‘Blade Runner’ Pistorius, Who Murdered Model Girlfriend, Might Get 24-Hour Guard If Freed

Oscar Pistorius — the man nicknamed “the fastest man alive with no legs” and “Blade Runner” — who murdered his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, will reportedly be given 24-hour police protection if he is freed in March on parole.

On Valentine’s Day 2013, Pistorius shot Steenkamp four times in the bathroom at his home in Pretoria, South Africa. He claimed he thought she was an intruder.

In July 2008, Pistorius, born without fibula bones thus requiring the amputation of both of his legs below the knee at the age of 11 months, failed to qualify for the 400 meters at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by a scant 0.7 seconds, but in 2012, he competed against able-bodied runners at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

The trial of Pistorius featured pro soccer player Marc Batchelor sitting with Steenkamp’s family. He had previously clashed with Pistorius over Samantha Taylor, whom Pistorius had dated before dating Steenkamp. Batchelor claimed Pistorius threatened to break his legs because he believed he had slept with Samantha Taylor.

Batchelor, who had connections to underworld figures,  was murdered in July 2019 by two masked gunmen. Batchelor had told The Star, “He called me ‘boy’ and … said he wasn’t afraid of me. The man I heard on the phone is a different man from the image given out there. He carries a gun everywhere, and I have seen him [being] controlling to women.”

Taylor stated after her relationship with Pistorius was over, “I think I started noticing within three months of [the] relationship, definitely his temper concerned me … not necessarily towards me but towards other people. There was one time, he had been drinking and he fell and he thought I had beat him up. He would say things like, ‘you b****, you beat me in the face’ and you don’t know how to react.”

“He was definitely verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, he was controlling and always wanted to know where I was, who I was with,” she continued. “If he didn’t believe me he would phone my family. He would ask me to send photos of what I was wearing, the person I’m sitting next too.”

A police source told The Daily Mail: “Pistorius killed a young woman and that in itself is a major no-no as far as Johannesburg’s criminal fraternity is concerned. He had also threatened Batchelor who still has many friends in the city and who have a huge distaste for Oscar Pistorius. Oscar is a murderer, but once he has served his sentence, he should be able to re-build his life and live safely.”

“The police do not, of course, have any liking of murderers but they deserve full protection from any harm and that is what he will be given,” the source continued. “South Africa cannot afford to have any more violence connected to Pistorius and police will work very hard to ensure his safety. We have received information that there are people who say he deserved to pay for killing a young woman.”

Steenkamp’s father Barry told ITV’s Good Morning Britain, “When I went to the [prison] and met Oscar, I asked him certain questions. All June and I wanted to know was the truth, that what we feel was the truth – that he actually killed her because of anger. I didn’t get the answer that I wanted.”

Barry told The Daily Mail, “I told Oscar directly that he shot my daughter deliberately, and he denied it. He stuck to his story that he thought it was an intruder. After all these years we are still waiting for him to admit he did it in anger. That is all we wanted. If he told me the truth, he would have been a free man by now and I would have let the law take its course over his parole. But I was wasting my time. He is a murderer. He should remain in jail.’’