adminAuxilia Katongomara Court Reporter
THE inquest into the death of a former British Special Forces (SAS) soldier who was found dead at his home in March last year opened at the Bulawayo Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
Robert Wood, 54, who ran a lucrative goldmine in Bulawayo, was reported to have committed suicide after he was found hanging in the spare room of a Morningside house that he rented with his mistress, Gugulethu Henrietta Dube, on the morning of March 9 last year.
Rob, as he was known to his friends, died after a night of heavy drinking with Dube at a local club.
His family, based in the United Kingdom, disputed that the dad-of-two — whose wife, Susan, lives in England — killed himself, saying they strongly believed he was murdered.
A postmortem conducted by local doctors gave the cause of death as asphyxia due to hanging and a pathologist recorded it as a suicide.
This is the second inquest after another was held in the United Kingdom in November 2013 where the coroner recorded an open verdict because there was not enough evidence to determine how he died.
The latest inquest opened before Provincial Magistrate Elias Magate yesterday with three witnesses being cross examined.
Robert’s brother, Ian Wood, who travelled from the United Kingdom together with a friend, told the court that he believed his brother had been killed.
A taxi driver, Mandlenkosi Nkala, told the court that he was one of the last people who saw Wood alive.
Nkala told the court that he spent the day with Dube driving her around in his taxi as she bought household items for the new house.
He said he dropped her at Bulawayo Athletics Club (BAC) at around 5PM but she called him to keep her company about 30 minutes later.
“Wood joined us and we were later joined by Nkosilathi Dube, a police detective,” said Nkala. He said they dropped the heavily intoxicated couple at their home after midnight. Nkala told the court that he received a phone call from Dube the following morning saying he had committed suicide.
“I asked a friend to accompany me to their house where I found Wood hanging from a burglar bar, with a brown leather belt attached to the buglar bar from the back of his head.
“I then decided to make a report at Hillside Police Station as she had not yet reported the death,” he said.
Ian wondered why Dube would call Nkala and not the police. Nkala answered that Dube had no cellphone, but mumbled an answer when quizzed how she had called him if she had no phone.
The third witness was Nkosilathi Dube who told the court that on the eve of Wood’s death, he joined Henrietta and Nkala at BAC at around 10PM. They were waiting for the businessman who was on his way from Harare. He said Woods arrived and joined them in their drinking spree until 1AM when Henrietta asked him to drive them home.
He said on arrival, the four got into the house and stayed for about 10 minutes before leaving the couple to sleep.
He said he was notified of Wood’s death the following morning at 10AM and he drove to Morningside where he found police officers attending to the scene. Dube said the body was still hanging when he arrived and was about 50cm from the ground.
The inquest continues today.
Online Reporter