Beeld newspaper has taken a photo from Google Maps and clearly marked off where Oscar Pistorius’ house is in relation to the estate where the first witness, Michelle Burger, lives. His defense team have implied that she might have mistaken the cricket bat for gunshots.

According to the Guardian:

Moving on to Pistorius having used a cricket bat to bash down the toilet door after he had shot Steenkamp, Roux asked Burger if she could not possibly have mistaken the cricket bat blows (against the toilet door – after the shooting) for gunshots.

Burger insisted that the sounds she had heard were gunshots, and that she had not heard a cricket bat hammering down a wooden door.

“I live 170 metres away. I may have been in the bathroom. But I did not hear the cricket bat,” she said.

After several more efforts by Roux to rephrase his questioning about Burger’s apparent failure to hear the sounds of a cricket bat being used to break down a door, prosecutor Gerrie Nel stepped in to object to the repeated questioning.

Image courtesy Beeld newspaper

Whilst we don’t know where in that estate Michelle Burger’s house is located, it does add some perspective to the first day of court.

What do you think? Could a cricket bat be mistaken for a gunshot from that distance?