The Killing of Reeva Steenkamp by Oscar Pistorius

Reeva Steenkamp

Reeva Steenkamp was a 29-year-old South African model and reality television personality. In the early hours of 14 February 2013, Valentine's Day, she was shot and killed at the Pretoria home of her boyfriend, the sprinter Oscar Pistorius. The case became one of the most closely followed criminal trials in the world, partly because of Pistorius's fame and partly because it raised hard questions about violence against women in South Africa.

Who Oscar Pistorius was

Pistorius, a double amputee, was a multiple Paralympic champion and record-holder and the first amputee to compete as a runner at the Olympic Games. Before 2013 he was one of South Africa's best-known sportsmen.

What happened that night

Pistorius fired four shots from a 9mm pistol through the closed door of a toilet cubicle in his home, killing Steenkamp, who was inside. He never denied firing the shots. His account was that he believed an intruder had entered the house and that he did not know Steenkamp was behind the door. Prosecutors rejected that account. They argued that the couple had argued and that he fired in anger, and they presented text messages as evidence of a volatile relationship, including one in which Steenkamp wrote that she was sometimes scared of him.

Trial and appeals

At the end of his 2014 trial, Judge Thokozile Masipa acquitted Pistorius of murder and convicted him of culpable homicide, South Africa's equivalent of manslaughter, sentencing him to five years in prison. Prosecutors appealed. In late 2015 the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the verdict and convicted him of murder. Sent back to the trial court for sentencing, he received six years in 2016.

The prosecution appealed again, arguing that the sentence was far too lenient. On 24 November 2017, a five-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein unanimously agreed. The court said Pistorius should have received the prescribed minimum of 15 years for murder, described the six-year term as "shockingly lenient" and said he showed a lack of remorse. Taking into account the time he had already spent in prison and under correctional supervision, it increased his sentence to 13 years and 5 months.

The long road to parole

Under South African rules, Pistorius had to serve at least half of his sentence before he could be considered for parole. When a parole board first considered his case in March 2023, the effective start date of his sentence was disputed, and Pistorius turned to the Constitutional Court, which clarified that he had been eligible for parole consideration from March 2023. On 24 November 2023 he was granted parole, effective from 5 January 2024, and he was released on that day after serving almost nine years.

His parole lasts until his sentence expires in December 2029. Under the conditions announced by the Department of Correctional Services, he must not drink alcohol or use prohibited substances, may not give media interviews, must attend rehabilitation programmes, and needs permission to travel or take up work. Pistorius has continued to live under these conditions since his release, and in 2026 his father publicly described him as a man with his life ahead of him.

The family's response

Reeva Steenkamp's mother, June Steenkamp, said when he was released that she was not convinced Pistorius had been rehabilitated, but that she had forgiven him long ago and could not survive if she clung to her anger.

Why the case matters in South Africa

For many South Africans, the significance of the case lies beyond celebrity. Women's rights organisations used it to draw attention to the country's very high rates of gender-based violence and femicide. When Pistorius was paroled, the group Women For Change said his early release sent the wrong message to potential offenders and that femicide was a crisis the country continued to ignore. The case also showed the weight South Africa's appeal courts give to the prescribed minimum sentence for murder: twice, prosecutors persuaded the Supreme Court of Appeal that the trial court had gone too easy on Pistorius, first on the verdict and then on the sentence, which the appeal judges found departed too far from the 15-year minimum.