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More than seven years after gunning down his girlfriend, killer Paralympian Oscar Pistorius is still seeking forgiveness from her mother.
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Pistorius, sent to prison for 15 years for killing model Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, told a close friend he is still hoping her mother accepts his apology, according to the UK Sun. He has maintained that her death was a tragic accident despite being found guilty of murder in 2016.
“What he really, really wants is forgiveness,” Bill Schroder, a 76-year-old former teacher of ‘Blade Runner’ Pistorius who has visited the athlete in prison a handful of times, told the Sun. “I said to him that if he had killed my daughter I doubt I would forgive him. He is more concerned about forgiveness than actually getting out on parole. In fact, he has a real fear about getting parole as he knows they’ll be a backlash.”
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Steenkamp’s mother, June, said in 2018 that she had forgiven Pistorius but still wanted him jailed. He is serving 13 years and five months at a low-security prison in Pretoria.
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Pistorius, 33, shot Steenkamp in his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day in 2013. He said during his trial that he awoke during the night heard a noise in the bathroom then opened fire because he thought it was an intruder. Instead of taking out a burglar, he killed 29-year-old Steenkamp.
“He still maintains to this day it was an accident,” Schroder said. “I did feel he was showing remorse. He quoted a study by an expert that when you are woken from a deep sleep and are put into a situation of fear that you act very differently to when fully conscious. I listened to him but did not buy it.”
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Pistorius, who had both legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby due to a congenital defect, ran in three Paralympics and the 2012 Olympics, where he became the 10th athlete to compete in both. He got the nickname Blade Runner due to the prosthetic limbs he wore for racing.
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