RedHanded - Episode 42 - Murder or Suicide: The Mysterious Death of Rebecca Zahau

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Rebecca Zahau’s naked body was found hanging in the mansion she shared with her millionaire boyfriend Jonah Shacknai and his son, Max. Just days before Rebecca's apparent suicide she had been babysitting Max when he was fatally injured - had Rebecca taken her own life out of guilt? The evidence suggests otherwise... Audio mastered by Conrad Hughes   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed, where today we are delving into the very mysterious

death of Rebecca Zahal. In 2011, the 32-year-old was found completely naked, hanging from the second-story bedroom of the mansion she shared with her partner, millionaire farmer tycoon Jonah Shaknai, and his six-year-old son from a previous marriage, Max. The family lived in Coronado, California. It's like an island off San Diego. And it's for the very, very rich. The average house price here is about $1.5 million and rising. And 1043 Ocean Avenue, where the family lived, which even had a name, the Spreckles Mansion, was worth a cool $12 million.

I feel like if your house is worth $12 million, you'd need it to have a name. I think you should have a better name. The Spreckles Mansion was worth a cool 12 mil. I feel like if your house is worth 12 million dollars, you'd need it to have a name. I think you should have a better name. The Spreckles Mansion. Yeah, that doesn't really mean anything. When I hear Spreckles, I think of like Pebble Dash. It's just not the most glamorous name for a mansion, but it is a mansion, so. Shaq now was pulling in the big bucks as a CEO of a pharmaceutical company, Medesis. And this 27-bed mansion was actually just his holiday home. He didn't even live there full-time. So the couple, Rebecca and Jonah, had been dating for two years and reportedly, according to their friends,

were super happy and planning their future. Jonah had already been married twice and had two teenage kids from his first marriage and then Max from his second marriage. But he and Rebecca were serious and Jonah apparently was looking to jump into marriage number three. So what happened? For that, we have to go back to July 11th, 2011, as our story today doesn't start with Rebecca's death, but with Max's. Because yes, tragically, both Max and Rebecca died just days apart.

That day, July the 11th, Rebecca was babysitting Max. Rebecca's 13-year-old sister, Zina, was also at the house. Everything seemed normal. Then suddenly, when Rebecca said she was in the bathroom, she heard a massive crash. She rushed out to see what it was, and it was Max. He had fallen over the banister of the second floor and landed on the first floor. Now, there's no way of knowing what actually happened because Max lost consciousness after saying just one word, ocean. Could have been the ocean or it could have been the name of the street they were on. But his dog was also called Ocean. Now, Max never regained consciousness and died in hospital five days later on July 16th.

And it really is such a crazy incident. When Max went over the banister, he hit the first floor. His scooter and the chandelier hanging down between the staircase also fell and both landed on Max. It's been suggested that he was playing around climbing on the banisters. He could have been hanging over the banister or maybe trying to touch the chandelier. Or was he riding his scooter on the second floor landing and slipped and fell? But the thing is, Max was just over three foot and the banisters in the house were three foot and the flooring was carpeted. If he was playing on the scooter, how fast could he have been going on carpeted flooring to fall over a banister that was basically the same height as him? What if he was

trying to ride the scooter on the banister? That's the kind of stupid thing I would do as a child. That absolutely could have been what was happening. And he falls and grabs the chandelier as he's falling and pulls it down and the scooter and the chandelier land on top of him. The only word he uttered was Ocean, which was his dog's name. So had the dog accidentally got in the way as he was playing and he'd gone over the banister? It's really hard to know, but the fact is children do die in tragic accidents in their homes all the time. It's not totally clear what happened, but overall, it was ruled as an accident. There are, of course, theories out there, though, that Max was murdered.

Maybe Rebecca got angry with him, but a smack or a hit is probably much more likely than flinging him off a staircase, surely. Because if you're going to push someone over a banister to kill them, you'd better be damn sure they're going to die. Or they're just going to wake up and say that you did it. It seems crazy that that's how she would choose to finish him off. Yeah, and I think when adults kill children, they usually just shake them to death or it's like blunt force trauma. You're exactly right.

