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Oscar Pistorius pleads not guilty to murder as witness tells of ‘blood-curdling’ screams

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Accused South African Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius studies a large screen as he awaits the start of the first day of proceedings inside the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, on Monday. Photo: EPA

The first witness in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial testified on Monday to hearing “blood-curdling” screams before the sound of four gunshots on the night the double-amputee Olympian killed his girlfriend.

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Michell Burger, a woman who lives on an estate next to Pistorius’ gated community, said she and her husband were awoken by the screams in the pre-dawn hours of February 14 last year, when Pistorius killed Reeva Steenkamp by shooting four times through a door in his bathroom.

Watch: 'I heard her petrified screaming some time during the gunshots'

Pistorius says he killed Steenkamp by mistake thinking she was a dangerous intruder in his house, but prosecutors believe the world-famous athlete shot his girlfriend after a fight and immediately tried to paint a picture at the trial of a loud argument before the fatal shots.

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“It was very traumatic,” Burger said, speaking in Afrikaans through an interpreter and in answer to questions from lead prosecutor Gerrie Nel. “You could hear it was blood-curdling screams. You can’t translate it into words. The anxiousness in her voice, and fear. It leaves you cold.”

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