EXCLUSIVE: A source close to Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has claimed that the mining boss deleted text messages believed to have caused the family bodyguard’s mysterious death. The bodyguard, who was a director of the shady Dutton-funded Paladin group even after his death, is believed to have taken his own life after receiving the messages from Rinehart’s own daughter Ginia. Nour Ahmad reports.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Gina Rinehart’s family bodyguard, Jeremiah John Rouwhorst, may have just gotten a little clearer as sources close to the family begin to speak out.
Rouwhorst was pronounced dead on March 19, 2014 after suffering from cardiac arrest. He was only 35 years old. Three days before his death he was found ‘unconscious and naked’ in the luxury London hotel, the Dorchester, by his ‘friend’ Ginia Rinehart, the youngest and favourite daughter of mining mogul Gina Rinehart.
A Coroner’s Court in London revealed the bodyguard felt he embarrassed Ginia by getting drunk at a farewell party he threw for her the night before he was found. Rouwhorst texted Ginia that he had ‘disgraced’ her and was ‘tendering his resignation’ at 10.27am but the heiress did not see the message until midday.
When Ginia went to check on him and found him in that state she was reportedly ‘hysterical’ and a police officer told the court he witnessed her collapse at some point. The police officer would even speak to Australia’s richest person and mining boss Gina Rinehart over the phone, who expressed that the bodyguard’s excess drinking was out of character.
Despite reports that Rouwhorst had tried to hang himself that night, the coroner recorded an open verdict as he could not be certain of whether the death was a suicide or an accident.
The only known photograph of Jeremiah John Rouwhorst (Image: Supplied)
In late 2019, a friend of Rouwhorst had contacted True Crime News Weekly. The friend alleged that the bodyguard killed himself after Gina’s daughter Ginia sent him a torrent of “horrendous text messages” in the hours leading up to his death. It was also further alleged that Ginia and Rouwhorst were in a sexual relationship.
When TCNW contacted Rinehart’s secretary for comment, he called our articles “insensitive and malicious.”
However, now another source has come forward alleging the text messages did in fact exist and that it was the mining mogul herself who ordered for the messages to be deleted.
“It’s true that the received hateful text messages from Ginia were deleted from Mr Rouwhorst’s phone soon after his death,” the source said.
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“The mother, Mrs R flew to Paris straight after his death to escape media attention and disconnect herself from the death, her daughter had helped to cause.
“When realising the messages were still on the phone, Mrs R sent her bodyguard on the Eurostar to London to retrieve the phone and return to Paris with the phone, on the same day.”
The source then alleged that the messages were indeed the reason for the bodyguard to take his own life.
“Having accessed the password of the phone, the hateful messages were soon deleted. The death and the trigger for it, the text messages has been covered up,” the source said.
The source then implied that there was even more skeletons in the Rinehart’s luxurious closet.
“Your journalist should keep digging.”
Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, who threatened TCNW via her secretary (Image: Wikipedia / Supplied)
Two days before his death, Rouwhorst was commended for his bravery for his time serving in East Timor in 2007. Prior to working for the Rineharts, the bodyguard was an ex-special services officer and had attempted to help a victim during a riot by administering first aid.
Another interesting detail about Rouwhorst came to light when True Crime News Weekly broke the story on a suspected widescale money-laundering involving the Federal Government in early 2019.
The scheme was sponsored by the recently announced Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton and involved handing more than half-a-billion dollars in taxpayers money to a little-known private security company called Paladin Group Pty Ltd (now Paladin Aus Pty Ltd.)
The supposed reasoning behind this was that Paladin would use the funds to provide security, maintenance, IT services and local transport at the Manus Island detention centre for asylum seekers. However, vehicles were said to be run down, guards were believed to be getting paid $2 an hour and refugees were dying from mild medical conditions in the concentration camps operated by Paladin.
The main director for this shady beneficiary was an even shadier man by the name of Craig Ross Thrupp, who reportedly left “a string of bad debts and failed contract across Asia.” The other director of Paladin was Rouwhorst, who was listed as being a director from 2009 up until 2015, a whole year after his death.
Ginia Rinehart is believed to be her mother’s favourite daughter (Image: Wikilogy / Supplied)
The fact that Gina Rinehart’s employee was a director of this suspicious company is very curious and TCNW presented these links very factually in our initial investigation into Paladin.
Rinehart, who has infamously said that Australians should work for $2 a day ‘just like Africans’, sent True Crime News Weekly a threat via her company secretary after the article was published. In the email, the secretary demanded our tabloid “refrain from implying online or in future that either Hancock or Ms Rinehart has had any association with Paladin.”
This perhaps created more questions than answers and amused this publication as TCNW never accused Rinehart of being heavily involved in Paladin’s dealings.
However, now Gina Rinehart may have more to worry about as her alleged cover up of her daughter’s hateful messages comes to light. To go to these lengths for her youngest child, it supports claims that Ginia is the billionaire’s favourite daughter.
After all, Ginia was the only one who took her mother’s side in the estimated $4 billion trust fund feud that began in 2011.
In a 2020 court case, eldest daughter Bianca even went as far as to accuse Ginia of doing her mother’s bidding. In the case, Ginia was referred to as being financially dependent on her mother as well as being the ‘chosen successor’ in running the family business, Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd.
If the allegations of the hateful text messages are indeed true, then Ginia will have no problem fitting in with the shady, top dogs of the business world.
Additional reporting and research by Serkan Ozturk
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