Murder or suicide? Jurors hear opening statements in Coronado hanging trial

The Republic | azcentral.com

Lawyers for the family of a woman found nude, bound and hanging at a Coronado mansion seven years ago told San Diego jurors Wednesday they know who killed her.

The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office and Sheriff's Department officially ruled Rebecca Zahau's death a suicide in 2011, but Zahau's family said they got it wrong.

Lawyers opened their wrongful death civil lawsuit by saying the brother of her millionaire boyfriend strangled Zahau after a botched sexual assault.

Attorney C. Keith Greer said Adam Shacknai, who was alone with Zahau at the 27-room beachfront mansion, attacked her, then staged the scene to make it look as if she took her own life. The death scene included makeshift ligatures, a homemade noose and a bizarre message scrawled in paint on the door.

Dan Webb, Shacknai's lawyer, countered there was no evidence connecting him to the murder. Only Zahau's fingerprints and DNA were found on the knives and the ropes she used to bind herself, he said.

Webb hammered home the point that Shacknai had been questioned by homicide investigators in Zahau's death — and they had cleared him.

Because the case was filed in civil court, Shacknai does not face any criminal charges and cannot be sentenced to prison.

Family gathers after tragic accident

Adam Shacknai is the brother of Jonah Shacknai, founder and former CEO Scottsdale-based Medicis Pharmaceuticals.

At the time of Zahau's death, Adam Shacknai worked for a tugboat company that operated on the Mississippi River in Memphis. His presence at the Spreckels Mansion, just a few hundred yards from the landmark Hotel del Coronado, was prompted by a family tragedy.

Two days earlier, Jonah Shacknai's 6-year-old son, Max, fell from a second-floor landing and was taken to the hospital in a coma.

Adam Shacknai sits in court during the civil trial underway Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018, in San Diego for the wrongful death of Rebecca Zahau. The wrongful-death lawsuit going to trial in San Diego will revisit the 2011 hanging death of a woman at mansion on the Coronado peninsula two days after a boy fell to his death there.

On July 11, 2011, emergency crews were called to the Spreckels Mansion after Max was found lifeless on the floor beneath a stairwell landing. The Coronado Police Department, which handled the investigation of Max's death, determined that it was accidental.

Coronado police said Max appeared to have been running down a hallway at the top of the stairs when he pitched over a second-floor railing, crashed onto a chandelier and hit a banister before falling to the floor.

As the Shacknai family converged in San Diego, authorities said Zahau was consumed by grief and remorse over the fate of the boy who was under her care when he was hurt.

Woman's family denies suicide

Zahau's mother and sister, who maintain she was murdered, have offered multiple theories in their determination to prove she would not have taken her own life.

They initially filed a $10 million lawsuit accusing Adam Shacknai of conspiring with Jonah Shacknai's ex-wife and her twin sister to kill Zahau in retaliation for allowing Max to be injured.

The Zahaus dropped Dina Shacknai and her sister Nina Romero from their lawsuit last year after surveillance footage showed they were at the hospital when authorities say Zahau died.

They instead focused solely on Adam Shacknai and now claim he murdered Zahau as part of a sexual assault.

Zahau's mother, Pari Zahau, and her sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner, said they no longer are seeking monetary damages. They want a jury to conclude Adam Shacknai was responsible for her death, to vindicate Zahau and show she did not kill herself.

File photo of the Spreckels Mansion, former Coronado home of Jonah Shacknai.

Zahau-Loehner told jurors Wednesday that her sister was deeply spiritual, echoing sentiments she has expressed for years about her sister's religious beliefs and her lust for life.

She was murdered, said Zahau-Loehner, who told reporters from The Arizona Republic at the time that she had talked to her sister by phone hours before she died. There was nothing to indicate her sister was contemplating suicide, she said.

"She sounded tired, but other than that, she sounded like Rebecca," Zahau-Loehner said in the 2011 interview. "I wouldn't call her distraught. She was upset, very concerned and very worried over Max's condition, just like any caregiver or parent would be."

Zahau, who immigrated with her sister to America from Myanmar more than 15 years ago, lived in New York and California before moving to Phoenix with her ex-husband in 2007. She worked as a technician for a Phoenix-area eye clinic. They were divorced in 2010.

Grisly scene at the mansion

Police said Adam Shacknai called 911 about 6:45 p.m. July 13, 2011, and reported finding Zahau hanging from a balcony. As he spoke with police, he cut her down.

What San Diego Sheriff's Department investigators found at the Spreckels Mansion on July 13 had the hallmarks of murder. Zahau was found hanging from a balcony overlooking a courtyard. She was bound hand and feet. She was nude. A shirt was stuffed in her mouth.

The rope noose cinched around her neck was tied to bedroom furniture inside the room. On the door of the bedroom, officers found a cryptic message in black paint: "She saved him. Can he save her?"

About seven weeks after Zahau's death, officials with the Coronado Police Department, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office and the sheriff's homicide squad concluded that Zahau killed herself.

Judge Katherine Bacal in San Diego presides over the civil trial in the wrongful death of Rebecca Zahau. The wrongful-death lawsuit going to trial in San Diego will revisit the 2011 hanging death of a woman at mansion on the Coronado peninsula two days after a boy fell to his death there.

They demonstrated how she tied the knots, placed the noose around her neck and threw herself over the balcony. Dr. Jonathan Lucas of the Medical Examiner's Office, who performed Zahau's autopsy, said her hand was still clutching the end of the rope that she used to tighten the binding around her wrists.

Zahau's DNA was found on the knots of the rope and on one of the knives she used to cut the rope. Black paint was found on her hands and the rope. Her fingerprints were found on the paint tube and the other of the two knives. Her foot and heel prints were found in the dust on the balcony.

No other DNA or fingerprints were found, Nemeth said.

Child's mother petitioned for review of case

A year after the deaths, Dina Shacknai claimed an investigation she commissioned found her son likely died of a beating.

She petitioned the Coronado Police Department to reopen the case based on new evidence. A forensic pathologist hired to review the case said Max was too small to fly over the railing and that his injuries were not consistent with a fall.

The pathologist said it was more likely Max was assaulted in the hallway of the mansion while under Zahau's care. No suspect was ever named.

The police refused to reopen the case.