JOHANNESBURG: The parents of Reeva Steenkamp, who was shot and killed by Oscar Pistorius, reacted with shock and disbelief at a judge’s decision to acquit the star athlete of murder charges.

“We were shocked. Shocked. Disappointed,” June Steenkamp told British ITV News.

“You know your heart drops because you just want the truth,” she said.

Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius not guilty of murder, but later convicted him on the less serious charge of culpable homicide.

Pistorius said he shot Steenkamp in the dead of the night after he mistook her for an intruder.

The father of the model and law graduate said he found it difficult to believe Pistorius’ version of the story.

“There is still something missing,” Barry Steenkamp told ITV News.

“I think there was more to the whole story, you know, coming up to the actual shooting, the killing.”

In an earlier interview with America’s NBC News, June Steenkamp said: “I just don’t feel that this is the right (verdict).”

Steenkamp said her 29-year-old daughter had died a “horrible, painful, terrible death”.

“And I can’t believe that they believe that it was an accident,” she said in her first reaction to the judgement.

Asked what kind of sentence she would like to see given to Pistorius, the mother told NBC News: “I really don’t care what happens to Oscar, it’s not going to change anything because my daughter is not going to come back.... She is gone forever.”

According to NBC, Steenkamp’s parents would like to meet with Pistorius in private.

Published in Dawn, September 14th , 2014