Reeva Steenkamp remembered on Valentine’s Day

Reeva-Steenkamp

(File: Garreth Barclay)

Cape Town – Sunday marks three years since Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead by her famous Paralympian boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius, but she has not been forgotten.

Darren Fresco, a mutual friend of the glamorous couple who also testified in Pistorius’s trial, posted an early morning Facebook tribute to the law graduate who died in a toilet after being struck by four bullets that Pistorius said were meant for an intruder.

“My little chop, #‎reevasteenkamp to this day, my heart skips a beat and not in a good way, 3 years has passed and it seems as if it was yesterday that you were taken from everyone in such a tragic way,” he wrote, the words accompanied by a picture of Steenkamp.

“Literally not a day goes by that I don’t miss you and think about you and what an Amazing person you were and what you had overcome and accomplished in your short time that you were sent here to do your angelic duties. Will always love you kid. Xxx.”

Some people on Twitter retweeted one of Reeva’s last messages: “What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow? #get excited #Valentine’sDay.”

Steenkamp had wrapped a framed photograph of the two and had left it on the kitchen counter for Pistorius.

But, according to Pistorius, while they were sleeping at his double-storey house in Silver Lakes, he heard a noise. He grabbed his gun and shot at the door four times.

Afterwards he broke the door panels open with a cricket bat and found Steenkamp on the ground, covered in blood.

Steenkamp’s mother June sat through the trial in the North Gauteng High Court with friends and representatives of the African National Congress Women’s League supporting her as Pistorius told the court he did not realise it was Reeva in the toilet cubicle.

June and Barry Steenkamp were financially affected by Reeva’s death because she had been supporting them.

After a high-profile trial, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide.

He served 10 months of his five-year sentence and was released on parole in October.

Pistorius intends to apply for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court after the Supreme Court of Appeals (SCA) changed the culpable homicide conviction to one of murder

In his application lodged with the Constitutional Court, Pistorius also argued that the SCA committed legal errors in its approach to dolus eventualis.

In the meantime, he wears a monitoring tag and is only allowed to travel within a radius of 20km from his uncle’s Waterkloof home.

The family’s spokesperson was not immediately available to say how he would be spending the day.

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