Reeva Steenkamp’s parents mark her 40th birthday with a cake featuring the model’s face, ten years after she was shot dead by Oscar Pistorius
- Barry and June Steenkamp celebrated what would have been Reeva’s birthday
- Reeva, 29, was shot dead by athlete Oscar Pistorius on Valentine’s Day in 2013
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents have marked what would have been her 40th birthday with a cake featuring the South African model’s face, ten years after she was shot dead by Oscar Pistorius.
Barry and June Steenkamp, who have said they want Pistorius to remain behind bars for the rest of his life, celebrated Reeva’s birthday with a gathering featuring cake, balloons and flowers on Saturday.
The heartbroken parents were pictured smiling next to a pink cake that had a black and white photograph of their daughter’s face on it.
Mr and Mrs Steenkamp, who set up the Reeva Rebecca Steenhkamp Foundation in Reeva’s memory to raise awareness of abuse against women and children, wrote on Saturday: ‘We celebrate and commemorate what would have been Reeva’s 40th birthday. Thank you for all the messages of love and support.’
Sharing a picture of themselves next to the cake and 40th birthday balloons, they added: ‘Celebrating Reeva’s legacy on what would have been her 40th today.’
Reeva, a cover girl and socialite, was shot multiple times through a toilet door by Pistorius, a world-famous double-amputee athlete who competed at the 2012 Olympics, in his home on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents have marked what would have been her 40th birthday with a cake featuring the South African model’s face, ten years after she was shot dead by Oscar Pistorius
Reeva (pictured) was shot multiple times through a toilet door by Pistorius, a world-famous double-amputee athlete who competed at the 2012 Olympics, in his home on Valentine’s Day 2013
South African paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius with Reeva Steenkamp in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November 2012
The former sprinter, 36, insisted he mistook his 29-year-old girlfriend for a burglar, but was sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison after being convicted of murder in 2017 following a lengthy trial.
Mr and Mrs Steenkamp celebrated what would have been their daughter’s 40th birthday on Saturday, just days after it emerged Pistorius is seeking to overturn a decision to deny him parole.
Pistorious this month implored South Africa‘s Constitutional Court to address the ‘utter confusion’ surrounding his eligibility for parole after his latest bid for freedom was denied earlier this year.
He is arguing the time he has spent behind bars already means he is eligible for an early release.
His lawyer, Julian Knight, said in March that Pistorius was not given credit in his parole application for an extra year and four months he has served in prison following Reeva’s 2013 murder.
‘It goes without saying that the confusion is to be determined finally as a matter of relative urgency,’ Pistorius stated in papers filed at the apex court earlier this month according to News 24.
‘Every day that I am detained and prohibited from applying for parole in circumstances that I am already eligible for parole and might be successful to obtain parole constitutes an infringement on my fundamental rights,’ he added.
Pistorius was denied parole in March because he hasn’t served the minimum amount of jail time required, a parole board said, a surprise reasoning that prompted criticism of the Department of Corrections for holding the hearing at all if Pistorius wasn’t eligible.
The parole board ruled that he will only be eligible in August 2024.
At the time that Pistorius was denied parole, Mrs Steenkamp said: ‘While we welcome today’s decision, today is not a cause for celebration. Barry and I miss Reeva terribly and will do so for the rest of our lives. We believe in justice and hope that it continues to prevail.’
Reeva’s parents have always believed Pistorius killed the model intentionally after a late-night argument and want him to stay in prison.
Barry Steenkamp, father of Reeva Steenkamp, is consoled by his wife June Steenkamp during the sentencing hearing of Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria October 15, 2014
Reeva Steenkamp at the Virgin Active sports industry awards in 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa
The South African athlete, nicknamed Blade Runner after his racing prosthetics, is serving a 13-year sentence for the infamous murder on Valentine’s Day 2013, when he claimed to have mistaken Reeva for an intruder, shooting her through the bathroom door
In February this year, Mr and Mrs Steenkamp revealed for the first time details of a shocking prison cell confrontation with Pistorius – and why they now believe the Blade Runner killer should stay behind bars for life.
Mr Steenkamp said Pistorius broke down and ‘wailed like a child’ when he read out a heart-breaking letter from Reeva’s mother during their tense jail showdown.
The parents said they initially forgave the athlete for killing their daughter.
But since the athlete refused to admit to them that he deliberately shot Reeva, they say they are vehemently opposed to his early release and want him to remain behind bars for the rest of his life.
Mr Steenkamp said at the time: ‘I told Oscar directly that he had shot my daughter deliberately and he denied it. He stuck to his story that he thought it was an intruder.
‘After all these years we are still waiting for him to admit he did it in anger. That is all we wanted.
‘If he told me the truth, he would have been a free man by now and I would have let the law take its course over his parole.
‘But I was wasting my time. He is a murderer. He should remain in jail.’
