Oscar Pistorius Sends Valentine’s Day Message To Girlfriend He Shot To Death

Valentine’s Day is a happy occasion for most anyone lucky enough to have found true love. But for former Olympian Oscar Pistorius, Valentine’s Day is a day of sorrow. Of course, it is even sadder for the family of Reeva Steenkamp, the girlfriend Pistorius shot to death on this day last year.

One year after murdering the 29-year-old South African celebrity model — a charge Pistorius denies — the sprinter known as “Blade Runner” has sent a Valentine’s Day message to the girlfriend he killed.

“No words can adequately capture my feelings about the devastating accident that has caused such heartache for everyone who truly loved – and continues to love Reeva,” the South African runner wrote on his official online site. “The pain and sadness – especially for Reeva’s parents, family and friends consumes me with sorrow. The loss of Reeva and the complete trauma of that day, I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”

Pistorius, 27, shot Steenkamp in a bathroom of his Pretoria, South Africa, home at about 4 am on February 14, 2013. He claims that he thought she was an intruder who posed a threat to his safety, and the shooting was just a tragic mistake.

But prosecutors, who will put the once-inspirational double-amputee sprinter on trial for murder starting March 3, say that the pair had domestic confrontations before.

They charge that Pistorius, a known gun enthusiast, plotted to murder Reeva Steenkamp after the two argued on that Valentine’s Day, and carried out the shooting in coldly premeditated fashion.

Of course, anyone who paid even the slightest attention to the 2010 Olympics know that Pistorius was the first disabled athlete to compete on equal terms with the rest of the field. He was born with an abnormality that forced doctors to amputate both of his legs while he was still an infant.

But he competed on prosthetic legs, and in fact, other runners objected saying that the high-tech prosthetics — whose sleek engineering earned Pistorius his “Blade Runner” nickname — actually gave the South African an advantage.

In a separate case, the runner settled out of court this week with a woman who accused him of inuring her in a temper fit at party in 2009.

On Valentine’s Day last year, Pistorius and Steenkamp had been a couple for only about three months. As one of the most famous people in South Africa, Pistorius — who also faces separate gun charges in addition to murder — kept his home heavily secured, yet he believed that an intruder had somehow infiltrated his defenses and that is why he shot Steenkamp to death, he claims.