Johannesburg: The girlfriend of the Blade Runner Oscar Pistorius was due to make a heartfelt Valentine’s Day speech to schoolchildren just hours after she was gunned down at the Paralympian’s home.
FHM cover girl Reeva Steenkamp, 29, was expected to tell pupils that she had been in an abusive relationship before she met Pistorius.
She was due to reveal that it had been this relationship – and the resultant “loss of self worth” – which prompted her to move to Johannesburg to rebuild her life.
But the law graduate never made it to the school.
Instead, she was found riddled with bullets at Pistorius’ luxury home after allegedly being shot dead by the double amputee in the early hours of that morning.
According to media reports, security guards at the complex found Pistorius by Steenkamp’s body in the bathroom after she had been shot four times through the door.
Pistorius’ uncle said on Friday the jailed track star was “numb with shock” and grief following the death.
Giving the strongest indication yet that the athlete plans to plead not guilty to shooting Steenkamp, Arnold Pistorius in a statement strongly refuted “any possibility of a premeditated murder or indeed any murder at all”.
Pistorius faced a third night in police custody on Friday, accused of murdering Steenkamp in cold blood.
“We are all grieving for Reeva, her family and her friends. Oscar – as you can imagine – is also numb with shock as well as grief,” the uncle’s statement said.
The track star faces a life sentence if convicted of premeditated murder, as alleged by state prosecutors.
The uncle also said Pistorius was planning a future with Steenkamp. “They had plans together and Oscar was happier in his private life than he had been for a long time,” he said.
Steenkamp was about to embark on the next stage of her dynamic and varied career, this time as a TV star, when she was killed.
In a somewhat cryptic message, she was due to warn the secondary school pupils in Johannesburg: “No matter how many people say that they ‘love’ you, if you do not love your person then you will never step outside of the physical you.”
She intended to finish her talk by telling them: “Go home and tell your parents, siblings, neighbours that they are appreciated. You will go to bed with a happy heart and open mind for the future.”
