Episode 28 | 5 Olympic Heroes that Went to Jail

This is a Special Olympics episode of Homicide Inc.. Well not the special Olympics but... well you know.

Since the Modern Olympic Games began in 1896 in ATHENS there has been no shortage of superstars minted in the summer and winter games. But for all the highs there is a fair share of lows. Olympic heroes that have wound up on the wrong side of the law. Derailed by drugs, political obsessions, explosive tempers and more. We’re going to take a look at 5 of the more recent and notable derailings of Olympic superstars. Representing South Africa Track star Oscar Pistorius! The USA, Track star Marion Jones and swimmer Klete Keller. Proudly representing Anigua: Track star Conrad Mainwaring. and for India… wrestler Sushil Kumar.

Let’s begin with Conrad Mainwaring at Montreal 1976

The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal are an Especially memorable Olympiad.. Gymnast Nadia Comăneci of Romania At age 14, became the first person to score a perfect 10 at the Olympics, recording seven perfect 10.00 scores and winning three gold medals. Bruce Jenner, these days known as Caitlyn, kicked ass as a dude In the Decathalon, brought home the gold and set a world record. And lets not forget the greatest Olympic boxing team in US history. Sugar Ray Leonard, brothers Leon and Michael Spinks, Leo Randolph, and Howard Davis Junior all getting gold medals.

Mingling amongst these Olympic heros at the ’76 Summer Games was an Olympic zero. Conrad Mainwaring

Mainwaring competed for Antigua on the track at Montreal. He may not have gotten any metal but he’ll be spending his golden years Behind metal bars. As of February 2021 Mainwaring was arrested after being unmasked by ESPN as an alleged serial sexual abuser of boys and young men. You See Mainwarring used his Olympic credentials to entice universities and sports camps to hire him at which he went on to commit decades of abuse.

Although the statute of limitations on the alleged incidents expired decades ago, prosecutors argue that the statute froze -- or "tolled" -- when Mainwaring left the state of Massachusetts for good in the late 1970s. He is alleged to have committed abuse on multiple victims in the state. Tolling is designed to prevent somebody from committing a crime in one state, moving away until the statute of limitations expires, and then returning without fear of prosecution. Virtually all of his alleged victims said Mainwaring used his Olympics name-dropping and relationships with accomplished athletes , as well as his knowledge of psychology and physiology, to persuade them to train with him. He is said to have initiated sexual contact under the guise of mental training. According to Mainwaring having a command over one’s erections gives you a competitive edge. His special ‘training’ focused on controlling and manipulating erections and testosterone levels as a means of improving athletic performance.

In July 2021 Massachusetts indicted him on 12 counts of indecent assault and battery and is awaiting extradition from LA where he has lived since the 1980s.

Looks like he’ll have plenty of time in the pokey practicing that formula for a competitive edge with his cellie. Enjoy the slammer old timer!

Marion Jones Imagine being an athlete on top of the World having bagged multiple medals at the 2000 SydneyOlympic games only to have them stripped from you years later upon discovery of your secret doping program. And simultaneously being busted for a bank fraud scheme. Such is the deflating story of former US Olympic hero Marion Jones.

At the Sydney Games in 2000, Marion Jones became the first woman to win five athletics medals at a single Olympics when she captured gold medals in the 100 and 200 metres and 4x400m relay and bronzes in the long jump and 4x100m relay. What we didn't know was in the months before the Games Jones's coach Trevor Graham encouraged her to drop "flaxseed oil" under her tongue hold it then swallow. That substance was in fact the steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), known as "The Clear”. Jones maintained she didn’t know it was a banned drug and claims She thought it was a supplement. However, it all came crashing down in a San Jose hotel in November 2003, when US federal investigators presented a vial of "The Clear" to her.

She said she had never seen or taken it. The investigator pressed her about it and asked her again. Jones again said no. She couldn't imagine losing everything- The medals, the records, they would all disappear. The pain and sacrifice would all mean nothing. So, she lied.

In 2007 when the heat was getting white hot, she admitted to the lie. She pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and of unknowingly using steroids. Jones never tested positive for drugs and was jailed rather for lying to investigators about her connection to BALCO, the laboratory which produced enhancement drugs for high-profile athletes and her involvement in a cheque fraud scam.

She was Sentenced to six months in jail at the federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2008.

