Mistress texted wife on day she was found dead

SUSAN Rohde, the wife of property mogul Jason Rohde, interacted with her husband’s mistress Jolene Alterskye at least three times via text on the morning she was found dead.

Yesterday, cellphone expert Heremias Engelbrecht told the Western Cape High Court Susan and Alterskye were in communication at the alleged time of her murder.

Engelbrecht said at 5.50am Alterskye sent Susan a WhatsApp message, she sent another at 7.02am and Susan responded at 7.06am. Communication extracted from Susan’s cellphone cannot confirm that she sent them. The content of the messages were not divulged in court.

The chats were deleted from Alterskye’s phone two days after the murder.

The last chat between Jason and Alterskye was at 10.45am the day before the murder. Chats between Alterskye and Jason were deleted on August 8, 2016.

He said he did not do any searches on whether Susan or Jason used their phones to research suicide.

Susan died on July 24 last year. It was believed she had committed suicide and had hanged herself on the bathroom door at the Spier Wine Estate. However, police later opened a murder investigation and Jason was charged.

Forensic pathologist Akmal Khan said cause of death was lack of oxygen, following manual strangulation.

After cross-examination he conceded he could have got the time of death wrong and she could have died between 2am and 8am.