During Sunday service the family sat on the far left corner of the gallery in the Dutch Reformed Church. Deon Steenkamp, 44, a farmer, was a church deacon and his wife, Christel, 43, was a popular baker in the town.
Their children Don, 15, and Marthella, 14, loved tent-pegging, a sport which involves picking up targets off the ground with a sword or lance while on horseback. Don is a member of the sport's junior national team.
On Good Friday, Deon Steenkamp and his wife and daughter were shot dead on their sheep farm, Naauwhoek. Their bodies were discovered by Don . He told police he found them after he returned from doing chores in the barn, about 50m from the house.
In the nine days since the triple murders, questions have plagued the town - among them whether the killings were farm murders or a personal dispute gone wrong.
Members of the Steenkamps' extended family refused to comment. Joe Scholtz, a family friend and chairman of the Griekwastad Agricultural Union, said he did not believe the murders were a farm attack.
"There'd be signs of housebreaking, the family tied and tortured and the women raped," he said. "There's usually violence as perpetrators ransack the house looking for guns, money and jewellery to take. This house was still neat."
A police official, who asked not to be named, told the Sunday Times that R60000 was still in the safe after the murders.
According to the police officer, Don told police he had heard shots at about 6pm and found his parents and sister dead in the TV room. He said his father's guns - a .22 hunting rifle and a .357 revolver - were lying at the gate.
The weapons have been sent for ballistic testing.
The victims had each been shot twice - once in the head, once in the body.
At the memorial service on Thursday, minister Piet Otto told hundreds of mourners that there would be mercy for the killers only if they confessed.
"Who does something like this? Is it possible that someone can be so cruel and so senselessly take life away from people so easily?" Otto asked.
Emotional and distraught at the memorial service, Don sat between his two grandmothers, Bettie Steenkamp and Martie Massyn. The family have shielded him from the media since news of the murders broke.
The community this week described the Steenkamps as Christians who were very generous and kind-hearted.
Longtime friend Bennie Jordaan said Deon ''was very good with his hands. He was rational and a good listener."
Jordaan said the Steenkamps lived for their children.
Said Jordaan: "They were an extremely close family. You never heard them fight or shout at each other. They were a model family."
But the Steenkamps' farm workers said Deon had been a hot-tempered man who often screamed at his wife, children and workers.
"He was a good boss and paid us well and on time, but he would shout at us. Later we would work together again nicely," said Abraham van Rooi, who was visibly shaken by the murders.
His brother, Hendrick, who also worked on the farm, recollected how Steenkamp poisoned dozens of the town's dogs after locals used them when they stole sheep from his father's farm. Workers said Steenkamp recently shot one of the family's sheep dogs, Princess, after she bit a puppy.
Northern Cape police spokeswoman Captain Cherelle Ehlers said the police investigation was still under way and could not give further comment.
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