Reeva was hard working – cousin

“Reeva was a very, very hard worker. Very meticulous. She took her school work seriously,” Martin said as prosecutor Gerrie Nel led her evidence in-chief in the sentencing procedures of Oscar Pistorius.

“She was a hard worker – she got that from her parents.”

Martin said Steenkamp worked hard in school to get good marks so she could get a bursary to study law.

During her studies, Steenkamp was in a horse riding accident and broke her back.

She then made a conscious decision that she wanted to finish studying and pursue a modelling career to put her in a position to look after her parents who were struggling financially, Martins said.

“[It] was a big life changing experience for her.”

She gave her first paycheck from modelling to her parents to pay for her schooling.

On September 12, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide on for the Valentine’s Day 2013, shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse. The court found him not guilty of murdering Steenkamp.

Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the locked door of the toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him. She was hit in the hip, arm, and head.

Pistorius was found guilty of firing a pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013 and not guilty of shooting through the open sunroof of a car in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.

– Sapa

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