One Tragic Night (7 page)

By the time Justin and Samantha were on the scene, a handful of police officers had also arrived. So too had Oscar's brother Carl. Justin and Samantha were barred from entering the house but they could see Reeva's covered body lying at the bottom of the stairs. The athlete was seated in the garage on a bench-press bench, dressed in a pair of bloody shorts.

‘The minute we walked in and the minute he saw us, he just broke down, completely, uncontrollably. He was incomprehensible. You know when someone can't speak, they're dry retching on the floor,' recalls Samantha. ‘I was just in so much shock. I just sat there. I was bawling my eyes out and then I'd stop and I'd just sit there. Her body was lying right there. She was covered by a blanket, but you could still see her hair and her hand. It was just completely surreal.'

Justin was allowed into the garage and sat down next to Oscar for a few minutes. The athlete was completely incoherent and repeated, ‘My baba, I've killed my baba. God take me away.'

‘Justin asked him what had happened. He kept saying, “I thought she was an intruder, I thought she was an intruder.” And then he was saying, “God please take me now, I don't want to live,”' says Samantha. ‘Eventually you can't actually speak to someone like that because you can't even understand what they're
saying. Justin said, “Okay, just breathe,” trying to console him. We didn't know what had happened.'

At that stage, Samantha and Justin could only think that there had been a terrible accident and questioned how on earth this could have happened.

‘I was just thinking, “Oh my goodness, what a terrible accident!” One minute I'm crying for Reeva, one minute I'm trying to understand the whole thing, one minute I look fine and then the next minute I'm breaking down again. I think it's just too much shock, your brain can't actually deal with it in one day.'

Samantha ultimately chose not to go and look at her best friend's body although she had to fight the urge to do so. ‘All I wanted to do was go up and pull the blanket off and give her a hug and say, “Get up, we're going.” There was blood everywhere in the house. I think it was just a lot to take in. Justin and I were just in a
dwaal
[dazed, in a state of confusion] the rest of the day.'

Samantha sought refuge outside and sat down on the pavement, leaning against Oscar's white BMW. She sat there for what felt like half an hour, staring at the bricks, tuned out from the reality unfolding around her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash and then another.

‘I kept noticing a flash that caught my eye and that's when I looked up and that's when I saw … They were obviously taking photos.'

She also identified a problem that would become significant in court days later: ‘I remember sitting there and I suppose I've watched enough
CSI
to know. It's a crime scene and I remember looking at all the other assistants, like the ladies, they were all wearing foot covers and gloves and I remember looking at Hilton Botha. He was wearing gloves but no foot covers and I thought, That's weird. I mean, of everything that's going on, that's what I think right there, Jeez, you're not wearing foot covers.'

It was Captain Hilton Botha who brought Reeva Steenkamp's iPhone out to Samantha in the hope that she might have the PIN code to help him unlock the handset. Botha wanted to get hold of the victim's next of kin. Earlier Samantha had said to officers on the scene that somebody had to contact Reeva's parents.

‘I said to them, “Her parents need to know, somebody needs to tell them now.” I said, “I'll phone them.”'

No one had the Steenkamps' phone number so Samantha called a mutual friend. ‘I need to get Barry Steenkamp's number,' she told him.

She was anxious that the news would break in the media before Reeva's parents had been told.

‘No one should have to find out that their daughter has been killed on the
TV,' says Samantha. Botha brought her Reeva's phone before she could get the number for the Steenkamps.

Samantha was reluctant to handle the device as it was clearly evidence in the case. ‘He brought me the phone and it was a bag that he took it out of. He said to me, “Does anyone know the code? Can anyone unlock her phone?” and I said, “I can.” There was blood on it and I said to him, “Are you sure I can touch that?” She had a black phone and I noticed there was a little bit of blood on it. And he said, “Ja, ja, ja, it's fine. Just put in the code.”'

With the phone unlocked, Botha scrolled the contacts list and found the number saved under ‘Mommy'. He punched the digits into his own phone and pressed the dial button, bracing himself for the incomprehensible job of delivering the tragic news to a mother – that her daughter had been killed.

It took nearly two hours from the time of the shooting for the news to make its way to Port Elizabeth, on South Africa's eastern coastline, where Reeva's parents June and Barry live. June answered her cellphone just after 5am and Captain Hilton Botha asked her if she had a daughter and what her name was.

‘He said there had been an accident, someone had been shot, my Reeva was dead,' June later recalled. Botha told her he wanted to tell them personally so that they wouldn't hear the news on the radio. June immediately phoned her husband who was out at the time. She was so hysterical that Barry thought she was trying to tell him that their dog was dead. From that moment, she says, all the joy went out of their lives.

It took several more hours before the news of Reeva's death reached her Johannesburg family, the Myers, with whom she had been living in Sandringham. Gina Myers, Reeva's best friend, received a phone call from Samantha Greyvenstein at 7:45am.

