Brent Willock, "The Wrongful Conviction of Oscar Pistorius: Science Transforms Our Comprehension of Reeva Steenkamp's Shocking Death" (Torchflame Books, 2018)
Just when the world thought Oscar Pistorius\u2019 meteoric rise to Olympic glory and international celebrity had terminated abysmally in prison,\xa0Brent Willock\u2019s scientific perspective reopens this gripping narrative for an astonishing re-view. Olympian Oscar Pistorius\u2019 spectacular assent to fame ground to a screeching halt in the wee hours of Valentine\u2019s Day, 2013. Hearing a sound emanating from his bathroom, he grabbed his pistol and he stumbled to the washroom, screaming at the intruders to leave. Fearing someone was about to emerge to harm him and his girlfriend, Reeva, he fired four bullets into the bathroom. Soon he realized he had killed his lover. Horrified, he summoned the authorities. The investigating detective believed this was yet another case of an escalating argument where a man murdered his partner. World opinion is split. Some believe Oscar. Others are convinced he committed a despicable crime of passion.\xa0\nIn\xa0The Wrongful Conviction of Oscar Pistorius: Science Transforms Our Comprehension of Reeva Steenkamp's Shocking Death\xa0(Torchflame Books, 2018),\xa0distinguished clinical psychologist Brent Willock brings an entirely new perspective to bear on these horrific events: that Oscar\u2019s horrific actions occurred while he was in a state of paradoxical sleep, also known as parasomnia. Throughout this book, Willock uses scientific scrutiny and legal precedence to resolve the crucial anomalies surrounding the Oscar Pistorius trial. Willock also discusses how mental health experts and the defense team might have overlooked the hypothesis of parasomnia that could have exonerated Oscar. Millions who followed the Blade Runner\u2019s astonishing achievements, uplifted and inspired by his triumph over physical adversity, were crushed by his precipitous plunge from grace. They were baffled. Even Oscar himself, in a television interview shortly before his sentencing, achingly asked, \u201cI always think, How did this possibly happen? How could this have happened?\u201d At last, Willock\u2019s elegant work responds to these poignant questions that have so plagued and pained Reeva\u2019s family, friends, Oscar, and, indeed, the world.\nKaryne Messina\xa0is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and am on the medical staff of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. She is the author of\xa0Resurgence of Populism: A Psychoanalytic Study of Projective Identification, Blame Shifting and the Corruption of Democracy\xa0(Routledge, 2022).\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law