Defence pathologist supports Jason Rohde’s story
THERE is no evidence to prove Susan Rohde was smothered, according to defence forensic pathologist Dr Reggie Perumal.
He testified yesterday in former property mogul Jason Rohde’s murder trial, where he is accused of strangling his wife Susan and then staging her death as a suicide.
On July 24, 2016, Susan was found hanging by her neck from an electrical cord tied to the hook of a bathroom door of the Spier Wine farm hotel room she and her husband shared. In Jason’s defence, Perumal said that during his post-mortem examination he found nothing to contradict Jason’s version of events, that they had fought and she had later hanged herself.
He said State forensic pathologists Dr Akmal Khan and Dr Deidre Abrahams had failed to do a mandatory facial flap skin dissection, which would confirm a cause of death of manual strangulation consistent with asphyxia (deprivation of oxygen to the brain).
“The dissection is mandatory in any woman who is found dead… In teaching of violence against women and children and the high smothering, it’s routine,” he said.
He told the court he had located the point of suspension in the ligature mark around the neck where the knot was tied, as opposed to the State’s experts’ findings.
“It’s my opinion, looking at the ligature’s entirety, I concluded that the most likely part of suspension (knot) will be related to the right ear,” he said.
Perumal demonstrated before the Western Cape High Court how the ligature went on a low slope from right ear around the neck, below the left ear and on an upward slope just behind the right ear.
“The imprint is best consistent with an electric cord. It doesn’t leave the same amount of friction as a rope with a rough surface would,” Perumal said.
In Abrahams’ testimony she said Susan suffered severe trauma to her lungs and wouldn’t have been able to defend herself from Jason, and had swallowed blood. Perumal will continue his testimony today.