Rebecca Zahau

Rebecca Mawii Zahau, 32, was a Burmese-born ophthalmic technician and the girlfriend of pharmaceutical executive Jonah Shacknai. On the morning of July 13, 2011, she was found dead, nude, gagged with a T-shirt, with her wrists and ankles bound and her hands tied behind her back, hanging from a second-floor balcony of the historic Spreckels Mansion in Coronado, California. The person who reported the body was Adam Shacknai, Jonah's brother, who was staying in a guesthouse and said he discovered her around 6:45 a.m. and cut her down. The death came amid tragedy: two days earlier, on July 11, Jonah's six-year-old son Max had fallen down the mansion's staircase while in Rebecca's care. He was critically injured and died on July 16.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department investigated, and on September 2, 2011, Sheriff Bill Gore announced that Rebecca's death was a suicide and that Max's fall was an accident. Investigators theorized she had bound her own hands, looped a rope over the balcony, and stepped off, possibly out of grief or guilt over Max's injuries. A cryptic message, 'she saved him can you save her,' was found painted on a bedroom door. The ruling drew immediate skepticism from Rebecca's family, forensic experts, and much of the public, who found it implausible that a woman could bind her own wrists behind her back, gag herself, and hang naked in such a manner without leaving clearer evidence.

Rebecca's family pursued a wrongful-death lawsuit arguing she was murdered. In April 2018, a civil jury in San Diego found Adam Shacknai responsible for her death, concluding by a 9-3 vote that he had battered her and caused it, and awarded roughly $5 million to her mother, Pari Zahau. Adam Shacknai always denied involvement and was never charged criminally. In 2019, before an appeal was resolved, the parties reached a settlement reported at $600,000 and the original judgment was vacated. Critics point to unexplained bruising, DNA questions, the improbable mechanics of the binding, and the painted message as reasons the suicide ruling should not stand.

Despite the civil verdict, law enforcement has repeatedly declined to reopen the case as a homicide. In November 2018, following a fresh review by a multi-agency team, the sheriff's department and medical examiner reaffirmed the suicide determination, stating they found no evidence Rebecca died at the hands of another. The case has been re-examined by true-crime authors, documentary series such as Oxygen's 'Death at the Mansion,' and forensic analysts including Paul Holes, but no criminal charges have ever been filed. More than a decade later, the Zahau family continues to insist Rebecca was murdered, and the death at the Spreckels Mansion remains one of California's most disputed and widely debated unsolved cases.