You have to be so sure if you're taking a risk, like pushing them over a banister, you have to be so sure if you're taking a risk, like pushing them over a banister, you have to be so sure they're going to die. And if it's carpeted, that's maybe less likely than if they're hitting a marble floor at the bottom. She's a slight woman, 45 kilos, five foot three. She's picking a six-year-old up and throwing him over a three-foot banister. It just doesn't make sense. Six-year-olds aren't that big. That's like roughly the same height as me. I don't think I could pick up a six-year-old and throw him over a banister. And he's not just going to be complying. He's going to be like, what the hell are you doing? It's odd. It's not the most

obvious accident. It's tragic, but it's not that weird to me that it isn't just an accident. No, I agree. So Max was taken to hospital on July 11th with serious injuries he would eventually die of. And just two days later, on the morning of the 13th of July 2011, Rebecca was found dead in their home. She was found naked, gagged, bound with a rope and hanging from the balcony of a guest bedroom of the Spreckles mansion. And after a seven-week investigation, Sheriff Bill Gore came out and said the evidence pointed towards it being a suicide. Like hell it does. There's almost nothing about this that is a suicide. We are jumping ahead here, so let's go back to the day Max was hospitalized before we get into why we think this is or isn't a murder. So the family are all gathered at the hospital and Jonah pretty much moved in

between the time of Max's fall and his eventual passing five days later. Jonah basically never left. He stayed at the Ronald McDonald house across the road to be near his son. Also at the hospital were Dina, Max's mother, and Nina, her sister. And yes, they were twins and their parents decided to call them Dina and Nina. That's too much. Give them some self-identity, please. I don't think they were at my school, but they knew someone I went to school with. I don't think they were twins either, but they were very close in age sisters

and their names were Bunny Love and Candy Darling. I'm not even going to respond to that. That's too much. They're going to be strippers, surely. That's the only thing they can do with those names. I feel like that's a very posh thing. It's either you're a stripper or you're incredibly posh. Like those old women you see that are called Bunny or Kitty or Candy or Flossie or something.

Flossie! That's a name. It is. It's short for Florence. Good. But these two, Dina and Nina, they were at the hospital. And Rebecca's there too. So she's facing it.

She's not just hiding away from the family or anything. She's at the hospital with them. The next day on July the 12th, Rebecca takes Zina, her sister. So that's now Dina, Nina and Zina in this story. I hope you guys are keeping up. That sounds like a children's book Madonna would write. Rebecca takes her sister Zina, who's been visiting, and she takes her to the airport to send her home. And at the same time, she picked up Adam Shackney, Jonah's brother, who was flying in to be with his family. Adam was going to be staying with them at Spreckles Mansion in the adjoining guest house. Why do you need a guest house when you have 27 bedrooms? I'm not fully sure, but I think it's a rich people thing,

isn't it? It's like, oh, when you come and stay with me, you don't even stay in my house. I've got a separate house just for you that I don't even use. But if your brother isn't even staying in one of your 27 bedrooms, why do you have them? Who else is ever going to stay in them? And the rest of the family are even at the hospital. Basically a big empty mansion. Why would you ever need 27 bedrooms? Because you can.

Yeah, I suppose. But that night, the night of the 12th of july rebecca and adam both stay at the mansion rebecca was at the hospital during the day but with dina max's mum and jonah's ex-wife so i can imagine it would have been pretty awkward so it's just adam and rebecca at home that night neighbors reported hearing very loud music it must have been loud. I'm assuming on this island that's just for super rich people, they're not going to be terraced houses, are they?

So if their neighbours can hear, it must have been pretty loud. People thought that they must have been having a party or something, but that seems pretty unlikely, seeing as Max is in hospital on death's door. Like much of this story, it's never really explained, but some theorise that maybe it was Rebecca or Adam just blasting music to drown out thoughts of Max in hospital. Or, in our opinion, it was music to mask something much more sinister taking place. Because the next day, on the 13th of July, just before 7am, a 911 call is received from the house. It was Adam, and here is the sort of opening to his 911 call. Is there an emergency? What are you reporting?

