Family life
Reeva Steenkamp was born in Cape Town, South Africa on the 19th August 1983, to parents Barry, a horse trainer, and June, who was originally from Blackburn, England.
Reeva had two older siblings, Adam and Simone.
Successful modelling career
Reeva was a traditional beauty, and began modelling at the age of 15-years-old when she was spotted by her local newspaper’s beauty editor, Barbara Robertson.
"She was 15, and a young 15," Ms Robertson told Sky News.
"There was nothing sophisticated about her. She was sweet, down to earth, earthy ... just one of those girls who had the 'it' factor.
“A little bit (of an) early Kate Moss."
She went on to become the first face of Avon cosmetics in South Africa, and was ranked #40 in the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll of South African FHM readers in 2011 and #45 in 2012.
Reeva later moved to Johannesburg to further her modelling career.
Photographer Mark West, who worked with Reeva, said she had a "successful career" before her death and many people in the industry were ‘watching her with great expectation.’
“You could see that Reeva was going places,” he said.
Lawyer dreams - and her horse-riding accident
Following her graduation from St. Dominic's Priory High School in Port Elizabeth, Reeva enrolled at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University to study law.
Kerry Smith, one of Reeva’s university friends, told the BBC that Reeva was "more than just a pretty face, she had a beautiful heart and ambition".
While Reeva was always a dedicated student, her law dreams were dashed when she broke her back in a horse riding accident during her final year at university.
“She was riding one of the racehorses, and she fell on her back,” her mother told Vanity Fair.
“She had two crushed vertebrae. She was in traction, and the doctors said they can’t be sure whether she is ever going to walk again. She lay there for six weeks, not knowing.”
In the end, Reeva made a full recovery and went on to learn to walk again. She also graduated at the top of her class in 2005.
While she decided not to practice law, she later applied to the Bar in 2011, and hoped to qualify as a legal advocate before she was 30.
She planned to start a law firm to help abused women.
Campaigning against domestic violence
Reeva and her mother were long-time advocates for women suffering from violence and abuse.
Before moving to Johannesburg to pursue her modelling dreams, Reeva had been involved with an allegedly emotionally abusive boyfriend.
Her close friend Kerry Smith told the BBC: “I think it was mainly mental, I don't know that he was physically abusive but definitely emotionally abusive.
"When she was with [him] she always felt she had to cover up. She would always be on these fad diets with him. She lost a lot of weight.
"It wasn't a healthy relationship. When she moved to Johannesburg, we were grateful because it meant she would be free from him."
After cutting her ties with him, she dreamed of opening a shelter for abused women and children - and regularly gave speeches promoting awareness for domestic violence victims.
On the day before her death, she took to Twitter to urge her followers to wear black the day after Valentine's Day in protest at violence against women.
“I woke up in a happy safe home this morning,” Reeva wrote on Instagram.
“Not everyone did.
“Speak out against the rape of individuals in SA. RIP Anene Booysen. #rape #crime #sayNO.”
Had she lived, she would have delivered a speech to a group of teenage girls the following day, urging them not to give in to emotional abuse.
So, on 21st October 2015, June returned to her daughter’s old high school in Port Elizabeth to recite the same speech that Reeva had planned.
Reading from Reeva’s notes, she said: “I hope that you all had an amazing Valentine's Day and you were spoiled with love and roses and chocolates.
“Go home and tell your parents, your siblings and your neighbours that they are appreciated and you will go to bed with a happy heart and an open mind for the future.”
Television star
In 2012, Reeva was recruited as a celebrity contestant for season 5 of the reality show Tropika Island, filmed in Jamaica, on which contestants compete for a monetary prize of 1 million rand.
The last episode of the show aired after her death.
Religious beliefs
In Reeva's Twitter bio, she described herself as a "Child of God."
Two weeks before her death, she Instagrammed a note to God saying, "I need you. Every day, every moment, every second that I breathe, I need you.
