Oscar Pistorius: Did the 'Blade Runner' kill his girlfriend?

Oscar Pistorius of South Africa finishes with gold in the Men&#039;s 4x100m relay T42/T46 Final at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

(Image credit: Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Before Thursday, the most controversial thing about Oscar Pistorius, the double-leg-amputee Olympic runner, was whether his prosthetic blade legs gave him an unfair advantage over other runners. Now, police in his native South Africa are charging the 26-year-old "Blade Runner" with murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, 30-year-old model Reeva Steenkamp, in his home in an upscale gated community outside of Pretoria, the capital. Pretoria police haven't released the name of the victim or the suspect, following South African law, but Steenkamp's agent, Sarita Tomlinson, confirmed that the model is dead.

"We are all devastated. Her family is in shock," Tomlinson tells Reuters. Steenkamp and Pistorious, who dated for about a year, "did have a good relationship.... Nobody actually knows what happened."

South African talk radio speculated that perhaps Pistorius shot Steenkamp after mistaking her for a burglar, given South Africa's high crime rate. Brigadier Denise Beukes of the Pretoria police poured cold water on that report, saying she didn't know where those rumors came from. The police had previously responded to complaints of a "domestic nature" at Pistorius' house, she added, without elaborating. (Watch below.)

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On Twitter, one of Steenkamp's last tweets apparently anticipated a happy Valentine's Day: "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow???" Pistorius' father, Henke Pistorius, tells South African Broadcasting Corp. that he doesn't know anything, and few other people do, either: "It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate. I don't know the facts. If anyone makes a statement, it will be Oscar. He's sad at the moment."

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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