Yeah, I've got a girl on herself in the guest house. It's on Ocean Boulevard across from the hotel, same place that you came and got the kid yesterday. Okay, sir, what is the address? I've got a girl hung herself. Hmm. You know who that is. It's your fucking brother's girlfriend.

You were staying at the house with her. You were the only two people in the house, and she picked you up from the airport. When I first saw this, I thought, why is he trying to pretend he doesn't know who it is by calling her girl? But I don't think maybe he's not pretending to not know who she is. But the fact that throughout this entire 911 call, which we will post and you can listen to, he never says her name once. And I think that's very telling because it seems like he's distancing himself. That's what people do, right? When they're

guilty, they don't say the person's name because they can't and they try to distance themselves from that. And also, the kid, he's talking about Max, his severely now injured nephew. And he's like, oh, it's where you came and got the kid a couple of days ago. Am I reading too much into that? I don't know. I think the weirdest thing that struck me about the 911 call

is he's so out of breath. Yeah. What has he been doing? I don't know i think the weirdest thing that struck me about the 911 call is he's so out of breath yeah what has he been doing i don't know yes very true he's not like a super overweight guy no no he's like a normal guy so i just it seemed really weird to me but he would be that obviously he's distressed but to be that out of breath either to me signals that you've been doing something pretty strenuous before you call them or you're putting it on. Yeah, absolutely. And also during the call, I find it really weird that he's talking to the operator like she knows about what happened to Max a few days ago. Why would you call 911 and assume that that operator knew anything about that? That's really weird.

Adam's story is that he comes out of his room that morning. So at about 6.48 and between the guest house and the main mansion, there's like a little courtyard that's got trees and bushes and grass and stuff. And he says this is where he found Rebecca naked and hanging from the balcony of a second-story guest bedroom. After he explains the situation to the operator, the operator asks him if the woman is still alive, and he says he doesn't know. So he leaves 911 on the line. The call is still live and he goes to get a table and a knife and cuts Rebecca down. He pulls the noose and the shirt away from her neck and out of her mouth.

And there were also ties around her wrists and Adam moved these ties to try find a pulse. So he's completely cut her down, taken everything everything apart moved everything around and touched everything i'm not saying there's anything wrong with that because if you do find somebody in that situation i would probably do the same thing i'd cut them down and i'd be like oh my god you've tried to kill yourself let me see if you're still alive right yeah you would you would do that i think it was more so be more suspicious if you didn't touch anything yeah and here's another little insert from the 911 call. Are you there? Hey! Hey! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Are you alive? Oh! Oh! Oh! Hello.

Yes, sir. Did you get the address? No, sir. I need the address. What? He's been out right now. He came here yesterday to pick up a little boy. Okay, sir. I wasn't working yesterday. I don't know what you're talking about. Check the address. She's been out right now. She came here yesterday to pick up a little boy. Okay, so I wasn't working yesterday?

I don't know what you're talking about. Check the records. Sir, I checked all of the records yesterday. I can't find anything on Ocean Boulevard. Can you tell me what the address is? I'm working. She crawled to start sending them towards the hotel. He eventually gets her the address and the police are sent.

So let's talk about the scene of Rebecca's death. She was, as we said, found naked, gagged and hanging from the balcony of a guest bedroom into the inner courtyard of the house. Her wrists were tied behind her back and her legs were also bound together. The noose around her neck was tied to the leg of the bed in the guest bedroom and the rope goes up and over the railings of the balcony. The rope used to make the noose and tie up her arms and legs were all the same thick red nylon rope, not totally unlike boat rope. In the room, the bed had moved about seven inches forwards towards the balcony. They could tell exactly how far because the bedroom had pretty thick carpet

