KEY WITNESSES

JANE NEWCOMBE (PSYCHOLOGIST) “I’m saying, quite categorically, that I didn’t experience Susan as suicidal,” says the therapist whom Susan had been seeing since early 2016.

She says Susan was anxious rather than depressed, and so Newcombe says she was quite shocked to hear of Susan’s so-called suicide. She revealed Susan had been in contact with her during the conference weekend. DR DEIDRE ABRAHAMS (STATE FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST) She says Susan was dealt a heavy blow to the ribs before her death – she had broken ribs and blood in her lungs. Blood in her stomach and intestines indicated she’d coughed up blood and swallowed it. Abrahams explained Susan would’ve been in unbearable pain. She maintains the injuries the electrical cord left on Susan’s neck were inflicted after death. DR AKMAL COETZEE-KHAN (FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST) He told the court he believes Susan’s suicide was staged. Coetzee-Khan says her body showed signs of being strangled barehanded. She had blood on her feet and scratch marks under her chin as well as bleeding and abrasions on her left eyelid. He also found bruises on her knuckles and one wrist, which he considers defensive wounds.

The pooling of the blood in Susan’s body indicated she died in a horizontal position, and not vertically as she was found, he adds. Coetzee-Khan says red stains were found in the bedroom on the bed, pillow and mat.

In his postmortem report CoetzeeKhan said Susan had a bruise on her leg, which is symptomatic of battered-wife syndrome. In his testimony Jason said Susan sustained the bruising when she fell over while doing a handstand against the bedroom wall at their home in Bryanston. COLONEL DANIE POOLMAN (HEAD OF THE FORENSIC ENGINEERING SUBSECTION AT THE SAPS FORENSIC SCIENCE LABORATORY) He determined that the electrical cord of the curling iron Susan allegedly used would have broken holding a weight of 40kg. Susan weighed 52kg.