Reeva Steenkamp texted Oscar Pistorius to say "I am sometimes scared of you" just weeks before she died, the athlete's trial has heard. 
 
 An emotional message from Ms Steenkamp on January 27 last year accuses Pistorius of picking on her "incessantly" and denies flirting with her friend's husband at an engagement party. 
 
 It also accuses the athlete of being "nasty" and throwing tantrums in front of people. 
 
 "I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and how you act to me," says Ms Steenkamp. 
 
 She tells Pistorius the pair have a "double standard relationship" where he is "quick to act, cold and off-ish when you are unhappy". 
 
 Pistorius apologises for his behaviour in one message 
 
 Police IT expert Captain Francois Moller told the trial he had extracted text and WhatsApp messages from the phones of both Ms Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius. 
 
 In a message displayed on court monitors, Pistorius admits he is "tired and sick" but says it is not an excuse for his jealous behaviour. 
 
 Play video "Texts Say Reeva Was Scared Of Oscar" Video: Texts Say Reeva Was Scared Of Oscar 
 
 He accuses Ms Steenkamp of ignoring him while she spoke to another man and touched his arm. 
 
 Ms Steenkamp also complained Pistorius got upset if she ever mentions something about an ex-boyfriend, while "every five seconds I hear how you dated another chick". 
 
 "I just want to be loved and to love. Maybe we cannot do that for each other," she says. 
 
 A separate message from Pistorius also mentions Ms Steenkamp smoking "weed" and refers to her as "Angel", while she calls him "Baba". 
 
 Captain Moller told the trial in Pretoria he had "jailbroken" the mobile phones to access pages of messages between the pair. 
 
 Play video "Oscar And Reeva's Texts Examined" Video: Oscar And Reeva's Texts Examined 
 
 He said there were also many normal and "loving conversations" between the couple. 
 
 More messages are expected to be revealed when the trial continues on Tuesday. 
 
 Earlier, the court heard from Pistorius' neighbour Annette Stipp, who said she woke at around 3am on Valentine's Day last year, the day Ms Steenkamp was killed. 
 
 She said she heard three sounds which sounded like gunshots and moments later heard a woman's "terrified, terrified screaming". 
 
 She then heard a man and woman screaming at the same time, before a second set of shots, and then silence. 
 
 1 / 12 Gallery: Oscar Pistorius Trial: Key Figures June Steenkamp, mother of Reeva Steenkamp. 
 
 Mrs Stipp recalled telling her husband: "It sounds like a family murder. Why else would a woman scream like that?" 
 
 The lights in Pistorius' bathroom were on from the moment she first woke up, Mrs Stipp told the court. 
 
 She said the screams did not sound muffled or like they were coming from an enclosed space. 
 
 The defence tried to discredit Mrs Stipp's evidence when, under tough questioning, she admitted an inaccuracy in her signed police statement. 
 
 She told the court she had not seen a male figure walking in Pistorius' bathroom, despite initially saying she had. 
 
 1 / 17 Gallery: South Africa's Golden Couple Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius faces a charge of murdering Reeva Steenkamp, his girlfriend, on Valentine's Day 2013 
 
 "This is not first time that it appears her memory has failed her," said defence lawyer Kenny Oldwadge. 
 
 He also suggested the second set of gunshots Mrs Stipp described was in fact the sound of a cricket bat as Pistorius smashed down the bathroom door. 
 
 Paralympic star Pistorius is accused of the premeditated murder of his girlfriend but says he shot her by mistake because he thought she was an intruder. 
 
 He is also accused of illegally possessing ammunition and two further counts related to shooting a gun in public in two separate incidents before the killing. 
 
 He denies all the charges. 
 
 1 / 10 Gallery: Pistorius: A Sporting Pioneer Pistorius was born in Johannesburg on November 22, 1986. A congenital condition meant he had no bones in his lower legs. 
 
 The prosecution's case is expected to finish this week and Pistorius is likely to be the first witness for the defence. 
 
 Originally expected to last for three weeks or so, the trial has now been extended until the middle of May. 
 
 Both sides agreed to an extension after just 18 of 107 possible witnesses were heard in the first three weeks. ||||| The sensational trial of Olympian Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius — charged with premeditated murder for killing his girlfriend with four shots fired through his bathroom door on Valentine’s Day of last year — resumed on Monday after a 17-day hiatus. 
 