and there were indentations visible where the bed had originally been. So it seems that the bed had moved when Rebecca's weight hit the end of the rope. It was a 300 pound bed and Rebecca, who was 5'3", weighed about 100 pounds or 45 kilos. This is really important. We'll come back to it. But let's talk about the condition of Rebecca's body. And remember here that the official ruling into Rebecca's death was and remains suicide. The noose was around her neck and she also had a long sleeve shirt tied around her neck. The shirt was put on after the noose and the cuffs of the shirt were tied in a knot and stuffed in her mouth to gag her i don't think anyone who kills themselves gags themselves with a shirt but some people do

talk about the fact that you know her hands and her wrists were tied and she was gagged was it to stop her changing her mind was it to stop her crying out for help and being saved because she knows that that would be the automatic response but she wants to die and she doesn't want to wake adam up who'll come out and save her but surely if she's chosen to kill herself by hurtling herself over a balcony doing that is much more difficult if you've got no arms especially if you're five three she would have like gone over to the balcony and tipped herself forward if you leant over the balcony with your arms tied behind your back, then eventually the centre of gravity of your body would pull you over and you would just fall head first over the balcony. No, I completely understand that. I just don't see why you would tie yourself up to do

that. I think tying yourself up isn't going to make you not change your mind. Also, what I find weird here is that the hair, the hair, long hair is under the noose and under the shirt. If you put a top on or put something on and your hair is tucked under, isn't it just automatic that you flick your hair out? Yeah, definitely. You don't even think about it. You don't even think about it because it's so uncomfortable to have your hair trapped under something if you have long hair. I just can't believe that she would have put a noose around her neck over her hair

and then tied a shirt over the noose, again, trapping her hair underneath. That seems to me like what someone would do if they were doing it to you, not what you would do to yourself. A lot is made of this and it is quite, there's no scientific thing to back that up. It's just purely seems like an odd thing that she would have done or not have done to pull the hair out. Also, her hands were bound behind her back. And in many places, you'll see this reported as it was tied with an intricate nautical knot. And you may have picked up the boat rope and now the nautical knots that are always hammered home with this case. And that's because the man who found her, Adam Shackney,

was a tugboat captain. Do tugboats have captains? I mean... Did he just own a tugboat? What is a tugboat? Maybe I'm being boat prejudiced. It looks like the kind of boat that would need a captain. Okay, fine. I take that back. I guess that's relevant. But to me, it kind of just looks like a knot. You can see the photos of her hands bound together. And it's like her wrists look more to me like they've been lashed together. So the rope weaves backwards and forwards over and under her wrists in like figures of eight. It doesn't seem that intricate to me. And the weirder thing is not so much that it was like boat rope or that

there was an intricate nautical knot. What's weirder is that her wrists are tied behind her back. So I can hear you screaming, how? If it was suicide, how are her hands tied behind her back? Well, the thing is the lashings were pretty loose. So the official report theorised that she could have lashed her hands in front of herself, pulled one of her arms out easily, put her hands behind her back and slipped it back in. They can offer a how for how it could have been done, but there's absolutely no why. Why would you do that? Yeah, it's like Peter Folding saying like, oh, oh well it's possible to fold yourself into this tiny bag but no one would actually do that i don't believe that if you're going to tie yourself

together anyway before you kill yourself i don't believe for a second you do it behind your back no rebecca's back was also covered in lots of cuts and abrasions and there's dirt on her feet not loads a moderate amount of dirt, like she's been walking around barefoot. In some places you'll read that it was mud, that her feet were caked in mud, like she'd been running away barefoot through a field. We have strong feelings about what happened here, but we don't need to exaggerate to get to the right conclusion. We've seen the crime scene photos of Rebecca's body and her feet look dusty like with a grey brown dust or like very powdery dry dirt like she'd been walking on gravel or concrete. Now it gets weirder

because on the inside of the guest bedroom door there was a cryptic message painted in big block capitals using black paint and it read she saved him can you save her it seemed to be referring to rebecca as the her and max as the him but it doesn't really make any sense though because she didn't save max exactly and also if she wrote it why is she writing us about herself in the third person that's so weird that doesn't make any sense at all so many things about this case make absolutely no sense we will come back and touch upon these things we just want to get all the facts out That's so weird. That doesn't make any sense at all. So many things about this case make absolutely no sense. We will come back and touch upon these things. We just want to get all the facts out and then we'll do the theories.

