This book is a murder mystery but not a ‘who done it?’ We know who fired the shots through the door of the toilet room killing Reeva, the girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius. He had been asleep next to her when he was awakened by a noise he thought was due to one or more intruders. He ran to the bathroom calling to Reeva to phone the police and shouting to the intruder(s) to get out of his house. Neither she nor they responded. After being frozen in fear he shot through the locked door and then discovered Reeva close to death. From here on the story is a detailed analysis of the legal procedures, the misunderstandings of the state of mind of the accused: was he fully conscious and so responsible for murder? The author, Brent Willock, is highly informed to make a compelling case that Oscar was not fully conscious, therefore not responsible, and to address the other possible states of mind Oscar may have gone through during and following this tragic event. The book sums up the pressing need for lawyers, judges and jurors to become familiar with the unconscious mind of sleep that does not obey the logic of the mind fully awake. —Rosalind Cartwright, Ph.D. Professor and Chairman Emerita, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Director, Sleep Disorder Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago. Author, The Twenty-four Hour Mind: the role of sleep and dreaming in our emotional lives (Oxford University Press).
This well-researched, scientifically accurate, and nicely written book by Dr. Willock invokes an alternative explanation for Oscar Pistorius’ behaviors on February 14, 2013, namely that the tragic event could be well-explained by a parasomnia (confusional arousal/sleepwalking). Such conditions are a reminder that wake and sleep are not mutually exclusive, but rather may co-exist simultaneously: part of the brain capable of producing complex behaviors is awake, while parts responsible for monitoring and laying down memories of such behaviors are asleep permitting behavior without conscious awareness and therefore without culpability. Furthermore, during these states of mixed wake and sleep, there may be impaired perception of the environment with diminished insight, judgement, and reasoning resulting in flawed recall of details of these events which may appear unrealistic, puzzling, confusing, contradictory, unreasonable, or irrational. This scientifically-based concept should be valuable to all parties (perpetrator, victim, prosecution, and defense) in future similar cases. —Mark W. Mahowald, MD, Professor of Neurology, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, USA (Retired) —Michel A. Cramer Bornemann, MD, D-ABSM, FAASM, Lead Investigator—Sleep Forensics Associates (SFA)