Once her sentence began the disgraced Olympian didn't want other inmates to see her emotional state, so she went to the prison track and sprinted. In her cotton prison slip-on shoes, and with an audience of inmates watching from a balcony, the fallen Sydney Olympic champion ran 200m sprints for two hours until the prison bell sounded for her to go inside.. Once one of the most famous and marketable sportswomen in the world was now just another inmate. After pleading guilty of lying to federal investigators related to doping accusations, her name was wiped from all Olympic records. Her medals from the Sydney Olympics were then reallocated by the IOC to athletes Jones competed against in the 2000 Olympics; a laborious process that was complicated by the fact that the Greek runner who would have been awarded a medal in the reallocation was also caught up in a doping scandal.

Marion Jones today is a public speaker and author, transforming a traumatic chapter of her life into a meaningful lesson for others. Her Take A Break initiative urges people to consider the effects of their deeds that could be life-changing.

Sushil Kumar Late on the night of 4 May 2021, shots rang out in the Indian capital, Delhi, at a sports stadium famous for wrestling.

When the police arrived at the Chhatrasal stadium, five vehicles were parked outside. In one of them was a dbl barreled shotgun and 5 live cartridges. They also found blood-splattered bamboo sticks heaped in a pile in the parking lot. There had been a brawl at the stadium involving nearly 20 people and it appeared the brawlers left in a hurry upon hearing the approaching police sirens . Three people were injured and were taken to hospital. Hours later, a 23-year-old wrestler, Sagar Dhankar, died of his injuries.

Among the suspects, police said, was Sushil Kumar, one of India's most decorated sportsmen. A two-time Olympic wrestling medallist in an individual event and the only Indian to win a wrestling world championship. An extraordinary feat in a country which has only won two individual Olympic medals in the past 100 years. Breaking news, on a bright note just this week at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics another Indian in a proud moment emulated Kumar’s double medals in an individual sport. PV Sindhu got the bronze in Badminton singles to add to her silver at the Rio games. She plans to have a bowl of ice cream with the Prime Minster of India Mohdi upon her return to an undoubted hero’s welcome. OK back to the dark side of the games.

Sushil Kumar also holds or perhaps HELD an official position in the sports department of the Delhi government. Soon the hunt was on for the gyoza-earred Kumar who had gone into hiding. The police launched raids and offered 100,000 rupee (£950) reward for any information leading to the wrestler's capture. Perhaps they could’ve upped the ante a bit and apprehend him sooner. 3 weeks later On 23 May, Kumar was arrested outside a metro station in Delhi.

He now faces charges of murder, abduction and criminal conspiracy related to the clash at the stadium. Media has been awash with claims about the brawl being triggered by property disputes, in which the wrestler was involved, and the alleged close links between gangsters and wrestlers. According to authorities, Kumar enlisted four thugs to kidnap Sagar Dhankar (the now deceased wrestler) and take him to Chhatrasal Stadium, where they along with the wrestler and others were involved in the brawl.

Kumar denies the charges and insists that by the time he arrived at the spot of the clash, the two groups of wrestlers had run away,”He also claims some powerful people are behind the accusations to implicate him and settle old scores. Nice try homie. Video has now surfaced that clearly shows Kumar wielding a thick bamboo club standing menacingly over one of the victims lying on the ground.

But Kumar's arrest has shone a spotlight on what many say is the seedier side of wrestling in India.

Wrestlers in India are sometimes called a pehelwan, which also means a strongman. Although the word is used loosely, wrestlers are often accused of mingling with unsavoury characters and getting embroiled in fights. gangsters also call themselves pehelwan in India so wrestlers tend to be thought of as such.

According to one Authority on the subject, sometimes politicians use young wrestlers who haven't made it big to rough up rivals. It’s not uncommon for fights to break out during competitions. One well-known wrestling coach, Sukhwinder Mor, is currently awaiting trial for the murder of five people in February, including a rival coach.

By all accounts, Sushil Kumar had a fierce training ethic- hard-working and cerebral, leading a near-monastic life. A vegetarian, up at the crack of dawn, he began each day grappling in the pit. Kumar also helped convert a dingy car parking basement of the Chhatrasal stadium into a brightly-lit Mecca of Indian wrestling, a nursery from where three of India’s Olympics medals have come.