 Following weeks of drama fit for the big screen — which was broadcast on small screens in South Africa and around the world — chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel called for a break, citing schedule conflicts. Judge Thokozile Masipa approved because the case was dragging on longer than she had expected. 
 
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 The defense is picking back up with the first person Pistorius called after the shooting, neighbor Johan Stander, on Monday. 
 
 Here's a refresher of what has already developed since the beginning of the trial on March 3. 
 
 The Prosecution 
 
 Pistorius claims he shot and killed his law student and model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, because he thought she was an intruder and felt vulnerable without his prosthetic legs. The state contests he intentionally murdered the woman after a bitter argument. 
 
 The prosecution opened with testimony from the Pistorius' neighbors, who said they heard a man and a woman yelling, followed by gunshots and then, silence. A security guard then recounted the next portion of the saga, in which Pistorius told him everything was "fine," only minutes after shooting Steenkamp. 
 
 Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius reacts during his trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, on March 10, 2014. An overcome Oscar Pistorius vomited in court on Monday as he listened to harrowing expert testimony about the autopsy of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, whom he is accused of murdering. Bongiwe Mchunu/AFP/Getty Images BONGIWE MCHUNU / Pool via AFP - Getty Images 
 
 Others called by the prosecution painted a picture of a trigger-happy and temperamental Pistorius, not the heroic athlete that the double-amputee Olympian was once lauded as. 
 
 Pistorius’ ex-girlfriend, Samantha Taylor, testified that Pistorius kept a gun by his bedside table. She also noted that her ex "sounds like a man," when he screams — disputing an assertion brought by lead defense lawyer Barry Roux that screams heard by neighbors were those of Pistorius alone, not Steenkamp. 
 
 And Taylor said she knew those screams well, claiming Pistorius often yelled at her, before ending the years-long relationship by cheating on her with Steenkamp. 
 
 Text messages from Steenkamp were read aloud to further shed light on Pistorius’ short temper. "I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and how you will act towards me," said one. 
 
 The longer string of text message conversations between the couple, the majority of which, Roux pointed out, were loving, caused Pistorius to break down crying, something that he was prone to do, especially when details of the crime scene were shared. 
 
 “I remember. I don’t have to look at a picture. I was there.” 
 
 When portions of the autopsy on Steenkamp’s body were read by a pathologist, Pistorius retched and threw up. He vomited again when close-up images of Steenkamp’s mutilated corpse were displayed. Pistorius covered his ears with his hands while a police ballistics expert said Steenkamp was in a "defensive position" when she was shot. 
 
 The Defense 
 
 Throughout the prosecution, Roux has sought to prove that the crime scene had been handled carelessly by police, which he argued would have contaminated evidence. 
 
 Roux first called a pathologist to the stand, and pictures of the bloodied bathroom and body were once again exhibited, leading Pistorius to retch once again shortly before he testified. 
 
 But Pistorius composed himself and preceded his statements with an apology to Steenkamp’s family, which appeared to do little to affect her mother, who sat nearly expressionless during the beginning of the the runner’s testimony. 
 
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 That first day of testimony, before Pistorius was cross examined, was the defendant’s chance to portray himself as a man petrified of violence who was simply trying to protect the woman he cared for, and who cared for him. 
 
 Pistorius spent the next day on the stand recounting the night he killed his girlfriend, explaining that he thought someone had climbed into the bathroom window, but when he realized his girlfriend could be on the other side of the door, he smashed it with a cricket bat. 
 
 "I sat over Reeva and I cried,” he recalled, shaking. 
 
 Prosecutor Gerrie Nel — nicknamed "The Pitbull" — wasted no time getting to the heart of the state’s case when cross-examining the only witness who knows what happened the night Steenkamp died. 
 
 "You killed Reeva Steenkamp ... Say it," Nel demanded of Pistorius. 
 
 Pistorius’ time on the stand didn't get any easier as Nel showed a video of Pistorius practice-shooting at a watermelon, then showed a gory crime scene picture, offering a comparison of the exploding watermelon to Steenkamp's head. 
 
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 "I remember. I don’t have to look at a picture. I was there," Pistorius responded. 
 
