"I will have you killed," Reeva Steencamp's mother told Oscar Pistorius.

When June Steenkamp threatened to have Oscar Pistorius killed, it was a harmless joke.

The situation was innocuous: a daughter in the car with her partner, calling her mother to complain about the speed of her boyfriend’s driving. A mother, laughing but protective, insisting she speak to the culprit and warning him to protect her baby girl at his own peril.

“If you hurt my baby, I will have you killed,” Mrs. Steenkamp told Pistorius on the phone that day.

The throwaway line takes on a painful irony in light of what happened next.

June Steenkamp had no idea that the man with whom she laughed would soon shoot and kill her daughter.

Now, despite the findings of the South African High Court, both Mr. and Mrs. Steenkamp believe the shots were fired deliberately at their daughter.

According to Sunday Night reporter Steve Pennells, the Steenkamps are firmly of the opinion that Pistorious shot Reeva in anger, not by accident.

“There were four shots through the toilet door and they believe he meant to hit her,” Pennells told News.com.au.

The Steenkamps claim Reeva was planning to leave Pistorious, and wonder whether the disagreement that led to her murder was caused by this revelation.

“Her bag was packed that night,” Mr. Steenkamp told Sunday Night. “What came out in court is not the truth. We know what we heard there is not right.”

The Steenkamps have previously called Pistorius “trigger-happy” and “volatile”.

“It was Reeva’s bad luck that she met him, because sooner or later he would have killed someone,” Mrs. Steemkamp told  The Times Magazine.

Pistorius, who was set to be released from prison Friday, has had his release delayed by South Africa’s justice minister, who said the parole board’s decision to free the athlete after only ten months of his five-year sentence was premature.

For Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, the delay is a small blessing: a minor acknowledgement of their pain and suffering at the hands of a man they once joked with.

You can see the full interview on Sunday Night, tonight at 7pm on Channel 7. 

Read more: 

Oscar Pistorius release delayed possibly “for several months.”

Oscar Pistorius trial: These are the six facts that weren’t enough to prove murder.

The text Reeva Steenkamp sent Oscar Pistorius 3 weeks before she died is devastatingly creepy.

Do you think Oscar Pistorius should be released?