Cape Town - “You have to be deceitful or else it’s not an affair,” alleged wife murderer Jason Rohde said on Wednesday.
This emerged when his character came under scrutiny in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday.
State prosecutor Louis van Niekerk quizzed Rohde on why he had lied to his wife Susan that he had ended his relationship with his mistress, Jolene Alterskye, when in fact they were still seeing each other.
“You had lived a double life and lied to her,” Van Niekerk said. Rohde responded that the nature of an affair was lying and being deceitful.
Rohde is on trial for murder and defeating the ends of justice after Susan was found dead on July 24, 2016 with an electric cord around her neck. The cord was tied behind the bathroom door hook.
It’s the State’s case that Rohde killed Susan and used the cord to stage her death as a suicide.
The State alleges that Rohde lied to police about what really happened, as the post-mortem found the cause of death to be consistent with asphyxia and manual strangulation.
Van Niekerk interrogated Rohde about the cord, asking how many times it went around Susan’s neck, what type of knot was used and whether it was tied in a double strand. Rohde said he knew none of those details.
“I was focused on getting it off my wife’s neck. I paid no attention to that. All I can say is that it was tight,” Rohde said.
After Rohde’s examination-in-chief and Van Niekerk took over, Rohde asked Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe whether he could say something.
“I am guilty of being an adulterer...
“I take the blame and I have to live with the shame for the rest of my life. But divorce was an option for me, not murder. I am not a murderer,” he said.