughter thinking her to be a thief. >> the rugby player was not prosecuted. the judge decided he had suffered enough. oscar's attorney, said crime reporter karyn maughan, will argue he has suffered all his life. >> i think there is an awareness from his defense team that they cannot present oscar pistorius as this perfect human being who was so idolized by so many people. there has to be an acknowledgement, a real acknowledgement of the kind of issues that he's had, that have always been under the surface. >> in fact, she has learned oscar will actually ask the court to hold him to a different standard of justice.

>> that he can't be judged according to the standards of the reasonable man. >> south african self defense law is based on how a reasonable man would react to an attack. maughan said she's learned that oscar's defense team plans to portray him as something other than that. >> they need to take into account that this is a person who has consistently said that he felt the most vulnerable on his stumps and was living safely in a state of fear, in a state of terror and you need to judge him by that standard. >> the irony of it. oscar pistorius fought for years to get into the olympics, to be treated like everybody else. but once in court is expected to make the opposite argument. that he is different, a double amputee living in constant fear of the dark. and it wasn't just a faceless intruder oscar feared, he's expected to claim at the trial

that he was particularly afraid of this man, former south african soccer star, marc batchelor. >> he said in one of his affidavits that he feared me. >> why would oscar think that? well, it's quite a story. batchelor has been named as a prosecution witness, and his testimony is expected to pack the court house. he's been told not to speak publicly about the case until then. but before that order went out, he granted "dateline" an exclusive interview in which he is going to tell us oscar wasn't a fearful man, but an angry one. coming up, fights, break-ups, threats. was there another side to oscar pistorius? >> oscar just started swinging and went off. >> when "dateline" continues. ♪

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the murder trial of oscar pistorius will revolve around a fundamental question, just exactly who and what is he? the fear soaked crime victim the defense is trying to portray or, as the prosecution would have it, the man who fully intended to kill his girlfriend when he fired through that door. either way, the question will hang over the trial. what happened to the aspiring soft spoken young man the world first met just a few short years ago? >> cheers. >> cheers. >> bottoms up. >> nbc's mary carillo was there

with oscar when few beyond south africa even new his name. >> is my face turning this color green? mary found a religious guy who seemed to be smiling his way through life. >> you've never had terrible days? >> not really. i think i've got to the point that i'm very happy. >> oscar was born without key bones in his feet and lower legs. his parents could have opted for years of reconstructive surgery, but instead they decided to have oscar's lower legs amputated when he was 11 months old. it was a good decision in the end, said oscar. >> i believe certain things in my life have changed my personality in a positive way due to having a disability. >> as nbc cameras followed oscar around south africa in the weeks leading up to the 2012 olympics, he seemed grounded, salt of the earth, no anger, no attitude. oscar even attached himself to a charity group, the mine seeker

foundation, dedicated to helping land mine victims. >> i'm very attached to mozambique in the past where we've given funding for prosthetic legs. >> helping kids in war-torn countries, even an unabashed dog lover. >> this is the chief of security? >> yeah. >> to mary, he seemed very sincere. >> i really had exalted this guy. he seemed very aware of his personal power and what he could do with it. i really felt that he could -- he was a game-changer. >> "new york times" reporter michael sokoloff spent a couple of weeks with oscar back then and he too was impressed. >> in oscar's home, there's almost an entire shelf of mandela biography, and oscar reads them. he's a smart guy. he's a literate person. >> but there was a side to oscar that wasn't apparent then. one prosecutors will surely highlight at the trial.

something cold and hard and angry. after months of interviews, we've learned it started to surface in the spring of 2012. that's when oscar split with his long-time girlfriend, samantha taylor. here's a selfie oscar took of the two of them in happier times. oscar told her, though, the olympics came first. writer michael sokoloff was there when it happened. >> he had told her he was too focused, too intent on this goal and he didn't feel that it was something he could maintain and he broke it off with her. >> but later during the london games, we learned something was grinding away at oscar. at least that's what talk radio host david o'sullivan heard from oscar's london roommate. >> i said so what's it like rooming with him? he said it's terrible. he's always yelling and shouting at people on the phone. and i thought i didn't understand that because this was such a polite, lovely, accommodating bloke.

