DRAMATIC MOMENTS IN COURT
WHATSAPP EXCHANGE Jason and Susan exchanged a number of insulting WhatsApps while they were at Spier, two cellphone experts testified.
Meanwhile Jason was sending Jolene doting messages. “All I can think of is you. I want to scream with frustration. I don’t want anything more in my life than to be with you,” he texted, to which she replied at 10.02pm on the night before Susan’s death, “My penguin forever.”
Shortly before she died Susan exchanged crude messages with Jolene. ‘I KILLED HER’ Susan’s brother Mark Holmes, who lives in Australia, testified that during an emotional phone call Jason told him three times, “I killed her.”
During cross-examination Mark said he’d understood these words to mean “emotional murder”. But he added that he’d never have expected his sister to take her own life over an affair. A BROKEN FIGURE IN A WHEELCHAIR After Jason failed to show up for court in February his representatives revealed he’d been admitted to a clinic in Cape Town because he was stressed and depressed. The judge ordered him to be fetched to court but when he failed to appear he was arrested at the clinic – he emerged in a wheelchair and spent the night in the police cells in Stellenbosch.
The next day he was brought to court in handcuffs but after his psychiatrist testified about his mental state he was readmitted to the clinic. His hearing continued two weeks later.