Oscar Pistorius crime scene photos emerge

Images of the bathroom where Oscar Pistorius's girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp met her violent end were leaked for the first time days before the track star is due back in court.

The photos reveal a panel missing on the bathroom door and markers where bullets pierced the door -- low down -- supporting Pistorius's argument that he thought she was an intruder and rushed out of bed to shoot through the door without his artificial legs on.

Pistorius said he got up to move a fan in from the balcony in the early hours of February 14. When he came back in, he heard a noise in the bathroom, and immediately went for his gun.

Only when he realized Steenkamp wasn't in bed did it dawn on him she was in the bathroom, he said. He told police he desperately tried to save her, prying open the bathroom door with a cricket bat.

Investigators found a trail of blood from the bathroom as he carried her from the bathroom downstairs, shouting for help.

The prosecution charges he deliberately targeted her, claiming he had taken the time to put on his prosthetic legs and hunted her down in the bathroom after a fight.