>> after the olympics, by then a world celebrity, oscar flew to the islands to take an episode of the south african talk show "top billing." oscar's companion on this september trip was samantha taylor, his old girlfriend. the one he broke up with before the olympics. it certainly looked here as if oscar had patched things up with her now that the games were behind him. >> it makes my life a lot easier spending time with someone who's very caring. >> you're both blushing. >> my face is the color of her dress. >> at home oscar was an item everywhere he went. when he ordered a brand new leclaron it was noticed, like everything he did was noticed. he clearly enjoyed the attention and began to spend time with new friends. the solid, stoic coaches who raised him, taught him humility, gave way to pals like billionaire financier quinton

van der burgh seen in his reality show, "clifton shores." and there was a nightclub owner. >> there's ferraris, there's lamborghinis, there's porsches, there's road races. yeah, very flashy. >> the thing is oscar loved speed of all kinds. fast people, fast cars. and here at the local formula one racetrack he met a fast crowd too. rent the whole place for their private races and their parties up there in the clubhouse. here oscar met the kind of people he might never have met had he not been oscar pistorius. here he met the people who pulled a thread from the carefully woven fabric of his life. the incident, and this may go back to those angry phone calls during the olympics, involved oscar's wealthy new friend, quinton van der burgh, the producer of the reality show "clifton shores." oscar allegedly accused quinton of having an affair with

samantha taylor, during the olympics, that is after oscar first broke it off with samantha. >> oscar walked up to him and started going off at him. dude [ bleep ] my girlfriend while i'm running for my country. >> soccer star marc batchelor will testify for the prosecution at oscar's trial. he told us in an exclusive interview that his friend, quinton van der burgh, who, by the way, denied dating oscar's girlfriend, was so upset about oscar's outburst he asked batchelor to speak to oscar, get things sorted out. >> he was still shaken up and asked me to find out what was going on. >> when they spoke on the phone, said batchelor, oscar was com t combati combative. >> he said what's the problem. you've got a problem with me? i'm not scared of you. i said you're a bit out of your league but he said i'll [ bleep ] you and break your legs. i didn't think anything of it. >> until two days later when the

pretoria police invited batchelor in for a face-to-face meeting with oscar. oscar was wearing a pistol that day, said batchelor. the very pistol he had by his side at all times. the one that's believed he used to shoot reeva. batchelor admits his own past checkered with brawling incidents left the meeting concerned oscar was losing his balance, hanging out with the wrong people. >> oscar was in the crowd and i think it was too much too quickly for him. >> there was a final breakup with samantha who, by the way, is also on the witness list. friends said she complained oscar was not pleasant at all. samantha's mother claimed she was afraid for her daughter's safety. but the public knew none of that. as far as his fans were concerned, oscar was on top of the world. and so when oscar pistorius walked the red carpet in november, 2012, of the national sports award show with this

woman on his arm, the entire country wanted to know who is she? coming up -- >> he was smart and funny and all those things, but she was brilliant. >> oscar and reeva's new romance. enter an old flachme. could jealousy be a motive in this shooting?

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universal orlando. a worldwide icon, a star-crossed couple, and now a case of murder. olympian oscar pistorius is set to go on trial monday for the death of his girlfriend, reeva steenkamp, but tonight prosecutors are sharing exclusive details about their case. they claim this was a premeditated crime. the story, it says, it was a heart-breaking accident. and the evidence, what will that tell us?

here again, keith morrison. >> at the trial of oscar pistorius, she will officially be the victim. but friends no doubt will testify that's hardly the word to describe reeva steenkamp. reeva's brief journey to her tragic end began with a last-minute phone call from the most sought-after celebrity of south africa. >> hi. i'm oscar's date tonight. he needed a date at the last minute so it was throw yourself together, come and be my date. >> reeva was 29 when she lit up the red carpet with oscar at the south african sports award ceremony, november, 2012. reeva had looks, no question there. but according to her friends, that might have been the least of her attributes. >> reeva had a brilliant mind. she was smart and funny and all those things, but she was brilliant. >> gina meyers was on the prosecution's witness list, was

reeva's roommate, which may be understating their relationship. reeva actually lived with gina and her parents to save money. also being far from home, she missed her family and it was comforting to be a part of somebody else's. >> she often told me how grateful she was for her upbringing. her family is very down to earth, they were salt of the earth. very humble. and reeva was exactly, exactly the same. >> reeva grew up on a small farm near the factory town of port elizabeth. tough enough to come back from a serious fall from a horse, she broke her back, spent eight months in the hospital, learned to walk all over again. she attended a devout and diverse catholic school, st. dominic's, where students are taught to be of service to the poor. by the time she entered the law program at nelson mandela university, reeva was primed to make a difference, to be part of the new south africa. but during that time, she got