So some things I read and heard about this case suggest that it was odd that this message was painted on the top part of the door because Rebecca was only five foot three. But this isn't correct. The way some of the photographs from the crime scene are cropped make it look like it's written at the top of the door, but it's not. If you look at the actual photographs of the door itself, it's painted on the upper mid panel. I'm a similar height to Rebecca and it's exactly where I would have painted it. I stood up against my door and put my hand out and it's exactly where I would have painted it. So it's not weird that it is where it is. And there is black paint on Rebecca's body. A little bit of paint on her face. There's black paint on her fingers and also some

on her breast. So what? She painted this weird message naked? Also, what does it mean? Why did she paint it? Why is she talking about herself in the third person? It still doesn't really make any sense. All we're saying is it could have been her. If you're going to paint a suicide note on the back of a door, why is it on her boob? That's why I don't know. Is she doing boob painting? That's so bizarre. Also, a lot was made of this cryptic message that the police never got the handwriting analysed. But we'll post pictures of it. Seriously, guys, it's so messy and it's in block capitals with thick black paint. I honestly don't know how effective it would have been to have the handwriting analyzed it doesn't seem to have the nuance that like a

handwritten note would that would tell you anything but in any case there are plenty of things the police didn't do in this case which we take issue with so we'll leave this one for now so the police arrive and say yep this is looks is, looks like a suicide. Also, the way that the forensics were handled in this case were seriously odd. Adam cut Rebecca down and laid her on the grass at about seven o'clock in the morning. Her body was then left uncovered like that for 13 hours in California because the medical examiner got there at 6pm that night. Plenty of vital information would have been lost in that time, vitally being able to give an accurate time of death.

There were so many pictures of her dead naked body on the floor of the courtyard, taken by neighbours who could see from their house. Why wasn't she covered up? And why did it take so long for the medical examiner to get there? Even if it was a suicide, surely there would have been more urgency than that. What takes somebody 13 hours to get there? I understand that. Obviously, every police department has limited resources.

And maybe there was another crime scene and they have a limited number of medical examiners. Why wasn't she covered up? It's the fact that they just left her out there completely naked, just in the courtyard, in the sun, in the baking Californian sun for 13 hours while vital evidence was drained away. This wasn't when they would have found her. She was bound and gagged. And I know that Adam removed those things before the police arrived, but it wasn't a cut and shut suicide case. There was some suspicion. So what were they doing? It's very, very bizarre. Let's talk about the scenario in which Rebecca killed herself and that this was a suicide. And please remember that what we are about to explore is the official story.

Rebecca went into the guest bedroom. She got naked. She got the paint out. She painted the nonsensical message on the back of the door. She then tied the rope to the bed frame, then sat down and tied up her feet. Then she put the noose and the shirt over her neck and lashed her hands together, then repositioned them behind her back. Obvious question. Why was someone about to kill themselves by their arms and legs and gag themselves? And why would they do it all naked? The police have an answer for this. They say that she bound herself up so that she couldn't change her mind after she jumped. And by tying her arms and legs, she couldn't try and save herself. But we already know that the arm lashings,

if the police are right, were loose enough for her to slip her arm out of so what purpose would they have served anyway that's it i've just been thinking about that and even if she really elaborately tied her arms behind her back if we're saying that she tied herself up to stop herself from chickening out why so loose yeah why can she just shake them off then exactly because she we already know if the official report is right they say she tied her arms in front of her slipped one hand out and put it back in behind her back like then she could have easily just taken her hand out again if she changed her mind it doesn't make any sense and also I guess that we then must believe in this case that she presumably gagged herself with the shirt because she didn't want to make any noise and you know potentially wake Adam up and

