A book author from South Africa has claimed that double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius may be telling the truth in regards to the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.
According to Chill Harrison of KpopStarz, John Carlin conducted research on the athlete known as the "Blade Runner," who was convicted of culpable homicide last month and is currently serving five years in a South African prison. He wrote his findings in his latest book "Chase Your Shadow: The Trials of Oscar Pistorius" with the initial premise that the athlete "intentionally killed her" and was "a monster."
"It was only when I decided to embark on the book about a month later that I thought: 'Listen, mate, just clear you mind here and start as honestly as you possibly can,'" Carlin said. "And then, when I started to find out more about it and hear things from people who knew him, I began to open my mind to the possibility that this, what seemed to me, utterly ludicrous, insane notion that he thought it was an intruder could conceivably be true."
Carlin argued in a video posted on YouTube that Pistorius' stunted emotional development echoed that of South Africa. According to his publisher, Penguin Books, the "rainbow" qualities of Pistorius also echoed the positive and negative aspects of South African society.
"In my amateur psychological reading of him, he's someone who, without realizing it, pressed the pause button," Carlin said. "He's all over the place. He's a man of extraordinary extremes, and so is South Africa."
Carlin elaborated on how divided South Africans were in their impressions of the Blade Runner. One side thought he was a "monster," while another group saw him as "a saint with five seconds of craziness."
"I think both are just utterly simplistic," Carlin said about the views. "It's something that we do all the time with famous people, with public figures, with politicians, even with political issues."
The author did his best to "paint a portrait" of a complex human being.
"What I've attempted to do above all else is to paint a portrait of a human being after the tragedy of that night when he killed Reeva Steenkamp," Carlin said.
Despite the controversial nature of the topic, Carlin thought that he wrote "the most honest and definitive portrait on him," according to the video's description on YouTube.
"That may generate feelings of rejection and disgust among people, but I hope above all else it generates some degree of sympathy in a certain sense of 'there but for the grace of God go I,'" Carlin said.
The author reached out to friends and family members of Pistorius in regards to his life. He then elaborated on how he secured access to the internationally-known athlete.
"I had basically two encounters with him," Carlin said. "One, about eight months after he killed Reeva at his home, that was about three hours all in all, and then I saw him after the verdict, and that's it."
Carlin added that he had the opportunity to know the athlete's family and friends well, both of which are the backbone of his book. However, he cautioned that is only representing an "approximation of the truth," not its entirety.
"Through that, I built up my portrait, which I hope is a reasonable approximation of the truth," Carlin said. "Again, I do not pretend to have the whole truth of Oscar's character any more than I have the whole truth as to what happened that fateful night."
Steenkamp's family has not yet responded to what Carlin wrote in his book.