mixed up with a man who crushed her self confidence. >> she had spoken about having a previously abusive relationship. >> after graduation to break free, reeva moved far away, to the big city, johannesburg. >> she had an unbelievable personality, she had an unbelievable heart. >> warren lahoud met reeva soon after she arrived in town and the two quickly fell in love. >> we shared everything together, we did everything together. >> lahoud is another one close to the case who was on the witness list. before he was named, he granted "dateline" an exclusive interview. >> how long did you go out together? >> i think four and a half years. >> warren shared her values. hard working, devoted to family, normal. >> he was a run-of-the-mill guy. >> in one of life's weird twists, marc batchelor new reeva back when she was dating warren. >> she was in love so we were talking about when are they going to have the wedding. >> but before then reeva wanted

to live out a fantasy. she had dabbled in models as a teenager and decided to give it another crack before she settled down as a lawyer. >> she was looking forward to it taking her places. >> reeva's career took off. she appeared in ads, tv commercials, videos. like this one for the men's magazine "fhm." >> did she get a big head? >> no, never. >> but by july, 2012, reeva broke the news to warren she wanted, for the first time in her life, to be on her own. >> i was very busy, she was very busy, so i suppose you start growing apart and sometimes you need a break. >> back then reeva only knew oscar the way everybody knew oscar. as the electrifying blade runner in the olympic games. then, pure coincidence really, four months later, the car dealer from whom oscar ordered that mclaren showed him a picture of reeva and suggested

he might want to take her to the sports awards. and it was like they were made for each other. both disciplined, hard working, well read, hoping to put their fame to use for the betterment of others. oscar for land mine victims, reeva for victims of domestic violence. >> did you ever meet oscar? >> i did, yes. i mean he seemed like a gentleman. >> and, like a gentleman, warren graciously accepted his role as reeva's ex. and as an ex-boyfriend, warren would occasionally meet reeva at a cafe to talk about old times. one of those passing encounters, though, will be forever replayed in warren lahoud's mind. >> she told me how well she was doing. she seemed like she was happy. >> and that was all? >> that was all. >> perfectly innocent, said warren. but did oscar think so? marc batchelor had seen, he said, how jealous oscar could be about his former girlfriend, samantha. he told us reeva's friends

believed oscar now felt the same way with reeva. >> let's talk about jealousy, she was contacting her ex, warren. >> was oscar jealous of warren? is that why warren is being called to testify? we don't know. but we do know this, that little coffee date that he had with reeva was on february 12th, 2013, 36 hours before oscar killed her. coming up, exclusive details from the prosecutors. smart phones, bullet holes, reeva's clothes, neighbors' stories. >> what everybody is watching for is whether he killed her. >> we would not have charged him if we didn't believe so. treat more.

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four shots through a door, no question oscar pistorius fired them and that he killed reeva steenkamp. the day oscar was arrested, the case against him looked open and shut. but just a few days later, it

seemed like the case might fall apart before it ever got to trial. reporter karyn maughan said the problem was the police. >> they looked stupid. they looked really, really stupid. >> turned out that the detective hilton bota had contaminated the crime scene, then claimed he found performance-enhancing drugs in oscar's home, when the allegations turned out not to be true. >> that kind of thing ultimately would prove to the defense and they would use this in arguments. the state, the police never wanted to believe his side of the story. they never made any attempt to do the most basic checks to see that he wasn't lying. >> and incredibly, just days after he arrested oscar, detective bota was charged with attempted homicide for firing his own pistol into a minivan full of passengers the previous year during a police pursuit.

within a week, bota was off the case. >> i actually think that him being removed was the best case -- >> best thing for the case? >> the best thing that could have ever happened. >> because, said karyn maughan, police were able to put one of the top detectives in the country on the case. >> he's brilliant. he's really one of south africa's best police officers. i think the state has put a huge amount of work and a huge amount of money and a huge amount of efforts into making their case. >> a case that the prosecution argues is just as simple as it looked on day one. >> you can't deny that reeva was killed by himself at his house and that four shots were fired at her. >> attorney nathi mcnube in an exclusive interview with dateline previewed cautiously the prosecution's case against oscar. >> what everybody will be watching for is whether or not he intended to kill her.

