South Africa - Susan Rohde, 47, murdered, Stellenbosch, 24 July 2016

[JudgeJudi]

O/T I came across this quite by chance. I don’t use any Apple devices and don’t use any type of mobile phone because I’m still in the Jurassic era and am happy to remain there.

Not only will people who cheat on their significant others find it useful, but so will everyone who uses Apple products. For all I know it may apply to other brands too.

Cheaters: This is how you're going to get caught

It would seem that the Rohdes weren't using Apple because Susan may have been able to monitor everything he was doing while he was completely unaware of the fact. Imagine the ammunition she would have been able to use against him.

 

[JudgeJudi]

Cross-posting here but for the latest developments in Panayiotou's case read the last two posts.

GUILTY - South Africa - Jayde Panayiotou, 28, Port Elizabeth, 21 April 2015

 

[JudgeJudi]

In Rohde’s version, two things happen. He’s on a bed, asleep, and then he’s at the bathroom door. Going through it step by step:

1. According to Rohde’s affidavit, he went to sleep at about 03:30. At about 07:00 both Susan and Jason woke up. Susan was still furious with him. Susan still looked very upset. Jason turned on his side and went back to sleep. It’s strange that Rohde has himself awake at 07:00, even though he does nothing. The showing of the message seems to be about a) confirming and time-stamping that Susan is alive [Dr Coetzee-Khan believes time of death is 05:40], b) confirming that Susan is still worried about Jolene, and c) directing scrutiny towards the WhatsApp messages – basically asking onlookers to check Susan’s phone and see, ah, so she responded to Jolene’s message at 07:06…

It was supposedly at this time – 07:06 – that Susan sent the final WhatsApp to Jolene. It would be interesting to check the computer logs to see if there is any activity. Rohde saying he was awake is an interesting volunteering of information.

Rohde Crime Scene Schematic: What else are we missing? [ANALYSIS]

Nick van der Leek (@HiRezLife) | Twitter

 

[JudgeJudi]

2. When he woke up he couldn’t get into the bathroom door.

Rohde says he knew the door was locked from the inside, and he couldn’t open it. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to notice his wife isn’t lying next to him when he woke up. He goes from waking up immediately to the bathroom door.

This is the part that doesn’t make much sense. Rohde can’t get into the door, so he phones his wife. It’s not clear whether he calls out her name. He also leans in to see if he can hear the sounds of bathwater. Then he kicks the door. What does he not do? Well, why not go around and knock on the bathroom window, or see if he can see into the bathroom window? The bathroom window is immediately above the bath and opaque.

Even though he’s right at the door, he doesn’t go out the front door, or open it, to see if there are any cleaning staff walking outside. Since there’s a big conference, it’s likely that they would be moving around as late as 08:22. And what has he been doing for 22 minutes since waking up at 8? He doesn’t check the window. Instead he calls reception, and only after calling reception does he try to kick down the door.

Imagine Rohde chose the bathroom as his crime scene, what would he need to be aware of? Since the bathroom window was facing public walkways, it’s likely Rohde was very aware of the potential for passersby to see into the bathroom, especially if the lights were on inside. So he would close the shutters, and perhaps keep the lights off as far as possible. He’d also need to do the staging, if he was doing the staging, at a time when afterparty folks were mostly likely to be asleep. This makes 04:00 to 05:00 seem like a reasonable time of death – if Susan was murdered.

Rohde describes the door as solid and that it wouldn’t move an inch when he kicked it. Was it really that solid that if you intended kicking it open you wouldn’t be able to? Or was his heart not into it? Was it more important to have someone there witnessing him opening the door and dramatically “finding” Susan, and showing himself to be surprised and emotional?
Rohde Crime Scene Schematic: What else are we missing? [ANALYSIS]

Nick van der Leek (@HiRezLife) | Twitter

 

[JudgeJudi]

3. When the handyman arrives, according to Rohde he doesn’t allow the handyman to open the door. That’s why he’s there. Instead, Rohde opens the door and the handyman is standing on the front door side of the suite. Since toilet door open inwards, from the handyman’s vantage point as Rohde describes it, he can’t see into the bathroom even as Rohde opens the door. This allows Rohde to monopolise the reality of what is going on behind the door as he opens it – particularly the tightness of the knot and the number of loops around the door hook.

Rohde Crime Scene Schematic: What else are we missing? [ANALYSIS]

Nick van der Leek (@HiRezLife) | Twitter

 

[JudgeJudi]

4. At point 4, Rohde is on the other side of the door, immediately lifting Susan out of the hanging position, immediately contaminating and changing the crime scene. The handyman, Desmond Daniels is in the perfect position, wedged half against the door and the door frame to sort of see Rohde “innocently” coming to the rescue of his wife, and also having his view of the hair iron cord partially obscured by the door. Almost the moment Daniels sees it, Rohde changes it.

