In the early hours of February 14, 2003, four shots shattered the quiet of Silverwoods Country Estate, a plush enclave in Pretoria, South Africa. The community briefly stirred, then quiet returned as if nothing had happened.
It was a murder. The victim, Reeva Steenkamp, was a lawyer and model with numerous television appearances. She was 29, beginning a bright career, and she happened to be the partner of Oscar Pistorius. The athlete, a Paralympic champion who had carved a place on the global stage, had built a powerful image as a Nike ambassador and an inspiration who pushed limits by competing at the Olympic level even with disability. The moment she was in the bathroom when the gunfire rang out, the world watched with bated breath.
“It has been ten years,” said Tania Koen, attorney for the Steenkamp family and spokesperson for June and Barry Steenkamp. “Ten years of memories for June, Barry, and Reeva. Ten missed birthdays, ten missed Mother’s Days, ten missed Christmases. A decade may seem long to us, but for this family the pain remains fresh.”
Law and memory converged on a case that kept the public and the court system in constant debate. The Steenkamps spoke through the press portal to OPEN CASE, tracing a decade of grief and unresolved questions. The tragedy, they argued, was not merely a date on a calendar but a long shadow over a family’s life.
Valentine’s Day
On the morning of February 14, 2013, Valentine’s Day, the clock read 3:20. Reeva Steenkamp lay motionless. A single bullet had found a fatal target in her hip, arm, and head, ending a life with a brutal finality.
“Help!” cried those who arrived at Pistorius’s home. He claimed the shooting was a mistake, saying he believed an intruder was present. The house was stained with blood. The scene was chaotic and confusing. In his defense, he argued that his goal was to protect his girlfriend and himself. He said he heard noises at dawn, assumed Reeva was asleep, and fired in fear. The defense framed the morning as an urgent effort to defend a loved one from danger.
Paramedics arrived around four in the morning and confirmed Reeva Steenkamp’s death. Pistorius was arrested the next day, February 15, 2013.
“I trust the South African legal system and the facts will show that I didn’t kill Reeva,” Pistorius stated. The case moved through various stages, with judges weighing whether the act was reckless murder or something more intentional. The court ultimately found him guilty and sentenced him to thirteen years and five months in prison for murder.
The athlete claimed the act was a tragic error. “Based on the evidence presented in court, they do not believe it was an accident,” Koen summarized for OPEN CASE. Reeva’s family shared the same view, arguing that the circumstances did not support self-defense claims.
His version: “I accidentally hit it”
“On February 13, Reeva was with friends and I was with my own friends, but she called and suggested we spend the night together. I agreed, and we enjoyed a quiet dinner at home,” Pistorius told the defense team that OPEN CASE accessed. “We were deeply in love, and I could not have been happier. She even gave me a Valentine’s gift, which we planned to open the next day.”
Before the police and judge, Pistorius described a calm evening: dinner, then lying on the bed to watch TV. He recalled Reeva beginning a yoga session and later going to sleep around ten o’clock. He explained that intruders often prompted violent acts and that he kept a 9mm pistol under his bed for protection after receiving threats in the past.
“I heard a noise. Fear flooded me. I feared intruders in the bathroom. I didn’t want to turn on the light. I grabbed my gun and went toward the bathroom, shouting for Reeva to call the police. I opened the door and found Reeva no longer alive.” He described moving to the bedroom, retrieving a cricket bat, and attempting to break the bathroom door in a frantic search for answers.
“I used my prosthetic legs, and I tried to force the door open. I returned to the bedroom to fetch the bat and eventually found a key on the floor. Reeva lay slumped on the floor, alive for a few minutes but then died.”
Contradictions
When emergency teams arrived, Pistorius spoke of an accident, yet certain details suggested otherwise. Reeva’s phone in the bathroom, the locked door from the inside, and her choice to take her phone into the bathroom raised questions. Could she have locked herself in while attempting to escape danger?
Witness accounts
Some witnesses reported hearing an argument and a woman’s screams before the shots. While Pistorius’s public image was sunny and successful, investigators probed a hidden side. They looked into a pattern of gun fascination and anger. A string of past incidents suggested tensions and volatility in his behavior.
Messages and calls were scrutinized. Pistorius’s iPhone data, once locked behind passwords, eventually became accessible through assistance from Apple. Two weeks before the tragedy, Reeva had texted, “Sometimes I’m afraid of you.”
The forensic timeline indicated Reeva died between 3:12 and 3:16 a.m. The autopsy noted food in her stomach from about two hours earlier, and urine in her bladder, raising questions about the exact sequence of events in the apartment that night.
Pistorius argued he fired without intending to kill. Critics pointed to inconsistencies in his explanations. The defense contended that there must be a real danger to life to justify any act of self-defense. The court found the explanations largely unconvincing and emphasized the lack of a consistent account for the shooting.
“These contradictions were so significant that the Supreme Court acknowledged that Pistorius did not provide a clear explanation for his actions at the bathroom door. Four rounds were fired, and a credible self-defense claim was not established,” observed the family attorney in public summaries of the case. The court noted the evidence was inconsistent and failed to reveal a definitive reason for the shooting, a key point in Koen’s critique.
Two weeks before the tragedy, Reeva reportedly texted Pistorius, saying, “Sometimes I’m afraid of you.” At the scene, evidence suggested the possibility that the initial shot left the door from near the bathroom, complicating the timeline. The crime scene grew chaotic, and some forensic details remained debated.
Violent, aggressive and manipulative
The prosecution examined social and behavioral patterns that could undermine the typical public image of Pistorius. They portrayed him as someone with a dangerous edge, a person who had grown attached to his guns. A string of incidents described as violent or reckless, including episodes in public settings, emerged from the background records.
Previous events, like a plan to stage an accidental shooting at a restaurant and another to fire a gun from a car, raised questions about impulse control and judgment. Digital records, including messages and calls, were analyzed as prosecutors sought to understand the full scope of his behavior. Reeva’s text from a couple of weeks before the event remains a stark reminder of a growing fear within the relationship.
Conditional freedom
Reeva Steenkamp died in 2013, and the legal saga extended to 2017 with a lengthy appeal process. The path to closure was slow, and the Steenkamp family carried fresh wounds with every new hearing. Koen described the ongoing process as emotionally exhausting for June and Barry as they faced the long road to accountability.
Even as Pistorius sought parole, the board refused approval, arguing that the sentence’s portion had not yet been served. The possibility of future parole remained on the table, but the family remained skeptical about rehabilitation and fairness in the proceedings.
The family’s stance is clear: if the law requires certain milestones to be met, those milestones must be respected. They do not believe Pistorius fully understands the impact of his actions or the pain it caused the Steenkamp family.
Reeva Steenkamp was 29 at the time of her death. Described by those who knew her as intelligent, kind, and dedicated to helping others, she graduated with a law degree and had built a life that extended far beyond the fashion world. Her legacy, they insist, stands with the people she inspired and the lives she touched. The verdict and the years that followed remain a reminder of a difficult, unresolved saga that the family continues to carry.