>> absolutely. >> and you sound like you're pretty confident the prosecution has enough to be able to prove that? >> we would not have charged him if we didn't believe so. he knew that reeva was in the bedroom and he intended to kill her. >> proof, he said, starts with the bathroom door itself. >> the bullet holes, if you measure person, how high were they if a person is standing or kneeling, with or without his legs and so on, it's part of our argument. >> since oscar's arrest, it's been widely reported the bullet holes angled downward and prosecutors plan to argue that oscar was wearing his prosthetic legs when he fired at reeva, thus that he was lying about feeling helpless and frightened. but just last week, a revelation contained in a prosecution document obtained by karyn maughan and henetwork, enca. the document confirms oscar's account, saying that the shooter was most likely not wearing his prosthetic legs. but then the report goes on to

say the amount, trajectory and grouping of the shots fired indicated direct intention to kill. prosecutors will argue that oscar did know, that he intended to kill reeva. although why he killed her is another question. the document leaked last week says prosecutors believed the two argued, but don't know the details of the argument. there were early reports that a text or e-mail from a previous lover may have been what started it all, and remember reeva had her smartphone with her when she died. was there anything on reeva's phone that told you -- that gave you useful information? >> i don't know if i can respond to that without divulging the nature of the evidence. >> as for what was on oscar's phone, after a year of legal wrangling, only now are south african detectives in the u.s. meeting with apple and the fbi.

they expect to have the contents of his phone today. one indicator there may have within a fight was the way reeva was dressed. one official had told us that reeva was wearing clothes when she was shot. >> we believe that reeva was probably running away and she locked herself in the bathroom. >> what's the prosecution's theory about the fact that she was wearing white shorts and a blacktop? >> it cannot be explained as of n now. the accused can try to take a stand and say she decided to put on clothes to go to the bathroom or she decided to sleep in clothes, i'm not going to put my nighties on. we can't tell. it's not something that we can actually talk about. >> the prosecution report leaked to karyn maughan said the deceased was clothed when she was shot. he said it will be central to the prosecution's case.

>> there is a piece of evidence around the clothes that would suggest what happened. to comment on it now would be to disclose a lot of our thinking around the case before the time. >> two months after he was indicted for reeva's murder, oscar was rung up on additional gun charges for allegedly firing a pistol from his car and at this up market cafe. nickel and dime charges, you might say, compared to murder. but the prosecutors had their reasons. >> what they essentially are is a part of a strategy by the npa to present oscar pistorius as a trigger-happy cowboy who reached for his firearm in moments of stress. >> like the time oscar tweeted about going into full combat recon mode when he heard a noise in the laundry room. what's interesting in that account is what oscar didn't do. he did not fire four shots through a door. so what about the time he

actually did fire his pistol? during that awful night he took reeva's life. there is something unique about the 9-millimeter that is impossible to say without blowing out your speakers. it's an exceptionally loud round. 160 decibals, louder than a jet engine at takeoff. it makes your ears ring when fired. and according to prosecution spokesman nathi mcnube, many of oscar's neighbors will testify they heard those gunshots and something possibly more damning. screams. >> and it's not just, by the way, the scream. it's whether the people actually hear argument prior to this. you know, did you hear a woman shouting something, irritated and annoyed and angry and then screaming, shouting and so on? >> the prosecution has named more than a dozen neighbors as potential witnesses. five of them, according to the report obtained by karyn

maughan, said they heard arguing and shots followed by the screams of a woman and then further shots. >> people said we had gunshot, scream, gunshot, scream. it's going to be pretty much hard for you to argue that you still didn't know that the person screaming was your girlfriend. >> that looks bad for oscar pistorius. consider one last detail. a security guard phoned oscar shortly after the shooting to see if everything was in order. according to the report, oscar said he was fine and never asked for their assistance and did not make a report about the shooting incident. if that's true, how will oscar ever be able to explain it away? coming up, the latest from oscar himself. his message to the world, and a look inside his life now. >> oscar is struggling a lot with what has happened.

