Britain's Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin was trying to retrieve her shoes so she could escape a Syrian army bombardment when she was killed, her newspaper reports.
Details of her last hours have emerged as efforts continue to rescue journalists wounded alongside her in the Baba Amr district of Homs last week.
They had followed the Middle Eastern custom of taking off their shoes when they went into a building housing a rebel press centre, and tried to recover them as rockets fell, The Sunday Times said.
US-born Colvin, 56, was on the ground floor on Wednesday when missiles hit the upper floors.
The journalists, including Paul Conroy, a photographer working for The Sunday Times, three French nationals and a Spaniard, were covered in dust but unhurt.
They prepared to flee but had to get their shoes first.
Colvin ran to the hall, where she had left hers, but when she got there, a rocket landed at the front of the building, just a few metres away.
The blast killed her and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik.
Conroy, in a nearby room, was hit by shrapnel in the leg and stomach, and French journalist Edith Bouvier suffered multiple leg fractures.
The newspaper said hopes had faded for the rescue of Conroy and Bouvier, who both urgently need medical treatment, and the others.
Reports said the evacuation had run into trouble because of distrust between the two sides during a ceasefire.
Conroy was reported to be refusing to leave without Colvin's body despite being in danger of potentially life-threatening infection if his wounds were not treated.
Colvin's partner sent a message saying she had always been concerned about the living and "please let no more people die ... for her body".
Seven rebels were found dead with their hands tied after trying to smuggle medicines into Baba Amr to help the journalists and other injured civilians. The medicines were scattered and two other rebels were missing, the newspaper said.
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