Pistorius has 'ruined' our family, says Reeva's cousin

Описание: Reeva Steenkamp's cousin sobbed while testifying on Wednesday about how she first heard on a car radio that Oscar Pistorius had shot and killed his girlfriend.
Kim Martin told the courtroom that Olympic and Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius "ruined" Reeva Steenkamp's family when he shot her dead.
"This has ruined our whole family. It has ruined Uncle Barry and Aunty June. Reeva was everything to them. They adored her," Kim Martin told the court, referring to Steenkamp's parents.
In her testimony on the third day of the sentencing hearing, Martin painted a picture of a loving and deeply caring daughter who supported her parents as they "battled financially".
During the testimony, Steenkamp's parents struggled to hold back tears, while Pistorius, dressed in a dark suit and tie, bowed his head and appeared to weep.
Kim Martin said she had "hoped to God" that Pistorius was cheating on her cousin and that the woman he had shot was not Reeva.
"They hadn't confirmed the name, they said his girlfriend," Martin recalled as she cried on the witness stand.
Martin was the prosecution's first sentencing witness, and the first member of Steenkamp's family to testify at the trial, which began seven months ago.
Martin's emotional testimony during Pistorius' sentencing hearing, which caused the judge to rule a brief adjournment, dealt in detail for the first time at the months-long trial with the impact of the Valentine's Day killing on Steenkamp's family.
Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law graduate, was shot multiple times by Pistorius in the pre-dawn hours of February 14, 2013.
The double-amputee Olympic runner was found guilty of culpable homicide for negligently killing her, but acquitted of murder after claiming he mistook her for an intruder in his house.

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