Murder accused Jason Rohde says he is to blame for his wife, Susan’s, death.
In the Cape Town High Court on Monday and Tuesday his testimony wove a disturbing tapestry explaining the disintegration of his marriage, the golden thread being his deceit and lies while he tried to conceal his long distance affair with his Cape Town mistress.
Rohde claims he found his wife, Susan, in their hotel bathroom at the Spier wine estate near Stellenbosch two years ago and that she had committed suicide by hanging herself with a hair ironing cord from a hook behind the bathroom door.
The state, however, has argued that after a protracted and heated physical and verbal confrontation, which happened on the Spier grounds right after a black tie event on July 23 2016, Rohde strangled her to death and then staged her suicide by placing the hair ironing cord loosely around her neck and a towel hook.
On Tuesday the emotional former Lew Geffen Sotheby’s CEO said he blamed himself for Susan’s death and that his whole life imploded after she died.
“I thought of my children and how ashamed I was. I’m talking about that my behaviour caused their mom to go to this length and there can only be one person to blame for that and that’s me,” said Rohde.
