Cape Town - Property mogul Jason Rohde has been named as the man arrested on Tuesday morning for the murder of his wife, Susan, at Spier last month.
Forty-seven-year-old Susan Rohde’s body was found in a hotel room on the Spier wine estate near Stellenbosch, where the couple was staying to attend a function.
It was reported that her body was found with the cord of a hair-straightening iron around her neck.
Jason Rohde, 47, is chief executive of Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International in South Africa.
Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk said Rohde was arrested in his Joburg home by police at around 6.50am on Tuesday.
“This office confirms that a 47-year-old suspect was arrested earlier today for the murder of Susan Rohde on July 24, 2016, at a hotel near Lynedoch, Stellenbosch. He is due to appear in the Stellenbosch Magistrate’s Court soon on a charge of murder,” said Van Wyk.
Initial police investigation suggested that Susan’s death was a suicide. But three weeks ago, following a post-mortem report stating that the deceased was strangled to death, police reclassified the case to a murder investigation.
Rohde’s attorney Tony Mostert, of Mostert Attorneys, said on Tuesday: “We had an arrangement that police would not arrest him (Jason) and that they would inform us timeously if they planned to make an arrest so that we could make an immediate bail application.
“The plan was that they would drive him down to Cape Town and we in turn would immediately lodge a bail application at the Western Cape High Court,” Mostert said.
Last week the Weekend Argus quoted Mostert, acting on behalf of the Rohde family, as saying that Rohde was grappling with what was happening.
“Jason is obviously suffering from stress but is trying to be strong to support his three young daughters,” he said.
The attorney also expressed his disapproval of how the media was treating the case.
“This is a travesty, the man is going through grief with his three daughters and their names are being dragged in the mud. The media is exploiting his grief.”
Cape Argus