On Valentine’s Day in 2013, Oscar Pistorius pulled the trigger four times on his 9mm pistol as Reeva Steenkamp stood inside a locked toilet cubicle in his home.
The vital question has still never been answered: Did the Olympic runner know he was shooting at and killing his girlfriend?
Only Pistorius really knows for sure what he did, and he may be the only person who ever will.
Pistorius told his televised 2014 murder trial that he had mistaken noises behind the bathroom door for an intruder and had not fired at his girlfriend in rage, as the prosecution alleged.
Having had previous death threats and break-ins, Pistorius said he slept with a 9-mm pistol under his bed in his plush Pretoria home in the heart of a well-secured gated community. At his trial, the court heard that the ammunition in the weapon was designed to inflict maximum damage to the human body
Pistorius claimed in court it was only when he battered down the door with a cricket bat that he realised who was behind it.
The prosecution alleged that Pistorius had shot Ms Steenkamp – a model and promising law graduate – after on argument. Neighbours in the secure estate told the court they had heard arguing from the athlete’s house.
At the 2014 trial, Pistorius was jailed for five years for culpable homicide. That sentence was changed to six years after the Supreme Court of Appeal found him guilty of the more serious charge of murder in late 2015.
Pistorius was ultimately found guilty of murder on the principle of law called dolus eventualis, or indirect intention.
It centres on the question whether Pistorius had foreseen the possibility that he might kill someone when he fired the shots through the bathroom door.
The appeal court ruled that the 2014 trial judge, Thokozile Masipa, had applied this concept incorrectly, saying her ruling was “confusing in various respects”.
Justice Eric Leach said Pistorius did have the requisite legal intention to be found guilty of murder. “In these circumstances, I have no doubt that in firing the fatal shots the accused must have foreseen that whoever was behind the toilet door might die, but reconciled with that event occurring, and gambled with that person’s life,” he said.
Pistorius was granted parole in November and will be released on Friday. June Steenkamp, Reeva’s mother, did not attend the hearing. She said at the time that while she does not believe her daughter's killer has shown remorse, she had nonetheless decided to forgive Pistorius "long ago, as I knew most certainly that I would not be able to survive if I had to cling to my anger".
Steenkamp family lawyer Tania Koensaid said last year that no prison sentence for Pistorius, no matter how long, would ever really make any difference to Steenkamp’s family after her death.
“For them, it’s a life sentence,” Ms Koen said.