At his peak, Kumar was a "graceful, powerful and supple wrestler …a fascinating combination of violence and harmony and was never known to lose his cool. Until now that is. Kumar’s trial date is yet to be set but with a looming lengthy prison sentence, this will most likely become his most formidable opponent to date.

Klete Keller It was the fall of 1999 in Phoenix Arizona and The Keller family was being inundated with calls from some of the top Mens Collegiate Swimming coaches in the country. They wanted their son Klete for their sports program. 22 years later in the winter of 2021 the FBI was calling. They wanted their son Klete for insurrection and his role in the U.S. Capitol siege. What the hell happened?! Klete Keller would begin his rise to swimming greatness with the Trojans of U of S Cal. Ahead of him lay U.S. records and Olympic glory beginning in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He would go on to medal in the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics but it was the 2004 Games in Athens that was Keller’s crowning moment.

Keller living an Olympic dream was on the starting block at Athens Summer Olympics. thousands of fans were howling and the weight of the swimming world was on his muscled shoulders. He was anchoring the U.S. men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay, and while that quartet would be led by the 19-year-old superstarfish in water Michael Phelps, it was Keller who had the toughest job, tasked with holding off the greatest 200-meter freestyler on the planet at the time, the Thorpedo- Australian anchor Ian Thorpe.

To his teammates, Klete was the guy you wanted anchoring a relay like that- he was never going to let the moment dictate the strategy and kept his cards close..

The 4x200 relay was a match race for gold between the Americans and the Aussies. But could Keller stand up to the challenge of the intimidating Ian Thorpe—a formidable closer with size-17 feet, in a black, full-body racing suit?

Keller never let Thorpe pass him, although it got close in the final 15 meters. Ultimately, Keller’s long reach got him to the wall 0.13 seconds ahead for the gold, cementing his place as . . . an American hero,” Micheal Phelps was the first hand to reach down and congratulate the exhausted, ebullient Keller. It was the crowning achievement in Keller’s occasionally tempestuous tenure training and competing alongside the U.S. legend. Everything after that would be an anticlimactic.

All athletes are susceptible to struggling after the cheering stops. For Olympians, the challenges can be even more daunting. To win a gold medal, is all-consuming. There is no room for anything else. The transition back to a normal life can be an overwhelming task. Unless you are someone like Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky, most athletes don’t walk away with financial security and soon need to find a job to pay the bills that keep coming after the medals stop coming.

As his Olympic triumphs began to fade, Keller had a hard time keeping a job. He expected his work performance to come to him as easily as swimming did. It didn’t. On top of the work being unfulfilling compared to swimming at the Olympics, he had an attitude of entitlement. . . . he expected to win, and expected people to respond positively to him, and when that didn’t happen over and over and over, it took it’s toll.

Through these troubled times Keller got married and held the olympic responsibility of being a father to 3 children. However luck just wasn’t on his side. On a winter day in 2014 he came home to find a Dear John letter from his wife asking him to move out. Soon he was without a job, a family or a home. He began sleeping in his compact car; at 6 ft 6 that is no easy task.

He began to find his way after moving to Colorado Springs in 2017 and working in real estate. He largely blended into the woodwork and wasn’t on anyones radar until a bizarre dog-sitting story he shared and was widely circulated. He apparently had hired a dog-sitter service to handle things when he was out of town one weekend. When he returned home unexpectedly early in the morning, he found 2 1/2 naked guys lounging on the sofa, a god-awful stench of sweaty sex and an open bottle of lube on the coffee table. The still smokin’ video camera aimed accordingly . The female dog-sitter was cleaning up in the shower.

Fast forward to Jan.6 2021 and the tall white guy in the Olympic jacket .

On Jan. 6, Klete Keller became the most recognizable invader of the U.S. Capitol. Towering above a crowd of domestic terrorists that made a deadly surge after being egged-on by an outgoing and defeated President, Keller made a cakewalk out of the identifying process for authorities by wearing his Team USA Olympic jacket to the party. A clumsy but albeit patriotic brain fart. He found himself amongst a mob that included some lost souls only loosely tethered to reality. From highly decorated Olympic hero to one of hundreds arrested and facing serious federal charges that will certainly land many prison terms. Video and photos from Jan. 6 do not show Klete Keller engaging in any aggressive acts but rather an amused tagalong carrying nothing other than a bottle of water.

