“When I looked at photographs and the tool‚ I questioned how did this person hang herself with this cord.” This question plagued Danie Poolman‚ head of engineering subsection forensics‚ as he testified in court on Thursday when the evidence of the crime scene of Susan Rohde's death was presented to him.
Former Lew Geffen CEO Jason Rohde stands accused of murdering his wife Susan Rohde at Spier wine farm in 2016. He maintains that his wife committed suicide.
“As the cable hangs here it does not correspond with how the body was found‚” Poolman said. “I was informed that the top part of the tool was tied to the hook and the bottom part tied around the neck.”
Poolman explained to the court that since the cord of the hair tool is 3 metres in length and 5mm in thickness‚ it would only break in a double strand at 77kg. Susan weighed 52 kg.
According to the Spier maintenance man who discovered her body in the bathroom she was hanging from a single strand. “There was no section that was overly stretched or deformed. I could not see any failure on the internal structure (of the cord) on X-ray either‚” said Poolman.