"I am not strong enough on my own. Amen."
In court, Oscar Pistorius described Reeva as "a very good Christian" and said she would pray about "all the small things in life".
Meeting Oscar Pistorius - and their subsequent relationship
On 4th November, Reeva Steenkamp was invited to a track day at Kyalami Race track - and it was there that she met paralympian, Oscar Pistorius.
The pair seemed to immediately hit it off, as Oscar invited Reeva to accompany him to the South African Sports Awards ceremony that same evening.
Andre Neveling, the editor of South African celebrity magazine Heat, said: “They looked so much in love, and everybody was going on and on about what a great couple they made. Everybody thought this is ‘the real deal.’”
However, during the trial of Oscar Pistorius, the prosecution quoted a text message sent by Reeva to the athlete in which she said: "I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me."
Her mother also said that the relationship was ‘coming to an end’, as Reeva ‘didn’t think it was making either of them happy.’
Despite this, Oscar Pistorius's manager said that the athlete was planning trips to Brazil and Manchester with Reeva – and suggested that she would have been the first of Pistorius's girlfriends to accompany him to an overseas athletics meeting.
Reeva’s final 24 hours
“I spoke to her the day before she died,” her publicist Simphiwe Majola told Vanity Fair.
“I asked her to come to my office so I could see her present her speech.”
He said she delivered it with passion, explaining how she lost her self-esteem in an emotionally abusive relationship, and regained her confidence as a model in Johannesburg.
When they had finished, Reeva went home and worked on her speech some more, before wrapping up a Valentine’s Day gift for Oscar and depositing $100 into her mum and dad’s bank account.
One of Reeva's final messages was sent to Cecil and Desi Myers, whom she lived with in Johannesburg, around 10pm on 13 February.
It read: "Hi guys, I'm too tired. It's too far to drive. I'm sleeping at Oscar's tonight. See you tomorrow." The next morning, Cecil and Desi were called in to identify Reeva’s body.
The shooting
In the early morning of Thursday, 14th February 2013, Reeva Steenkamp was shot and killed by Oscar Pistorius at his Pretoria home.
The athlete - who shot Reeva four times through a locked bathroom door - later confessed to shooting her, but said that he mistook her for an intruder.
He said: “I felt a sense of terror rushing over me. There are no burglar bars across the bathroom window and I knew that contractors who worked at my house had left ladders outside. Although I did not have my prosthetic legs on I have mobility on my stumps. I believed that someone had entered my house.
“I was too scared to switch a light on. I grabbed my 9mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed … for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed.”
Oscar grabbed his cricket bat to break down the toilet door, and police found him sitting with Reeva’s body when they arrived at the property a short while later.
However, in the trial, witnesses for the prosecution “said they heard a lady scream, and they heard bullet shots fired, and then they heard a scream again and then another few shots fired.”
They claim that Reeva, who had her mobile phone with her, had locked herself in the toilet after a fight with the paralympian - and that he had knowingly shot her.
Oscar Pistorius was later found guilty of culpable homicide, and received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide.
The paralympian's conviction was upgraded to murder in 2015, after an appeal by the prosecution.
Remembering Reeva
Reeva Steenkamp and Anene Booysen (a South African teenager who was brutally raped and murdered) were named as Daily Maverick's SA Persons of the year 2013.
"Let us remember Reeva, the person. Let us mourn less for the loss of a sportsman's career and more for the squandering of the life of a vibrant, intelligent 29-year-old whose future was just beginning to take the shape she had dreamed of," the newspaper said.
"Let us remember a woman of deep empathy, who we know to have been moved and horrified by the death of Anene Booysen, just weeks before her own.
"Let us remember Reeva, and Anene, and the countless other women whose deaths and rapes are considered so unexceptional that they warrant not even a single mention in a newspaper.
“Let us remember them as people, and not simply as the statistics we bear as a mark of national shame.”