Rohde let Daniels into the room but he also led him into the room. One question to ask is was the door open when Rohde urgently awaited Daniels? If it wasn’t open, why wasn’t it open?

“When I opened the door I saw a person lying down towards the basin. I opened the door about 30 centimetres ajar and saw the body from the knee down to the feet”.

“The accused (referring to Jason) called ‘Suzy’.

“He went in and there was silence for about two to three seconds. He then called me to help. He said I should help him remove the cord from the neck,” said Daniels.

This is a huge giveaway. If it was a genuine suicide, Rohde’s attention would be 100% on his wife, trying to see if she was alive and trying to help her. Instead his attention is on Daniels. The silence is also out of the ordinary, as if Rohde is intuiting what his witness is thinking, seeing and doing while he stage-manages the scene.

[Daniels] said a curling iron was tied around the hook of the door with the tong facing up above the door with the plug hanging downwards. “I removed the cord from her neck. It was not tight around the neck so I easily loosened it,” said Daniels.

We get another version of this same testimony from timeslive.co.za:

When he entered the bathroom‚ Susan was lying naked on the floor with the flex of a curling iron tied around her neck‚ Daniels said. Rohde held Susan while Daniels untied the flex.

That doesn’t make any sense. The first thing anyone would do in that situation would be to untie the cord. It’s not as if Susan weighed a ton or was otherwise out of reach. This is why Rohde describes her as being very heavy – he must explain why he didn’t remove the cord around her neck.

Rohde Crime Scene Schematic: What else are we missing? [ANALYSIS]

Nick van der Leek (@HiRezLife) | Twitter

 

[JudgeJudi]

After untying Susan, Daniels said he left Jason in the bathroom with her. He said he went out and called the control room to notify police and ambulance. He didn’t enter the room again on that day.

From this we find out that Daniels took the steps to call police and ambulance, not Rohde, and also that he removed the cord from her neck, not Rohde. A critical area of contradiction is that Daniels found the cord not to be tight, whereas Rohde claimed it was tight, in fact very tight according to him.

This murkiness also explains why stage-managing Daniels’ entry was potentially necessary. If Susan didn’t commit suicide, and if the staging was clumsy and unconvincing, but couldn’t be improved upon, then Rohde may have had to mitigate these details by having a witness see things while hoping he wouldn’t notice trivial details such as knots, tightness and whether Susan appeared long dead or not.

In sum, it seems it was critical to Rohde that he alter the crime scene as quickly as possible after introducing a witness. It’s for this reason, as soon as other witnesses arrived Susan was no longer hanging on the door, but lying on the floor on her back.

This may not be accidental either. Since Susan [according to Dr. Khan] died on her back in a supine position, Rohde may have been smart enough to know she needed to be in that position when everyone else saw her. This may also indicate that Susan lay dead on her back for a few hours post mortem, perhaps from around 04:00 to 06:45. If she lay dead on her back for about three hours, and if the suicide was staged shortly or fairly shortly after that, before she was unstaged – perhaps from 07:00 – 08:22 – then the “hanging” position only lasted 90 minutes, or even less. As rigor mortis set in, it would have become more and more difficult to stage a stiff body according to the psychological prescriptions of a potential rather than actual suicide.

Rohde Crime Scene Schematic: What else are we missing? [ANALYSIS]

Nick van der Leek (@HiRezLife) | Twitter

 

[Tortoise]

O/T I came across this quite by chance. I don’t use any Apple devices and don’t use any type of mobile phone because I’m still in the Jurassic era and am happy to remain there.

Not only will people who cheat on their significant others find it useful, but so will everyone who uses Apple products. For all I know it may apply to other brands too.

Cheaters: This is how you're going to get caught

It would seem that the Rohdes weren't using Apple because Susan may have been able to monitor everything he was doing while he was completely unaware of the fact. Imagine the ammunition she would have been able to use against him.

I think they must have had iphones because Jason mentioned using Siri which is an Apple product. That is why (I think because I also don't use a mobile phone - but putting my mind to trying to understand Nick) Nick proposes that Jason could have messaged Jolene from Susan's phone without even touching her phone, straight from his phone and the iCloud.

 

[Interested Bystander]

I do have a mobile phone but it is a Windows not an iPhone. I know from family members who use Apple phones that they can check exactly where each of them is. It is how my son found his wife was cheating on him. I know my granddaughter checks on her very long term boyfriend every day to see where he is so it must be possible to check on other people too but I am unsure whether or not it is with their consent. I find this checking on people more than a little disturbing. I don't think one can send a message from one's own phone and make it appear to have been sent from another phone but I stand to be corrected.

Re the locked bathroom door. Does anyone know whether one can lock it from the bedroom side? I know it can be unlocked from the bedroom side. If it is impossible to lock from the bedroom, how did it become locked? Could Rohde have exited via a window? Was their room on the ground floor? Sorry, I haven't been following closely and this may have already been discussed.

