Pretoria - When Reeva Steenkamp's cousin Kim Martin heard over the radio that Oscar Pistorius had shot his girlfriend, she hoped it was not Reeva, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Wednesday.
“I said 'I hope to God he's cheating on Reeva',” Martin said to questions from prosecutor Gerrie Nel.
She was testifying in sentencing proceedings for Oscar Pistorius, found guilty last month of his girlfriend Steenkamp's culpable homicide.
Martin recounted how she and her husband were driving in rush hour traffic around 8am on February 14 last year, when they heard a radio announcement.
“The DJ came on and he said 'breaking news, it's not confirmed'. I remember thinking this must be big.”
As she spoke Pistorius kept his head down, covering his eyes with his hand.
Then the DJ mentioned Oscar Pistorius.
“The minute he said his name I jumped up.”
She began sobbing as she recalled hearing that Pistorius had shot his girlfriend.
Judge Thokozile Masipa asked Martin to sit down and adjourned court for a minute to allow her to compose herself.
When court resumed, Martin recalled what she felt when she finally had confirmation that it was Steenkamp who had been killed.
“It was for me the end of the world.”
On September 12 Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius guilty of the culpable homicide of model and law graduate Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder. Pistorius had claimed he thought there was a burglar in his toilet when he fired four shots through the locked door in the early hours of February 14 last year, killing Steenkamp.
Masipa found Pistorius guilty of discharging a firearm in public, when he shot from his friend Darren Fresco's Glock pistol under a table at Tasha's restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.
Pistorius was found not guilty on two firearms-related charges - illegal possession of ammunition, and shooting through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.
Sapa