Many of Keller’s old teammates, coaches and acquaintances paint a similar picture. He’s Talented, humorous, friendly and troubled . . . with scars that never fully healed from a dysfunctional home life. Perhaps this plays a role in why he went off the rails on Jan. 6 2021.

Keller is currently out on bail and awaiting trial on felony charges including obstructing law enforcement; knowingly entering a restricted building; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. He has plead not guilty.

Oscar Pistorius

At four A.M. on Valentines’s Day 2013, Detective Hilton Botha, a 24-year veteran of the South African Police Service, was awakened by a phone call from his colonel. “Oscar’s shot his girlfriend,” he didn't need to say the family name- everybody knew who Oscar was. The whole world knows Oscar Pistorius, who overcame amputation of both legs when he was an infant to become the Blade Runner, competing at the age of 25 against able-bodied runners at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. But Botha also knew him as the hotheaded youth he had arrested for assault in 2009, after he had been accused of slamming a door on a female guest at one of his parties causing severe injuries. At the police station, the superstar reportedly signed autographs and posed for photographs for “infatuated” officers. The case was quickly dropped, and Pistorius sued the accuser for 22 million rand ($2.5 million), claiming that his arrest had caused him to lose sponsors.

Fifteen minutes after the call, Botha was at Pistorius’s home in the gated, high-security community of Silver Woods Country Estate, in Pretoria, 30 miles north of Johannesburg. One of the first things he saw when he walked in the door was the lifeless body of Reeva Steenkamp at the bottom of the staircase covered in towels. She was a stunningly beautiful, blonde 29-year-old model and reality-TV star. She was elegant, leggy. He wasn’t. Steenkamp had been shot three times by Pistorius, her boyfriend of four months. Minutes after the shooting, Pistorius phoned the manager of the gated community, asking him to call an ambulance. Then he carried Steenkamp down the staircase from the bathroom, and laid her on the floor. She was still breathing and Pistorius gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, someone attempted to tie a tourniquet around her arm to stop the bleeding from one of the gunshot wounds. A doctor that lived nearby had rushed over from his nearby house but realized that due to the head wounds—nothing was going to help. And then she stopped breathing.

“It was a large home, very neat and tidy- the money talked. All the ornaments and portraits and paintings. There were shelves stacked with trophies and a deep boxed frame with a picture of Mike Tyson, along with a signed boxing glove.”

The detective stepped around the the body and went up the marble staircase to the master bedroom, where the shooting had occurred an hour earlier. The crime scene was a large en suite bathroom, with a shower, two washbasins, and a toilet cubicle, the door of which was riddled with bullet holes. It had been bashed open with a cricket bat by Pistorius, who claimed he had broken it down after realizing that Reeva was locked inside. The bloodied cricket bat was on the bathroom floor, along with two cell phones and a 9-mm. Parabellum pistol.

Through investigating it appeared Steenkamp may have been cowering in the toilet cubicle with her arms crossed, which would account for why one bullet had gone through her fingers before entering her arm. Another bullet struck her above the right ear, and another hit her in the hip. Like a fish in a barrel, She didn’t stand a chance.

A veteran of countless homicide investigations, Botha had immediately seen the Pistorius case as a simple one, a slam dunk. A woman is killed by her husband, her boyfriend, or her same-sex partner every eight hours in South Africa, where “intimate femicide” is the country’s leading cause of violent deaths of women.

According to the community security registers Steenkamp had been staying with Pistorius for two to three days.... There was no forced entry. The only place there could have been entrance by an intruder was the open bathroom window, which after analyzed was impossible. The detective was convinced it was murder and felt it was an open-and-closed case. He shot her—that’s it.

Botha went into the garage, where Pistorius, in a bloody shirt and shorts, wearing his prosthetic legs, was sitting on a gym bench, surrounded by training equipment. “His head was in his hands, and he was crying. Detective Botha asked Pistorius “Do you remember me?, referring to the time four years earlier when he had arrested Pistorius on the assault charge. “Yes,” replied Pistorius.

“What happened?”

“I thought it was a burglar,”.

The bullets had struck her on the right side, which meant that she was not sitting on the toilet but probably crouching behind the locked door. From the location of the bullet casings in the bathroom, the detective believed that Pistorius had fired at the door from less than five feet away. Botha believed that the bullet holes were slanted down, which would indicate that Pistorius had been wearing his prosthetic legs, not, as he would later claim, that he was on his stumps. But why would he enter the very area where he believed the burglar was lurking and begin firing, instead of grabbing his girlfriend and running for cover?