 

[Tortoise]

Yes the door can be locked and unlocked from the bedroom side, it's a child-friendly lock. It is a slot which can be turned using a coin or anything with a flat end like a screwdriver. They have been discussing in court that there were teaspoons in the room that would have worked the same.

Regarding the phone, Nick has done some research on it which he has published recently on his blog which indicates it is possible.

 

[Tortoise]

It's this kind of lock IB, this isn't the actual one but just to show you what I mean

 

[Tortoise]

This is Nick's research on the phone messages Jason Rohde Trial: The #1 Hurdle for the Prosecution

 

[Interested Bystander]

Thanks for the info Tortoise. In our last house we had the type on the left and I often had to release the children from the bathroom when they had locked themselves in unintentionally, I think, just fiddling as youngsters do. However, I never tried to lock the door via the "screw head" but on thinking about it, it probably would be quite easy by reversing the twist. We used to use a coin to get in but it was only ever to open it. On the inside of our bathroom doors was a twist button as you show and this was what the children used to lock themselves in.

 

[Interested Bystander]

Tortoise, I expect Nick has done his homework but that is very scary. Just think how easy it would be to implicate somebody in an evil deed. Why on earth do the phone providers allow it. I cannot think of one good reason but, thereagain, I am not devious and I think one would have to be to even think of doing something like faking a message.

 

[Tortoise]

Tortoise, I expect Nick has done his homework but that is very scary. Just think how easy it would be to implicate somebody in an evil deed. Why on earth do the phone providers allow it. I cannot think of one good reason but, thereagain, I am not devious and I think one would have to be to even think of doing something like faking a message.

I would imagine that there are safeguards that can be adopted but if you're not expecting to be murdered by the person you live with and share devices with you might not think of using them.

 

[Interested Bystander]

I would imagine that there are safeguards that can be adopted but if you're not expecting to be murdered by the person you live with and share devices with you might not think of using them.

Probably so; I am not au fait with all the possibilities with these phones. It may sound odd but I wouldn't want my husband reading my messages. It is a bit like opening other people's letters. Something we never do. I have absolutely nothing to hide but it does seem very intrusive. I wonder how many users are unaware this can be done. Probably mainly the older generation who are not so tech savvy. I have had messages from girlfriends who have sent them in confidence. Allowing others to read one's messages seems somewhat risky to me.

 

[Tortoise]

Probably so; I am not au fait with all the possibilities with these phones. It may sound odd but I wouldn't want my husband reading my messages. It is a bit like opening other people's letters. Something we never do. I have absolutely nothing to hide but it does seem very intrusive. I wonder how many users are unaware this can be done. Probably mainly the older generation who are not so tech savvy. I have had messages from girlfriends who have sent them in confidence. Allowing others to read one's messages seems somewhat risky to me.

I agree. I'm just thinking that possibly Jason agreed to it at a time when Susan demanded proof that he was over his relationship with Jolene. He did say she caught him in the bathroom swiping to delete a message, so I don't know how that could play into the technicalities of it. That was the message that set off the chain of events in Susan blocking him at the door and Jason leaving the room to go and see Jolene.

 

[Tortoise]

Actually I just realised I'm buying into Jason's narrative completely when I say Susan blocked him at the door. There are no independent witnesses to that and it could be a complete lie because it's Jason's explanation for grabbing Susan's neck. Susan didn't show up immediately at Jolene's room, she came after, and there are no witnesses to them pulling at each other on the way there, yet that is his explanation for swinging his arm back and hitting her in the face. No one said anything about seeing Susan's nose bleeding when she was at the door calling Jason to come out.

Why would she follow him if she was bleeding from the nose? She wasn't saying look what you've done to me, she was telling him to leave the room.

I think his whole story is a lie because he remembers every movement he made in a fast moving dynamic situation - just like van Breda's imaginary fight with the intruder.

 

[tmar]

O/T I came across this quite by chance. I don’t use any Apple devices and don’t use any type of mobile phone because I’m still in the Jurassic era and am happy to remain there.

Not only will people who cheat on their significant others find it useful, but so will everyone who uses Apple products. For all I know it may apply to other brands too.

Cheaters: This is how you're going to get caught

It would seem that the Rohdes weren't using Apple because Susan may have been able to monitor everything he was doing while he was completely unaware of the fact. Imagine the ammunition she would have been able to use against him.

With 'Cheaters' this could be invaluable.
O/T: I have learnt a great deal how 'iCloud', using their own phone, has recorded a ?? suspect in the murder of 2 young girls, in an ongoing investigation. These girls have provided, possible important evidence.

 

[Tortoise]

Nick van der Leek on Twitter

Click on link to read tweet with attachment.