Reeva Steenkamp is dead

@reevasteenkamp just saw your photo in the @legacylifestyle magazine! You look stunning!! twitter.com/blondie_kirst/…

— Kirsten O’Brien (@blondie_kirst) February 12, 2013

@blondie_kirst Thank you sweetheart 🙂 great makeup artist and stylist made me look fab 😉

— Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) February 12, 2013

What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay

— Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) February 13, 2013

@gossig That sounds amazing! Wow that’s what it’s all about! It should be a day of love for everyone 🙂 may it be blessed!

— Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) February 13, 2013

WEAR BLACK THIS FRIDAY IN SUPPORT AGAINST #RAPE AND WOMAN ABUSE #BLACKFRIDAY

— Lindiwe Suttle (@lindiwesuttle) February 13, 2013

“@sandtonmini: twitter.com/SandtonMini/st…” come have a cupcake 2mwr ladies @reevasteenkamp @gi_myers @thesamlet @chanellezackey ❤

— Candy McKenna (@candymck) February 13, 2013

@candymck @sandtonmini I’m there like a bear!!! Yayyyy!!!! X

— Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) February 13, 2013

That was her last tweet: eight hours later she was dead, shot four times in the head and the arm.

Police have arrested Reeva Steenkamp’s boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius, for allegedly shooting her dead at his home in a gated community in Pretoria: a murder investigation has been opened. News report 14th Feb:

Details about the incident remain unclear. There was speculation in the local media that Pistorius may have mistaken her for a burglar and the shooting could have been a result of a Valentine’s Day surprise gone wrong. Local media suggested that Steenkamp may have been trying to surprise her boyfriend in his home on the heavily guarded compound and had been mistaken for an intruder. She was shot four times in the head and the arm.

“I can confirm that a woman has been fatally wounded in a shooting at Oscar Pistorius’s house,” said the police spokeswoman. “A 26-year-old man has been taken into custody,” she said. “The incident happened at 3am. We received a call and attended the scene. The call did not come from the man in custody but from another person. Currently there is an inquiry into what happened.”

Perhaps Pistorius’s girlfriend was a really a replicant #bladerunner

— Old Holborn (@Old_Holborn) February 14, 2013

Can everyone just save the jokes to their self about @oscarpistorius above everything he is just a human-being like everyone… #Compassion.

— JustinStyleroome(@justinstyleroom) February 14, 2013

Can’t believe Pistorius went for the gun option. Defo should have finished her with his blades

— Chris McHugh (@scoop_mc) February 14, 2013

Oscar Pistorius’ girlfriend found shot dead at his home in South Africa … At least she wasn’t beaten to death with one of his blades!

— Tempest J Larrichia (@TempestJody) February 14, 2013

Police say there have been previous allegations “of a domestic nature” at the home of Oscar Pistorius. #c4news

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) February 14, 2013

Absolutely staggered that Oscar Pistorious has been charged with murdering his girlfriend.

— Nick Parrott (@NickParrottTV) February 14, 2013

Reeva Steenkamp has been killed and everyone keeps talking about her boyfriend #1billionrising

— Jolene (@illyrica) February 14, 2013

I no women can push buttons but shooting them is abit far, wonder how many would be brown bread if guns were legal in the uk #80%Ratio

— Thomas Stalker (@ThomasStalker1) February 14, 2013

Justice Malala, writing in the Guardian about Reeva Steenkamp’s death, mentions Oscar Pistorius by name 10 times, Steenkamp not once except as:

Pistorius, hero, had gone from being a figure of sympathy in the morning – when stories went viral that the shooting of a woman at his house may have been a case of mistaken identity – to being accused of murder in the evening as police revealed there were reports of shouting at his house the evening before.

In the morning, though, when the story first broke, there was no touching Pistorius. His model girlfriend – a sign of status among jock sportsmen – was coming in to give him a Valentine’s surprise, went the story.

Carrie Dunn at the FWord:

Ah, it’s a “domestic”. If a woman dies but not her partner, it’s a “domestic”; or maybe, even more excitingly, “a crime of passion”. It’s not a terrible, awful murder-suicide resulting in the loss of a sporting talent in the world.

It’s just “his girlfriend” who’s been murdered; Pistorius is still alive, so he’s not “tragic” – he can be the butt of jokes (mostly focusing on his disability, though there are also some about the fact that this happened on Valentine’s Day), and Steenkamp is simply collateral damage, mentioned – if she’s mentioned at all – as “his girlfriend”.

In South Africa, a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner.

One Billion Rising, 14th February 2013

On 11th September 2014, Oscar Pistorius was acquitted of intent to murder Reeva Steenkamp, after he shot her four times through a closed door: he was only “negligent”.

But on 6th July 2016, Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to six years for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Masipa said there were “substantial and compelling reasons” to deviate from the 15-year minimum sentence for murder, accepting that Oscar Pistorius hadn’t meant to kill Reeva Steenkamp when he fired through the toilet door.