Rebecca Zahau Case: New Information for San Diego Police?

The strange story surrounding the mysterious death of Rebecca Zahau in the wealthy seaside town of Coronado has gotten stranger. The story began the morning of July 13, when Rebecca Zahau, 32, was found bound, gagged and hanging nude from a balcony at the oceanfront Spreckels mansion. A message found painted on a door in the house “She saved him can you save her.”

The San Diego Police declared her death a suicide, claiming she was distraught over the injuries her boyfriend’s son suffered during a fall in the mansion while in her care two days prior. The boy later died of his injuries. Rebecca’s boyfriend, Jonah Shacknai, a wealthy CEO of a pharmaceutical company, was at the hospital the night of her death, per police reports.

Public speculation has been rife with possible players, the motives for wanting Rebecca dead, their proximity and alibis the night of her death. Rebecca’s family insists she would not commit suicide and with their lawyer, Anne Bremner, they have fought to reopen the case. They had Rebecca exhumed and a second autopsy performed by famed pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht . The results were televised on the Dr. Phil show, November 14 and 15.

Dr. Wecht described “four impact injuries to the top of Rebecca’s head not consistent with a vertical hanging that could have led to unconsciousness.” He said it could explain the lack of defensive wounds. Her cervical vertebrae were not fractured as typically seen in a drop hanging and of the 47,000 autopsies he has been involved with he could not recall a case of a female hanging herself nude, outdoors. Dr. Wecht did not determine from the autopsy alone that her death was a homicide but was strongly leaning that way based on the findings and totality of the investigation.

After the Dr. Phil show aired, San Diego’s Sheriff Gore criticized Dr. Wecht and Anne Bremner stating “we would be glad to meet with them, rather than hear their results on television presented as entertainment” and added it was “sensationalism as its lowest point.”

On November 18, Anne Bremner stated on her Facebook page “Someone accessed Rebecca Zahau’s computer from SW Airlines before she died. Someone also accessed her computer after she died.”

On November 19, local news channel CBS8 stated in a phone interview with Bremner she confirmed there were a dozen searches using terms like “raped, sexy Asian girls, and bondage anime” accessed on a computer in the mansion the day before Zahau’s death. Bremner told CBS8 “It’s important to the investigation because there is an image from anime called bond anime and it shows an Asian woman bound.” Bremner also said it was not Zahau who looked at the content but that it may have been accessed by someone using an airline account.

Local news CBS8 aired this week that Zahau family lawyers Anne Bremner and Martin Rudoy will travel to San Diego after Thanksgiving weekend to meet with Sheriff Gore. The Sheriff stated he was willing to reopen the case if new information was brought to his attention.

The family deserves to know the police have reviewed all of the evidence in coming to their conclusion that Rebecca took her own life.

Further background information on this story by this author:

A Hitchcock Thriller in the Making: Rebecca Zahau File


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