After phoning the Steenkamps to inform them of their daughter’s tragedy, Botha transported Reeva’s body for a postmortem to determine the cause of death. He instructed his colleagues to take Pistorius to a hospital for blood and urine tests. Then he returned to the crime scene to gather and bag evidence. He found unlicensed ammunition for a .38-caliber revolver and vials containing an unidentified liquid, along with syringes and needles. They gathered up the laptops, the iPads, the phones, the gun, the cartridges … all bagged, marked, and sent to different forensic departments. He even took away the broken-down toilet door after a tabloid offered a police officer $50,000 for a picture of it.

The detective felt Pistorius’s account of the events was impossible. Because of his certainty and his pursuit of evidence to prove it, blame began to shift from Pistorius to Botha. He was soon removed from the case, and shortly after that he resigned from the police force. It appeared Pistorius’s fame and wealth had his back.

Oscar Pistorius overcame a severe disability – born without fibula bones, both of his legs were amputated below the knee as an infant. His mother inspired him with insistence throughout his young life that his disability didn't define him. She told him ‘your brother puts on his shoes you put on your legs.’ After estrangement from his father and the death of his mother at age 15 Pistorius found his true love - running on the track. And he was good at it. Real Good. He was model handsome with a sculpted, muscled body. One thing he never struggled with was finding a beautiful woman. His biggest challenge became fighting a murder charge, which could lead to life in prison.

After the murder and launch of the investigation, Pistorius’s past behavior was put under the microscope. Despite his family's insistence that Oscar could never do such a thing, many episodes that conflict with such assertions came to the surface. One witness recalled him dining with friends, a few weeks before Reeva’s shooting. One friend had a pistol, which he passed under the table to Oscar. The gun went off, and a shot ricocheted and almost hit another of Oscar’s buddies in the foot.

There was also an incident at the Kyalami motor-sport racetrack, where Pistorius confronted a wealthy TV producer, after hearing that he had become involved with one of Pistorius’s former girlfriends. He began screaming and threatened to destroy him up if he didn’t stop messing around with his girlfriend. Pistorius was earning a reported $2 million a year from his sponsors, which included Nike, and Oakley, and no one wanted to stop that gravy train.“These incidents were smoothed over and turned into non-events.” He was S Africa’s brand, a world iconic figure, an inspiration to millions around the world, a disabled athlete competing with the able-bodied. However there was an obsessive, aggressive nature of Oscar Pistorius, which the world never knew. Something troubling was bubbling from underneath.

Oscar Pistorius began his gold medal collection at the 2004 Athens summer Paralympics with 1st place in the 200m. Then 3 more Golds in Beijing with the 100 200 and 400 m races- all world record times! He was on fire and going into 2012 at the London Olympics, a household name. Bladerunner. The world was in awe. Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. The able-bodied Olympic Games mind you. He was A beast of an athlete 1/2 man, 1/2 machine. He finished 2nd in the first heat of the 400m but ultimately was 8th in the final. Then came the Paralympics. This was a different story. He bagged 2 more Golds and a silver in the 200m. Cementing his Paralympic legacy as one of the greatest athletes of all time.

After the Olympics, Pistorius flew to America, where he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and on Piers Morgan Tonight. Some close to him say the humble Oscar was gone, replaced by Oscar the Invincible.

The stress of the Olympics took its toll. Pistorius was often seen in a foul mood During workouts at the gym, storming out midway through a workout. He would be surly, rude. Surviving on energy drinks and caffeine pills, unsurprisingly he was unable to sleep. Often he would rise in the middle of the night and go with his gun and a couple of boxes of ammunition to the shooting range.” One journalist interviewing him questioned Pistorius about the weapons in his home —“a black pistol on the table next to the bed and a sinister-looking machine gun under the window”—and Pistorius responded, “Protection, brother.” According to police records, Pistorius had one pistol licensed for self-defense, and had applied for licenses for three shotguns, a rifle, and two more pistols. “Had a 96% headshot over 300m from 50shots! Bam! said One Twitter post Pistorius tweeted of himself firing a pistol at a shooting range near Gemona, Italy, where he often trained.