‘I could hear she was crying,' says Gina. ‘She said, “Gi, are you sitting down?” and immediately I stood up and started screaming, “Where's Reeva? Where is she?” She said, “Gi, sit down, there's been an accident.” She said to me, “Reeva's gone,” and I started screaming and crying. I just lost all sense of what was really going on. My dad and my mom and my sister came running into the room. I had no idea. I didn't even really care. I just heard that Reeva is gone.'

And then, at 8.03 am on Thursday, Valentine's Day 2013, a tweet from the daily Afrikaans newspaper
Beeld
broke the news that would rock the world:

^*
@Beeld_Nuus Oscar Pistorius shoots his girlfriend dead in his house because he believed, thought she was a burglar.

The two head-turning models lay sprawled across the carpet in the spare room of the home in the wealthy suburb of Atholl near Sandton, Johannesburg, nursing their cups of tea and contemplating their lives. One a gym-toned, striking brunette with carved features and intuitive eyes, the other a blonde with a warm, enveloping smile and laid-back demeanour. Both women, whilst foils of one another in appearance, had featured on the pages of
FHM
magazine, marking high points in their careers in the industry. But beyond their profession, the two had become best friends, sharing their lives with each other.

It was a Tuesday evening and Samantha Greyvenstein and Reeva Steenkamp were in their favourite spot. Stretched out on the carpet in Samantha's home, drinking tea and messing around on their laptops was a pastime they regularly shared together as one helped the other through a crisis. This particular Tuesday was Reeva's turn to support her friend through a meltdown.

‘I was freaking out about something. I was having a nervous breakdown about my life and about work and I needed to talk to her. I met her there after work and it's quite sweet because she always used to get there before me and I'd walk in and she'd be sitting talking to our household staff. She's so chilled like that. She would have a long conversation with everyone and then I'd walk in and we'd make tea and then we'd go upstairs. I'd vent to her about my life and my problems and then she would come up with solutions. We'd lie on the carpet and we'd talk and we'd drink tea and we'd faff …' Samantha reminisces wistfully about the last time she saw Reeva alive. ‘She was perfect.'

That evening in mid-February 2013 Reeva was effervescent as she spoke about the future and the potential it held. Her boyfriend of three months, Oscar Pistorius, had been talking to her about accompanying him on his travels around
the world. ‘She was very happy, and said, “He told me I must come overseas with him on his trips, so his agent sent me his itinerary and I've got to see if I can be away at the same time.” He wanted her to go to Hawaii and Australia. I said, “Wow, that's awesome!” and she told me, “He's never taken a girl or a friend on any of his trips before.” He goes to Italy for months and she was saying they were going to go to Italy together. That was when I said to her, “Are you really happy?” and she said, “If he asked me to marry him tomorrow, I think I'd say yes.”'

Samantha believes that Reeva and Oscar had a future together. ‘I definitely think they were in it for the long haul; I think they were very serious about each other. This was a proper relationship.' She wasn't shocked that her friend was considering marriage. ‘After seeing how well they had been getting on and how they did everything together. They were besotted with each other like any other fresh new couple is, kisses and love and hugs and whatever when they were around us.'

Reeva and Samantha met ‘out on the jol' around eight years before, through mutual friend Darren Fresco, at Cappello in Lonehill. Samantha remembers Reeva being ‘awesome' and the two hit it off immediately. ‘I didn't know Darren that well at that stage and he just called me out of the crowd and I went to go and say ‘hi'. I met her and from there we were friends ever since. I liked her because she was so chilled.' Samantha laughs as she recalls what they discussed at the bar. ‘She had just had her boobs done and she was a little bit sore and I was telling her that I wanted to get mine done and so we spoke about trivial stuff like that but she was awesome, very laid back. She was very humble; she didn't have any airs and graces whatsoever. She didn't care whether you were a street sweeper or the Queen of England; she was very down to earth.'

Reeva had only just moved to Johannesburg from her home in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth and she was not yet as extrovert as she would become. ‘She was a little bit shyer in those days. She was very honest about the fact that she wanted to become someone, with the modelling, and so she worked hard at it, going to launches and any party that she got invited to, she needed to be seen out. But in those days she was a little bit less like that. She was also ten kilos heavier when I met her.'

Reeva had a relatively sheltered upbringing in Port Elizabeth where she attended a convent school, St Dominic's Priory. Teachers remember her as being vibrant, friendly and diligent, and she was a popular pupil, respected by her peers and authorities there.

Along with her schoolwork, she invested her energy into horse riding from a young age, a likely hobby as her father Barry was a racehorse trainer in the city.
She became accomplished in the sport and was decorated for her success. Reeva matriculated from St Dominic's in 2001 and completed her LLB at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in 2005.

At age 14, Reeva took up modelling. But her real breakthrough came much later when she was already in university. In 2004 she was named as a finalist in the
Weekend Post
Faces of the Future competition. A year later she was also a finalist in
The Herald
Miss Port Elizabeth competition. It wasn't long before she was selected as the first South African Face of Avon, representing the international cosmetics company.

By then she knew real stardom did not lie in Port Elizabeth, but rather in Joburg. She moved to Gauteng in 2007, which is when she met Samantha.