Reeva Steenkamp Wiki – Reeva Steenkamp Biography
Reeva Steenkamp was a South African model and paralegal. She modelled for FHM magazine and was the first face of Avon cosmetics in South Africa. Steenkamp once worked as the live roaming presenter for FashionTV in South Africa and starred in television advertisements for Toyota Land Cruiser, Clover “The One”, Redds and Aldor Pin Pop. She was a celebrity contestant on the BBC Lifestyle show Baking Made Easy in 2012 and on Tropika Island of Treasure season 5 which aired on SABC 3 in February 2013.
On Valentine’s Day 2013, Steenkamp was shot dead by her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius. He stated that he thought Steenkamp was an intruder hiding in the bathroom at his home. Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide at a first trial. On 3 December 2015, the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa overturned this conviction and instead convicted Pistorius of murder.
She attended St Dominic’s Priory School. After school she studied law at the University of Port Elizabeth, which became a part of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 2005.
Steenkamp was a keen horse rider until she broke her back in a fall in her early 20s and had to learn to walk again. On the South African celebrity circuit she was a regular A-list guest at red carpet events and a noted socialite on the Johannesburg party scene.
Steenkamp had been dating Oscar Pistorius, a South African Olympic and Paralympic runner, since November 2012. She had previously dated Springbok rugby player Francois Hougaard.
Reeva Steenkamp Age
Reeva Steenkamp has died at the age of 29 years.
Family & Siblings
Steenkamp was born in Cape Town, to parents Barry Steenkamp, a horse trainer, and his second wife, June who was born in Blackburn, England. She had two older half-siblings from her father and mother’s respective previous marriages, Adam Steenkamp and Simone Cowburn. The family later moved to Port Elizabeth.
Career
After university Steenkamp worked as a paralegal and as a model. She applied to the bar in late 2011[11] and hoped to be a qualified legal advocate by the age of 30.
Steenkamp began modeling at the age of 14. She was a finalist in the Weekend Post Faces of the Future competition in 2004 and in the Herald Miss Port Elizabeth contest in 2005. She appeared in FHM magazine as a model and cover girl and was the first face of Avon cosmetics in South Africa. She also modeled for the jewelry company Sivana Diamonds.
She was ranked #40 in the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll of South African FHM readers in 2011 and #45 in 2012. Her style icon was Marc Jacobs. She was a celebrity face of the Spirit Day anti-bullying campaign in 2012.
Steenkamp once worked as the live roaming presenter for FashionTV in South Africa. She starred in television advertisements for a range of products, including Toyota Land Cruiser, Clover “The One”, Redds and Aldor Pin Pop. She featured as a celebrity contestant on the BBC Lifestyle show Baking Made Easy in 2012.
At the time of her death, Steenkamp was signed up to appear on season five of the reality TV programme Tropika Island of Treasure and had filmed the series episodes on location in Jamaica. The screening of the series began airing as scheduled on 16 February 2013, two days after her death. The first episode of the series was dedicated to Steenkamp and was preceded by a video tribute to her.
Cause of Death (Shot by Her Boyfriend)
Reeva Steenkamp was a South African model and paralegal with hopes of one day becoming an attorney. On February 14, 2013, Steenkamp was shot and killed by her boyfriend, Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius. The story will be investigated on tonight’s episode of Dateline NBC.
Steenkamp was standing near the toilet, facing the closed door of the room when she was shot in the right hip, according to a report by The Guardian. After being shot, Steenkamp fell back onto a magazine holder, where she was shot two more times; once in the right arm and the second in the head.Pistorius fired a total of four shots into his bathroom door. Investigators believe the second shot missed Steenkamp and instead ricocheted off a wall and broke into fragments. They argued that that shot led to bruising on Steenkamp’s back.
Friday on #Dateline at 10/9c… pic.twitter.com/WLgWTCje9P
— Dateline NBC (@DatelineNBC) September 10, 2020
At the trial for Steenkamp’s killing, professor Gert Saayman, who had been responsible for the post-mortem on Steenkamp according to The Guardian, said he believed Pistorius had used a type of expanding bullet designed to cause maximum tissue damage.
Saayman said in court that he believed that the wound to her head would have been almost instantly fatal.
“The deceased probably didn’t breathe more than a few times after sustaining this wound,” he said. “The wound to the head was incapacitating and probably almost instantly fatal.”
After beating down the bathroom door following the shooting, Pistorius carried Steenkamp’s bathroom to another location within his home where he attempted to perform CPR.
Oscar Pistorius was transformed from a nobody to an international superstar with a superhero nickname: “The Blade Runner.” More tonight at 10/9c on @NBC. pic.twitter.com/vNuKNGBHcO
— Dateline NBC (@DatelineNBC) September 11, 2020
Pistorius never denied that he was the one who shot into the bathroom on that fatal night, but during the trial, he said that he believed there was an intruder in the bathroom and he was protecting himself.
Investigation
Pistorius said that he had not put his prosthetics on before getting out of bed to investigate the intruder he believed was in the bathroom. Captain Christian Mangena agreed during the trial that, at the time of the shooting, it was possible Pistorius did not have his prosthetics on.
Prosecutors argued, however, that Pistorius had killed his girlfriend in a jealous fury after the couple had an argument in the early morning hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013. The runner was being charged with premeditated murder, though the charge was lowered eventually.
Since the trial, Pistorius’ sentence has changed multiple times. Originally in 2014, he was found guilty of culpable homicide, which is the equivalent to manslaughter, and he served 10 months before being released on house arrest.
An appeals court appealed that decision and changed the erdict to murder in December 2015. Then, Pistorius was sentenced to six years in prison in 2016. In November 2017, a court more than doubled the sentence, ordering him to serve an additional 13 years in prison. The sentence had been increased from the original six years to 15 years minus time served.
Fifteen years is the usual minimum sentence in South Africa for murder, according to NPR.