To add to that arsenal of protection he also had a pit bull and a bull terrier, as well as two rare white tigers (which he eventually sold to a Canadian zoo once they grew to a dangerous and unmanageable 400 pounds) He was a fast guy living the fast life. And fast guys need fast wheels. Pistorius owned a revolving collection of sports cars and had a $300,000 McLaren Spider on order before he lost his freedom and Reeva Steenkamp her life.

“On the 4th of November, a mutual friend of Pistorius and Steenkamp hosted a track day at Kyalami Race track and invited the two of them independently as guests. Oscar and Reeva were immediately attracted to one another as witnesses would attest- with Oscar inviting Steenkamp to accompany him to the South African Sports Awards ceremony that evening. She agreed.

Steenkamp rocked the red carpet with Pistorius that night in a sexy pink tasseled dress and Suddenly, everyone wanted to know more about Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius pursued Steenkamp ferociously according to Steenkamp’s Publicist. and although it wasn’t instant for Reeva he grew on her. To those looking in They looked very much in love, the perfect couple. So what happened?

The week of February 14 was Reeva’s week. Thursday was Valentine’s Day, and Saturday was the premiere of the model’s first appearance on Tropika Island of Treasure, a S African reality tv series. She wrapped a valentine for Oscar, Then, to ensure that her parents could watch her Tropika debut, she deposited $100 into their bank account so that they could have the use of their cable TV, which had been shut off for nonpayment.

On February 13 she wrote on Instagram a line from a speech she had planned to give the next day to students at a local High School to commemorate the “Black Friday Campaign for Rape Awareness,”. In a macabre irony she wrote ‘I woke up in a happy safe home this morning, “Not everyone did. Speak out against the rape of individuals in SA. It was Early in the morning of Feb. 14th between 2 and 3 am when neighbors said they heard what sounded like an argument in Pistorius’s house. Then they heard a lady scream, followed by shots fired, and then they heard another scream and then another few shots.” At pistorius’ court hearing he gave the following account:

By about [10 P.M.] on 13 February 2013 we were in our bedroom. She was doing her yoga exercises and I was in bed watching television. My prosthetic legs were off. We were deeply in love and I could not be happier. After Reeva finished her yoga exercises she got into bed and we both fell asleep. I am acutely aware of violent crime being committed by intruders entering the home with a view to commit crime, including violent crime. I have received death threats before. I have also been a victim of violence and of burglaries before. For that reason I kept my firearm, a 9 mm Parabellum, underneath my bed. He went on to say he had gotten up to close his sliding glass doors and heard a noise in the bathroom.

I felt a sense of terror rushing over me. There are no burglar bars across the bathroom window and I knew that contractors who worked at my house had left ladders outside. Although I didnt have my prosthetic legs on I have mobility on my stumps. I believed that someone had entered my house. I was too scared to switch a light on. I grabbed my 9mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed … for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed.

He said heard “movement” inside the toilet room that ‘filled me with horror and fear of an intruder or intruders being inside the toilet. I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police. She did not respond.

When he finally realized that Reeva was not in the bed, he said, he tried the toilet door. It was locked so he grabbed his cricket bat “to bash open the toilet door” and found her shot inside.

The day after Pistorius’s statement was read, detective Hilton Botha gave his testimony. He told the court there was “no way” that the killing of Reeva Steenkamp was self-defense. “A defenseless woman, unarmed, was gunned down,” he said, adding that he had never believed Pistorius’s story that he was trying to protect Reeva and himself from a burglar. “The accused could be a flight risk,” he said, opposing the granting of bail. Pistorius was looking at 15 to life.

That night Botha received a bombshell phone call from a colleague. He told him a two-year-old case against Botha, that had since been withdrawn, was being reopened. In 2011, when Botha and other officers were investigating the grisly murder of a woman, a mini-bus taxi drove straight at them at 100 miles per hour, forcing them off the road. When the driver attempted to flee, Botha shot out the taxi’s tires. Now the resultant charges—seven counts of attempted murder, one for each unharmed person in the taxi—were being reinstated. Pistorius’s powerful defense team had it out for Botha. The next day he was removed from the case.

Pistorius went on to be granted bail. After trial proceedings were delayed for Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steencamp, on October 21 2014 Pistorius was found guilty of Culpable homicide and sentenced to five years in prison. Two years later in 2016 after a retrial that penalty was increased to six years. And finally in 2017 it was determined that penalty was too lenient and his incarceration was again increased to 13 years. Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.