[imagesource: Anthony Molyneaux]
In July 2016, Susan Rohde was found dead in the bathroom of a hotel room at Spier Wine Estate.
Her husband, Jason Rohde, insisted that she had committed suicide, using the cord of her hair curling iron, after finding out that his affair with real estate agent Jolene Alterskye was not over.
Western Cape High Court Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe disagreed and found Rohde guilty of murder, ordering that he serve 20 years in prison.
The former Lew Geffen Sotheby’s CEO was also found guilty of attempting to cover up the murder, and staging the scene in a way that made it look like his wife had taken her own life.
Rohde is now trying to get the Supreme Court of Appeal to overturn Salie-Hlophe’s ruling, with proceedings taking place yesterday.
News24 reports that the Appeal Court has questioned whether there is evidence backing up Rohde’s claims that his wife had taken her own life:
…the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) says Rohde’s account of Susan’s death is nothing more than a desperate attempt to evade responsibility for assaulting, strangling, and asphyxiating her. It says he deliberately staged her murder scene to make it look like she had committed suicide.
Evidence showed that Rohde swallowed a significant amount of blood before she died, which casts doubt on claims she took her own life:
Rohde’s advocate Francois van Zyl SC later conceded that, “… quite an amount of blood”, had been found inside Susan Rohde when her body was autopsied, but argued that she had fallen the previous night – during a period where she had her husband had fought over his affair with Alterskye.
Judge Ian van der Merwe questioned that account of events, saying such a fall “never happened”, although he did agree with van Zyl when the advocate argued that Salie-Hlophe had “got it wrong” in finding that Rohde had been smothered with a hotel room pillow.
Rohde was granted R200 000 bail in December 2019 while waiting to appeal his sentence, under the condition that he reside at his home in Plettenberg Bay.
Another of Rohde’s counsel, William King, attempted to place doubt around Salie-Hlophe’s finding that the murder formed part of a violent attack.
From a second News24 report:
King then tried to argue that, in circumstances where a singular action “like the grabbing of a hand around a throat” had resulted in death, the court should, at the very least, consider imposing correctional supervision as a potential sentence.
Van der Merwe responded:
“Let’s not carried away here. This is a very, very serious crime and we must start at 15 years [the minimum sentence for murder] as a starting point.”
Prosecutor Louis van Niekerk argued that Rohde had violently beaten his wife during the attack which claimed her life.
Judgment in the case has been reserved (judges can give their decision at a later date in writing, after the trial or hearing), and Rohde remains out on bail.
