Wife too heavy for cord to hold
Expert dismisses defence’s suicide claim in Rohde case
THE ELECTRIC cord used in Susan Rohde’s death would have failed to hold her full weight had she been hanging. This is according to the head of the engineering faculty at the police laboratory, Constable Daniel Poolman.
Yesterday, Poolman told the Western Cape High Court that the cord, if in a single strap, could hold up to 39kg. Susan weighed 51kg. He said if the cord was stretched over the limit, it would have failed and would not have been able to revert itself back to its elastic form.
“A cord like this is not made to handle tensile forces, its made to conduct electricity. The cable would fail if force of more than 40kg is applied,” he said.
Defence advocate Graham van der Spuy asked if this would be the same in a case of partial hanging, where the feet touched the ground.
Poolman said he could not comment as such tests were not done by him.
He also commented on the ligature mark on Susan’s neck. He said based on his experience, which included engineering and forensic work in vehicle accidents, that for a mark to be on the front part of the neck, Susan must have been strangled from behind.
Susan, the wife of former property mogul, Jason Rohde, was found dead in a locked bathroom in a room they shared at the Spier Wine Estate, on July 24, 2016.
She was found with an electric cord coiled around her neck. The cord had been tied to the hook of the bathroom door.
It is the State’s case that she was murdered by her husband, but the defence argues that it was suicide.
Spier Wine Estate general manager Joep Schoof also testified that it was alleged by the defence that his employee and the handyman, who first witnessed Susan’s body, Desmond Daniels, had been coached.
The defence made the allegation two weeks ago, after pictures of Daniels and Schoof having lunch while Daniels was still under oath, had surfaced.
“Spier has no interest, gain or loss other than our team members who need to be here in court,” said Schoof.
He said the hotel was responsible for getting Daniels to court and whenever they did speak it was not about the case. “I told him I don’t want to talk about the trial. We had lunch, we spoke about the rain, water, his family – those kind of topics.”