Reeva Steenkamp’s sister Simone warns Oscar Pistorius “will kill again”
As Paralympian Oscar Pistorius appeals his 13-year jail term for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, Simone Steenkamp has spoken out about her sister’s murderer.
In a heartbreaking interview with The Sun marking five years since Reeva’s death, Simone has asked South African authorities to not let him free saying “He will kill again”.
Simone has said the expanding bullets Pistorius used to kill Reeva were no accident and that he will continue to be dangerous when he goes free.
“Pistorius will come out one day and he will do it again, he is that dangerous. It is in him — he will kill again.
“You don’t shoot an animal with the type of bullets he used.
“You don’t shoot a loved one with that sort of bullet or even an intruder, as he claimed he thought it was.
“In a way I feel sorry for Pistorius. He has not had an easy life, what with the double amputation of his legs when he was just a baby and the loss of his mother at the age of 16.
“I think both those events made him what he is today.
“He worked hard to get where he did and I think the fame and acclaim went to his head and he just lost it with my sister.”
Speaking for the first time since Pistorius’ 2014 trial, Simone accused him of falsely painting his relationship with Reeva as a “long-term partnership”.
Pistorius killed Reeva on Valentine’s Day in 2013, firing four Black Talon bullets through a door while she was in the bathroom of his South African home.
In court, Pistorius claimed that he thought she was an intruder and after a seven-month trial, he was sentenced to only five years in jail for culpable homicide.
A later appeal led to the charge being changed to murder and the sentence was increased to 13 years.
Reeva was 29 when she died but Simone explained that she will always remember her as her “tiny” sister.
“I was 18 when Reeva was born. She was so beautiful and was my angel,” she told The Sun.
“I loved her from the moment I first saw her — and I love her just as much today.
“She called me Si and I called her Reeves.
“We talked all the time despite the age gap and we laughed so much and we used to swear so much Mum said we would need a swear jar.
“Reeves had an amazing sense of humour and sense of fun and love and I never heard her run anyone down unless they had a bad word to say about me or our mum.
“I still see her face. She was a strong personality with a heart of gold, and she wasn’t a big softie, like me.
“She never hid her feelings — you knew what she was feeling. She never stood any nonsense from anyone.
“That’s why I know she would stand up to someone like Pistorius, because she was not a doormat and she would not let anyone walk over her and would not be bullied.”
Simone explained that she was living in Cambridgeshire with her two sons when she heard the shocking news that Reeva had died.
“On the morning that Reeves died I got a WhatsApp at 6am telling me she had passed and had been shot by Oscar Pistorius. I thought, ‘Passed what? Oscar who?’.
“I had never heard that she was going out with him because they had only been dating for three months.
“I just knew him as an athlete.
“I was in shock and wandered out of my house in the dark into the snow in my pyjamas and stood there for an hour as it slowly sank in that she was gone, that she had been killed.”
Simone immediately returned to South Africa and was told the devastating details of her sister’s death and how she had been planning to leave the athlete.
“Reeves had been in two previous long-term relationships and takes them very seriously. She was very cautious in her relationships.
“She was only dating him from November and he killed her in February.
“She wasn’t going to move in with him any time soon, as he said.
“I think she was leaving him. We later found out they had lots of fall-outs, which she never kept secret.
“I think he lost it and couldn’t bear to have her walk out on him, and if he couldn’t have her then nobody could.”
Simone described the trial as unbearable and admitted that she could only attend one day.
"I did just one day at court and it destroyed me. I couldn’t go back again and hear his lies."
“I got told to be quiet a couple of times for calling him a b*****d and other things.
“I was just looking at him sat there, full of himself, and thinking, ‘That’s the man who killed our Reeves’.
“My mother was amazing as she went every single day of the trial but my dad has difficulty walking and a heart condition and did amazingly well to go to the sentencing.
“If Pistorius had just stood there in the dock and told the truth and said he lost his mind and shot her because she was going to leave him then I could understand it and accept it.
“I don’t know why Pistorius claimed they were going to have a life and a home together in court. It was lies.
“He had never even met my mother and father, and never met me.”
After Pistorius’ sentence was doubled to 13 years and five months at South Africa’s Supreme Court, Simone says her family can begin to move from mourning to celebrating her life.
“This is the first year I’ve not been too bad on the anniversary."
“It is a day when I remember the good things about Reeves.
“It is a day when I remember how much she made me laugh.
“I don’t think of her being murdered on this day but just the happy times together.”