 Nel focused on establishing that the track star "concocted" his account of the shooting, accusing him of lying, and urging Pistorius to take responsibility for Steenkamp's death. 
 
 “I blame myself for taking Reeva's life," Pistorius eventually said. 
 
 Before he left the stand, Pistorius read a Valentine’s Day card from Steenkamp — a note that Pistorius said he didn't see until after his girlfriend was dead. "I think today is a good day to tell you that … I love you,” he read aloud to the court. 
 
 The Valentines Day card and present Reeva Steenkamp gave #OscarPistorius on day before she died. @eNCAnews pic.twitter.com/1RfHXGLu6X — Karyn Maughan (@karynmaughan) April 15, 2014 
 
 What’s next? 
 
 Pistorius’ team will continue to try to prove that the crime scene was altered by police, and that neighbors who heard Steenkamp's screams before gunshots actually heard Pistorius’ screams before he whacked the door down with a cricket bat. 
 
 Roger Dixon, a forensic expert for the defense, already testified that the bedroom was too dark to see that Steenkamp got out of bed and said he conducted an audio test that indicated sounds of a cricket bat hitting wood could be mistaken for gunshots. 
 
 The door through which Reeva Steenkamp was shot is displayed during Oscar Pistorius' murder trial in Pretoria April 14, 2014. Olympic and Paralympic track star Pistorius is on trial for murdering his girlfriend Steenkamp at his suburban Pretoria home on Valentine's Day last year. Antoine de Ras / Pool via Reuters 
 
 In coming days, Roux is expected to call a witness who will testify that Pistorius' screams hit high pitches when he is anxious and a psychologist to dissect Pistorius’ claims of constantly feeling defenseless, according to South Africa’s Eyewitness News. 
 
 The first person Pistorius called after the shooting, neighbor Johan Stander, took the stand on Monday. 
 
 Roux has said he will call between 14 and 17 witnesses, according to The Associated Press, meaning nearly a dozen or more could remain. 
 
 The defendant’s reaction to those testimonies could be under close scrutiny after a South African columnist accused Pistorius of “taking acting lessons for your days in court.” 
 
 A post on Pistorius’ website said the claim was "devoid of all truth." 
 
 The validity of Pistorius’ show of emotion is important because the display "may affect [the] sentence because someone who is remorseful, who has committed a crime, can sometimes affect a judge," attorney Tom Mesereau, who has represented a range of high-profile clients, said on MSNBC last month. 
 
 And Pistorius’ fate lies solely in the hands of Judge Masipa and her two assessors, since South Africa has no trial by jury. 
 
 If Masipa decides, after weeks of testimony, that Pistorius is guilty of murder, he faces a minimum of 15 to 25 years in prison. Lesser charges, which could include culpable homicide and illegally possessing ammunition, might mean prison time or simply fines for the once-revered athlete. 
 
 The trial resumes. ||||| PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — The chief prosecutor in the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius on Thursday accused the Olympic athlete of egotistical behavior in his relationship with Reeva Steenkamp before he killed her, and described Pistorius' courtroom apology to his girlfriend's family as an insincere "spectacle" that ignored the feelings of her relatives. 
 
 Oscar Pistorius leaves the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday, April 9, 2014. Pistorius is charged with murder for shooting dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentines Day in 2013.... (Associated Press) 
 
 File: In this Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013 file photo a mourner holds a program with a photo of Reeva Steenkamp at her funeral in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. A sobbing Oscar Pistorius refused to look at... (Associated Press) 
 
 Oscar Pistorius arrives at the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, April 10, 2014. Pistorius, charged with murder for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentines Day... (Associated Press) 
 
 Oscar Pistorius arrives at the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, April 10, 2014. Pistorius has resumed testifying at his murder trial and is being challenged by the chief prosecutor, who... (Associated Press) 
 
 "Your life is just about you," prosecutor Gerrie Nel said on a second day of cross-examination of Pistorius, who fatally shot Steenkamp through a closed toilet cubicle of his home in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013. Pistorius says he shot Steenkamp by accident, mistaking her for a dangerous intruder. The prosecution says he intentionally killed her after an argument. 
 
 Nel asserted that Pistorius was sometimes mean to Steenkamp, pressing him about her objection to him playing a song by American rapper Kendrick Lamar on a car stereo. Pistorius referred to the song in a cellular telephone message to Steenkamp that acknowledged her objections and has been included as evidence in the trial. 
 
