Kimberley - A 29-year-old Kimberley man committed suicide by hanging himself after his wife told him that she would be leaving him.
The body of Denzil Scoble was discovered hanging from a roof beam in his shack in Homelite by his best friend on Saturday.
He was declared dead on the scene.
After Scoble’s body was removed by pathology services, Scoble’s wife, Trooi White, sat crying uncontrollably in the small shack where her husband had hung himself.
They had been together for thirteen years.
White told the DFA that she had informed her husband that she would “finally” be leaving him and moving back to her hometown, during an argument between the two on Friday afternoon.
She had decided to spend the night with a friend, not far from the shack they shared.
“On Saturday morning, Denzil came to me and begged me to come home. I told him ‘no’, I just couldn’t do it again and that I did not want him any more. He told me that he would kill himself If I didn’t come back to him and said he couldn’t live without me. However, I stood my ground and told him it was over, after which he left,’ White said.
Neighbours indicated that they had last seen Scoble alive at around 11am on Saturday, when he was sitting on a rock outside the shack.
“He looked fine and not like someone who was about to kill himself,” one neighbour said.
Another neighbour, Louisa van der Linde, said that she was called to the shack at around 2pm by Scoble’s best friend, who had climbed through the window after Scoble did not respond to his knocking and calls.
“The friend came running and said I should come and assist him, as Scoble was hanging in the shack. He climbed through the window and opened the door from the inside and I saw Scoble hanging from a black rope. The friend grabbed Scoble’s body with one arm and cut the rope with the other, in the hope that his life might still be saved. After the rope was cut they both fell to the floor. Scoble was, however, already dead,” Van der Linde said.
Later that day, the black rope could still be seen hanging inside the shack as community members attempted to console a devastated White.
“I wanted to leave him but I did not want him dead. Oh God, can’t he just come back?” an inconsolable White was heard saying through her tears.
Community members supported White by telling her that she could not have predicted what Scoble would do and that it was “not her fault”.
They told the DFA that Scoble had regularly become “aggressive” towards White.
Scoble leaves behind three children.
Police spokesperson Sergeant Majang Skalkie yesterday confirmed that the police had opened an inquest docket following the apparent suicide of a man in Homelite.