I don’t wish bad things on Oscar Pistorius for killing my sister Reeva – but he must stay in prison, says Adam Steenkamp
DRIVING to Cambridge for work ten years ago today, Adam Steenkamp was brought to a sudden halt by a breaking news alert on the radio.
Paralympic multi-gold medallist Oscar Pistorius had been involved in a shooting 8,000 miles away at his home in South Africa and an unnamed woman had been found dead.
As he pulled over to the side of the road Adam knew instantly that the victim was Oscar’s girlfriend Reeva — his beloved half-sister.
In an exclusive interview on the tenth anniversary of the killing, Adam, 46, fears their family will never know the truth of what happened to Reeva when she was gunned down on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Adding to the pain is that Pistorius, now 36, serving a 13-year jail term for murder, could be released on parole within weeks.
Adam agrees with his father Barry, who believes the athlete should not be allowed out of jail early and must serve his full term.
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He says: “I absolutely stand by his view that Oscar is unrepentant and obviously still does not take responsibility for the murder of my sister and that he should continue to serve his time.”
But time also heals, and despite finding Pistorius’s explanation for Reeva’s murder “fairly implausible” — that he mistook her for a burglar — Adam no longer wishes bad things on his half-sister’s killer.
Speaking to The Sun at his home in East Anglia, he says: “Reeva was a wonderful, bright person with a great sense of humour. I miss her every day.
“What happened that morning ten years ago has had devastating consequences on everyone.
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“It’s ruined Oscar’s life, it’s obviously ruined Reeva’s — it was the end of it — and it’s had a ruinous effect on our family. My father and my stepmother June will never come to terms with it.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what happened in that house but I don’t wish bad things on him.
“Ten years is a long time to reflect on your actions but it is not up to me when he is released and, to be honest, I don’t really care if he’s shown enough remorse. It’s not going to change anything.
“The most important thing for our family now is to look forward and try to find some happiness.”
Adam tells how Reeva had been excitedly planning a trip to the UK to meet his young son and daughter for the first time before the tragedy struck.
Back then Pistorius — whose legs were amputated below the knee at 11 months due to a birth defect — was on top of the sporting world.
The winner of six Paralympic golds, the man nicknamed Blade Runner due to his prosthetics had become the first double-amputee to compete against able-bodied Olympic athletes, at London 2012.
He killed model Reeva, 29, in the bathroom of his home in Pretoria, firing four bullets through the locked door during the night.
Adam, who moved to the UK aged 13, recalls the day he heard the news about his half-sister, seven years his junior.
He says: “It was a cold, normal, mundane morning. I was rushing around, jumping in the car and I had the radio on.
"On the news they touched on the fact that something awful had happened and someone had been killed and it was related to Oscar Pistorius.
“It didn’t quite click for a few seconds, and then it kind of did. My first thought was, ‘I hope that’s not Reeva’ but, of course, I knew it was.
“At that point they hadn’t mentioned her name, but I obviously knew because I knew she was seeing Oscar, so logically it was her.
“I pulled over the car, spoke to my dad and it was the ultimate confirmation that it was Reeva.
“It was devastating. It was so surreal, as only a couple of months earlier we’d started to arrange for Reeva to come to meet my children for the first time. She was so excited.
“It was so sad to realise it was never going to happen.”
Adam immediately flew to South Africa to be with his dad and step-mum.
He says: “They were absolutely distraught and couldn’t think straight.
“Friends, family support all closed around them very quickly but Reeva was their absolute everything.
“I hadn’t met Oscar. When me and Reeva spoke, we didn’t talk about that aspect of her life because we just didn’t have time to get into that.
“She was a very private person as well. I knew who he was, and I was thinking maybe he’d come over with Reeva and it would be nice to meet him.
"Reeva was, as far as I could see, really happy with him.
“I didn’t allow myself to feel too much anger at that time because I was focused on my family. Anything about him was irrelevant at that point, it was all about my sister, my dad and my stepmum.
"That changed when the ‘show’ started.”
The “show” was Pistorius’s trial, which began on March 3, 2014, and lasted 50 days stretched over seven months.
Adam watched it on TV because he couldn’t bear to be in the courtroom.
He says: “I call the court case the show because it was.”
In court Pistorius made his claim that he had thought Reeva was a burglar hiding in their bathroom.
Without putting on his prosthetic legs, the Olympic star grabbed his 9mm pistol and fired four shots into the bathroom door.
Reeva was behind it and took the full blast.
Oscar is unrepentant and obviously still does not take responsibility for the murder of my sister...he should continue to serve his time.
Adam Steenkamp
Pistorius had tweeted his fears about a break-in at his home days earlier, saying he would use a gun on any trespassers.
Adam says: “The whole explanation seemed implausible. But my mind always came back to, no matter the reason or his intention, it was another one of those things that happens.”
Seeing pictures of Reeva in court had a lasting effect on the family, who felt Pistorius’s courtroom tears — occasionally verging on histrionic — were too much.
Pistorius was initially sentenced to six and a half years for culpable homicide, but in 2015 the Supreme Court of Appeal convicted him of murder, and in 2017 it added nine years to his sentence.
Having now served ten years of his sentence, Pistorius, who has reportedly converted to Christianity, is expected to have a parole hearing this year.
One of the parole conditions is that he must meet Reeva’s parents if they wish, and this week her dad Barry revealed that he had met Pistorius in jail and the runner had “wailed like a child” as he tried to explain his actions and refused to accept he was a murderer.
Looking back, Adam concedes there may not have been enough evidence to convict him of murder at first.
He says: “After the initial sentence my first reaction was anger because you want to point anger at something or someone.
“But I don’t think the case was proven enough for it to be bang to rights, murder. It’s a court of law. But I try not to consume myself with issues that are his now.”
One thing that helps the family focus on Reeva’s memory is the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation — a charity which June set up to help educate and empower women against domestic abuse.
Adam, whose son is now 14 and his daughter 12, says: “The charity is wonderful in creating a legacy for Reeva.
"Before she died, Reeva was obviously modelling but she had trained to be a lawyer and was really using her media platform to do things for the better.
“She was making a difference and doing something good.
“I think about her all the time — I suppose every day. We spent a lot of our childhood together in Cape Town on my dad’s farm, riding horses, and I adored her.
“Where I live now brings back a lot of memories of Reeva as there are lots of horses around.
“I see similarities of Reeva in my children — the same sense of humour and peacefulness in enjoying the world around them.
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“It’s nice seeing those similarities and it just reminds me of Reeva. It’s the next bit of life that carries on.”
- Find out more about the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation at