 The prosecutor asked if the name of the song was "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe," but Pistorius said he couldn't remember the specific song. Nel responded that Steenkamp would have been right to take offense. 
 
 A phone message from Steenkamp to Pistorius that was shown in court includes the line: "You make me happy 90% of the time and I think we are amazing together but I am not some other bitch you may know trying to kill your vibe." 
 
 Nel's tough questioning was designed to counter earlier testimony in which Pistorius said he loved Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, and was trying to protect her when he shot her without realizing, according to his account, that she was in the toilet cubicle. 
 
 Two contrasting images of the double-amputee runner have emerged in court: the defense-led image of Pistorius as a contrite man who had been worried about crime and made a terrible mistake on the night he killed Steenkamp, and the prosecution's depiction of him as an overbearing egotist who was obsessed with firearms. 
 
 Nel referred to a shooting incident at Tashas restaurant in Johannesburg in which a shot went off after a friend of the runner passed him a loaded gun under the table. Pistorius, who faces a separate charge of firing a gun in a public place because of that episode as well as two other firearms charges, said he didn't have his finger on the trigger when the gun fired. This happened about a month before Pistorius killed Steenkamp. 
 
 The prosecutor noted that a police expert had testified that the gun could not be fired without pulling the trigger, and sarcastically described the discharge as a "miracle." 
 
 "We have you in possession of the gun, a shot went off, but you didn't discharge the gun," Nel said incredulously of the athlete's account. 
 
 Turning to the relationship between Pistorious and Steenkamp, Nel said he had checked all of her text messages on her cellular telephone and that the phrase "I love you" appeared only twice in those missives. On both occasions, he said, they were written by Steenkamp to her mother. 
 
 "Never to you and you never to her," Nel said, addressing Pistorius. 
 
 "I never got the opportunity to tell Reeva that I loved her," Pistorius said in a soft voice. He did not look at Nel while replying to the prosecutor's questions, instead directing his gaze to Judge Thokozile Masipa on the dais. 
 
 Masipa will deliver a verdict because there is no jury system in South Africa. Pistorius faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted on a premeditated murder charge. 
 
 Nel also accused Pistorius of ignoring the concerns of Steenkamp's family by apologizing to them at the beginning of his testimony this week, rather than seeking to express his condolences in private. Steenkamp's mother, June, has attended court sessions this week. 
 
 "Why would you create a spectacle in court, in the public domain, in the public eye," Nel said. "Why did you put them through this?" 
 
 Pistorius said his lawyers had been in touch with representatives of Steenkamp's family, and that he had believed the family of his girlfriend was not ready to meet him. 
 
 "I completely understand where they're coming from," he said. "It's not that I haven't thought about them."
– Another neighbor testified at Oscar Pistorius' murder trial today, saying she heard "terrified, terrified screaming" that didn't sound as though it was emanating from an enclosed space, like a bathroom, the morning of Reeva Steenkamp's death, the Telegraph reports. But the most attention-grabbing part of today's testimony took the form of texts between Pistorius and Steenkamp, which were shown on monitors. While a police IT expert said 90% of the WhatsApp messages were normal and "loving," a small portion showed a complicated, jealous relationship. A sampling, per Sky News, the Telegraph, and the Independent: Steenkamp: "I'm scared of u sometimes and how u snap at me and of how u will react to me." "I do everything to make u happy and to not say anything to rock the boat with u. You do everything to throw tantrums in front of people." "I'm sorry you think I was hitting on my friend's husband and u think so little of me. I just want to be loved and to love. Right now I am very unhappy and sad" "I can't be attacked by outsiders for dating you and then be attacked by you..the one person I need protection from." Pistorius: "I was standing tight behind me watching you touch his arm. But when I left, u just kept on chatting to him. I'm sorry I asked u to stop touching my neck." Pistorious admitted he is "tired and sick" but that doesn't excuse his jealous behavior. Apparently in reference to a shooting incident, he wrote "Angel, please don't say a thing to any one, Darren told everyone it was his fault. I can't afford for that to come out. The guys promised not to say a thing." The Telegraph notes the prosecution's case is expected to close this week.