In June last year Pistorius agreed to meet the Steenkamps in prison, as part of South Africa’s victim-offender dialogue programme.
He was flown from Pretoria to a detention centre close to their Port Elizabeth home.
In June last year Pistorius agreed to meet the Steenkamps in prison, as part of South Africa’s victim-offender dialogue programme.
Oscar Pistorius holds his head in his hands during the hearing of his murder trial at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, on March 13, 2014
Mr Steenkamp, who suffers poor health, was prepared to see Pistorius and hear ‘what he had to say.’
In the end, Mrs Steenkamp decided not to attend. Instead wrote a letter which she gave to her husband to be read to Pistorius.
Mr Steenkamp, accompanied by his lawyer Tania Koen, watched Pistorius, dressed in orange prison garb, reduced to a blubbering wreck as a social worker read her devastated mother’s cri de coeur.
Pistorius’ legal team are now pushing to have a new hearing which is set to unleash another round of legal wranglings in a case that has captured the world’s attention for a decade and changed direction dramatically as a result of numerous appeals and overturned decisions.
Both of Pistorius’ lower legs were amputated when he was a baby because of a congenital condition but he went on to become a multiple Paralympic champion sprinter and even competed against the world’s best able-bodied athletes at the 2012 Olympics, running on carbon-fiber blades.
He was ultimately sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison for murder for shooting Steenkamp through a toilet door in his home.
But that final sentence only came in 2017, three years after his widely-televised murder trial ended and after a series of appeals by prosecutors.
They successfully overturned an initial conviction comparable to manslaughter, arguing that it was too lenient, and then also had a six-year sentence for murder more than doubled.
Serious offenders in South Africa must serve half their sentence before they can be eligible for parole, meaning Pistorius must serve six years, eight-and-a-half months to be eligible for early release.
‘We’ll never forget the two chilling phone calls’: Reeva’s heartbroken parents on the moment ‘that changed their lives forever’
Barry and June Steenkamp will never forget two chilling phone calls on Thursday February 14, 2013, which came in quick succession and were to change their lives forever.
The first was from a police officer who told Mrs Steenkamp, coldly, that her daughter Reeva was dead, that Oscar Pistorius had shot her and police had detained him and the gun used in the slaying.
In shock she then called Reeva’s father who was driving and told him to come home immediately as Reeva had died.
He believed she may have said one of their pet dogs, but as he negotiated a U-turn in his truck, it dawned on him that his wife had mentioned Reeva and he drove back in shock and in tears.
What then followed was several years of seeing their daughter’s image flashed across the world as the victim of four bullets fired through a toilet door by the athlete known, affectionately until then, as the Blade Runner and global sporting icon.
He had won fame for his spirit in competing on the track at both the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics and winning gold.
Barry Steenkamp (left), who suffers poor health, was prepared to see Pistorius and hear ‘what he had to say.’ June (right), 76, decided not to attend. Instead wrote a letter which she gave to her husband to be read to Pistorius.
On returning to Pretoria he met Reeva and they began dating . . .the South African star runner and one of the country’s top models.
Her parents sensed Reeva was seeing somebody when for the first time since leaving home on the Eastern Cape for Pretoria, she told them she wasn’t coming home for Christmas.
But her parents later discovered she had spent Christmas alone as Pistorius took leave to spend the day with an ex-girlfriend.
Mrs Steenkamp also sensed things were not going as smoothly as they might between Reeva and Pistorius as we were told her repeatedly that they were arguing and fighting.
The grieving mother believed this was because Pistorius was a jealous man, possessive and mentally unstable.
She told MailOnline that she believed her daughter was shot dead deliberately because on that eve of Valentine’s Day, Reeva had told Pistorius their brief relationship was over and she was trying to leave his apartment when he attacked and shot her dead as she took refuge in his toilet.
At first the South African courts appeared to accept his pleas of ignorance about who was behind his toilet door and that he believed Reeva was blissfully asleep in his bed unaware of the alleged intruder.
He was found guilty of culpable homicide and given a six year jail term in October 2014.
But prosecutors appealed the manslaughter finding and secured a murder conviction. In September 2017 South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal more than doubled his sentence to 13 years and five months’ imprisonment.
Pistorius and the reality show star and model had only been dating for around eight weeks when he took Reeva’s life, claiming he thought he was defending himself and his girlfriend from an intruder.
But Pistorius was revealed to have been a gun fanatic who once fired a gun in in a restaurant while diners were at nearby tables and had 10 weapons, including an AK-47.
Stories of his terrible temper were revealed including one where he attacked a woman at a party after she rebuffed his overtures and talk of his star status.
The Steenkamps, deeply religious, prayed that he would be sent away for a long time and unable to harm any more women.
Now that the day he walks free is close and for them, they said , it had come too soon.
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