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the last that many of us saw of oscar pistorius was the sorrowful man just before he was released on bail. in the year that's passed since then, we've learned oscar's life has taken a hard turn. >> he keeps saying i've done this, i killed her. from what we know from his family, he is -- that kind of emotional devastation is real, particularly given at one stage you were kind of a global hero. >> after his arrest last year, oscar's global hero status seemed like an advantage. a judge eased up on his bail restrictions, allowed him to travel, compete, even drink alcohol.

but soon he was spotted at a johannesburg restaurant tossing back drinks and chatting up women. the reaction to that showed how oscar's status had changed. >> in this kind of context, he cannot go out and be seen to be living life because he's going to be criticize d. there are going to be very public opinions about oscar carrying on with his life like nothing is wrong. >> that night fueled tabloid rumors making him out to be a playboy on the prowl. but the stories we discovered are now quite inaccurate. despite all kinds of speculation about oscar's doings, it turns out he is not hanging around with the old crowd at these watering holes in johannesburg, rather living at home more like a monk, he's got a shrine to reeva in his bedroom. and those friends, those fast friends, many of them are planning to testify against him.

and though oscar's bail deal allowed him to compete anywhere in the world, you have to be in shape for that. and here at his pretoria track, there is no sign that is going to happen any time soon. oscar doesn't come here much anymore to the track where he first started training, the track where he trained for the olympics. and the first occasion when he tried, he was surrounded by a pack of media, had to flee, so more recent visits have been rather secretive. and those who have seen him here say he is not the man he used to be. the intense conditioning has gone, the muscles have gone slack, the speed has disappeared, and worst of all, they say, that remarkable confidence he carried himself with has utterly disappeared. on this trip back to the trip, videotaped and released by his family last june, oscar showed up bearded, gaunt, slow. oscar is still marketable, but

not for his successes, only for his fall. >> insane amounts of money are being thrown at him for interviews. insane amounts of money are being offered to him for books and deals. and i think this is something for, for where him and his family are, he's turned all of those down as far as we know. >> though oscar has been living in seclusion on his uncle's compound, there have been a few sightings of him. he was spotted at a johannesburg shopping mall where he graciously posed for a photo. on the one-year anniversary of reeva's death, oscar posted this message on his website. no words can adequately capture my feelings about the devastating accident that has caused such heart ache for everyone who truly loved and continues to love reeva. the pain and sadness, especially for reeva's parents, family and friends consumes me with sorrow. the loss of reeva and the complete trauma of that day i will carry with me for the rest of my life. it's the same story oscar has

been repeating since the night he shot reeva. the same story he'll present to the judge when his trial starts on monday, that it was simply an accident. and oscar's story will soon be out there for all to see and hear. on tuesday, there was a ground-breaking decision out of pretoria. >> in circumstances, the following order is granted. >> a judge decided to allow much of oscar pistorius' trial to be televised. >> only authorized representatives are permitted to obtain a video and audio recording of the criminal trial of oscar pistorius. >> a legal precedent for south africa, and one the judge thought it was important to make. he said he wanted his countrymen to see the courts did not treat the rich and famous with kid gloves while being harsh on the poor and vulnerable. oscar's trial, though, will be seen not just in south africa, but across the world. and the global audience that once watched him make history in

the olympics will now, come monday, be watching an altogether different event. because south africa doesn't have a jury system, oscar will only have to persuade a judge that he is an innocent man, that his story is true. but that judge will not be swayed by an emotional story, only by facts. and that judge, seen here in a documentary courting justice, is a former reporter and social worker known for her tough sentences, especially when it comes to crimes against women. but of course the legal burden of proof lies with the prosecutors. they're the ones who must convince the judge beyond a reasonable doubt that reeva's death was no accident. but if they fail to do that, and oscar is allowed to go free, what then? is there any indication whatsoever that he would ever try to come back from this?

>> ion't think there's any his can ever resume because in his own kind of autobiography, he constantly speaks about that psyche of winning, and that ability to get on a racetrack with that psyche of a winner. and when you've gone through an experience like this, whether you are found to be a cold-blooded murderer or not, you cannot go into that environment with your head in that same place. >> no. >> it's not possible. >> those that have seen him around the track say that that, that, whatever that was, has completely vanished, gone. >> it's obvious. it's very apparent that that person is no longer with us. that as much as reeva steenkamp is no longer on this earth, that oscar pistorius is also gone with her. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." we'll be back again sunday at 7:00/six:

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