JOHANNESBURG, South Africa ? He was a national treasure who inspired the world when he made Olympics history as the first double amputee runner to compete using prosthetic blades. She was a blond-haired, blue-eyed cover girl and celebrity model, with a law degree and an interest in women's rights.
But in a Valentine's Day tragedy involving South Africa's "Blade Runner," Oscar Pistorius, the body of a woman was found in a pool of blood early Thursday at his home in an upscale suburb of Pretoria. Pistorius was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
She died of several bullet wounds to the head and arm.
South Africans reacted as though the news concerned a family member or close friend: "Did you hear what happened with Oscar?"
Pistorius bolted to fame in 2004 on curved carbon-fiber legs and made history when he reached the semifinals of the London Olympics in 2012. In the intervening years, he won awards, honorary doctorates and sponsorships and became one of South Africa's best-known individuals. In 2008 and 2012, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
"Oscar was our good thing," wrote Mail and Guardian columnist Sarah Britten, describing a sense of collective shock. "Oscar was our story, a hero who, for all his flaws, overcame the odds and exemplified the greatness of the human spirit.
"He was a great South African brand, and now his story, and our part of it, lay in tatters."
Although his relationship with Steenkamp was relatively new ? the first time the two were linked in public was at the South African Sports Awards several months ago ? they had appeared a golden couple, both attractive and highly regarded. Some unconfirmed reports suggest they'd been dating for a year.
Many seized on early news reports that he accidentally shot Steenkamp, mistaking her for a burglar, a common enough tragedy in a country with one of the highest rates of homicide and violent crime, where many people keep guns at home to guard against intruders.
For a man to shoot the woman he loved was, people reasoned, a sign of just how frightened South Africans are in their own homes because of violent robberies.
A New York Times Magazine profile of Pistorius early last year mentioned an incident in which his home burglar alarm went off in the middle of the night, and he went downstairs with a gun. That turned out to be a false alarm.
Just in November, Pistorius, who practiced target shooting for leisure, had posted a comical remark on Twitter: "Nothing like getting home to hear the washing machine on and thinking it's an intruder to go into full combat recon mode into the pantry!"
As the shock about the incident reverberated on social media, few were willing to entertain an alternative scenario: Perhaps this story involved a different kind of violence.
But as the day wore on, the Pistorius legend began to fray. Police appeared to discount the reports that Pistorius had killed his girlfriend by accident. A police spokeswoman, Denise Beukes, said police were surprised by the reports, according to the South African Press Assn.
"I confirm there had been previous incidents of a domestic nature at his place," Beukes said, and that police had interviewed neighbors who heard sounds at Pistorius' home earlier in the evening and at the time the killing reportedly took place.
Prosecutors said Pistorius would spend the night in jail, and police indicated they would oppose bail at a hearing Friday, without elaborating on why.
Pistorius' father, Henke Pistorius, told reporters that he didn't know the facts about Steenkamp's death but said his son was sad.
"I don't know nothing. It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate," he said in a radio interview. "If anyone makes a statement, it will have to be Oscar."
Within hours of the news of the killing, billboards and TV advertisements featuring the Olympian were taken down. A Nike ad on Pistorius' website describing him as "the bullet in the chamber" was removed, although Nike told a local newspaper, Business Day, that it was withholding judgment on the tragedy.
Steenkamp had something special planned for Pistorius for Valentine's Day, judging by one of her last tweets, on Wednesday: "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?"
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