he would come and save her. According to the police the binding and the gagging and all of this was to create a situation in which she wouldn't be able to get out of this decision that she had made that she was going to go through with it yeah i kind of see why the only explanation for the gag seems to be to keep it quiet but it's a massive house i don't think he would have heard anyway so now all bound up noose in place she's hopped over the balcony to jump and remember that her feet were tied as well so she probably as we said earlier will have just lent over the balcony until eventually her center of gravity goes over the top and she falls over the railing and i watched a news channel in america do the full reenactment and it is something. They got this woman roughly of the

same height and of a similar weight to Rebecca and it took this woman around half an hour to do all of this stuff. Half an hour. So it's from her walking into that guest bedroom to her going over the top of the railing. That seems pretty quick for all the stuff that she's doing. No? Do you think? All she does is get naked, paint the thing and the majority of the railing. That seems pretty quick for all the stuff that she's doing. No? Do you think? All she does is get naked, paint the thing, and the majority of the time is taken up by her

doing all of these elaborate tying up situation. Still though, half an hour, that's a long time to be prepping your suicide. That's a long time to talk yourself out of it. Yeah.

Isn't suicide a lot more like, I just do this now, it's impulsive, done quickly, and it's over before you can change your mind? She's putting in do this now, it's impulsive, done quickly, and it's over before you can change your mind. She's putting in so much effort, according to the police, to stop herself changing her mind and saving herself once she jumps. But she's spending a lot of time, ironically,

putting those safeguards in place. Half an hour is a long time to do that. Yeah, I think you're right. It seems very weird to be taking all of these extra precautions to stop yourself from bottling it, but then giving yourself an extra half an hour in which to bottle it. Absolutely. What's really important to know as well, there is no alcohol and no drugs at all found in her system. So she's not even drunk when she's doing this or doped up. She's doing this all completely sober.

That's remarkable. It is remarkable. If you're going to off yourself, you need a stiff drink, I think. That's remarkable. It is remarkable. If you're going to off yourself, you need a stiff drink, I think, whoever you are. And also you want to shorten those timelines down as much as you possibly can. Yes. One of the key arguments for having more waiting periods for guns is because people who buy guns, like some people buy them to shoot themselves. And if you put a waiting period on it, people probably change their minds and then don't kill themselves with it. So it's like she's giving herself exactly like you said, so much time to bottle it, but she doesn't.

So the police report into this case also states that Rebecca's mental state was not good. Apparently she had been depressed in the months before her death, but her family completely deny this. I think she does have quite a religious background and there's such shame around depression, I think. So I don't think just because her family say she wasn't doesn't necessarily mean that she wasn't. But also, no matter how amazing your mental state is, a child being severely injured under your watch to the point where they're hospitalised, that's enough to send anyone over the edge, especially when it's your partner's son. It's not yours. I think that's a really special distinction in that relationship, I think. So could she have been scared? Because Max, she was supposed to be watching him, but he

was six years old, not six months. So is it weird that she wasn't watching him 100% of the time? I think six-year-olds are like steam trains. They just sort of run around on their own. i can imagine it really made me think of the kid in the shining he's got this massive house he probably just runs absolute riot it's like the omen where he drives that little bicycle and knocks his mom off in this case we don't know if it was just what happened to max and the reason we bring this up is because there are a couple things that happened that night that given the tragedy of Max's injuries and if she had already been a little fragile mentally it could have led her to taking her own life maybe potentially. So Nina, Dina's sister, so this is Max's aunt, said that she texted Rebecca at about 9 30 p.m on the 12th of July saying that she wanted to talk to her. Nina said that she then turned up at the

house at about 10pm. But Nina says she rang the doorbell several times and Rebecca didn't answer, so she left. There was also a voicemail left on Rebecca's phone that night that was deleted and the police haven't been able to recover it. The police know, however, that the voicemail was checked at around midnight. They just couldn't retrieve the message. But Jonah admitted to it and told the police that it was him calling Rebecca to give her an update on Max. He said he left a message telling Rebecca that the doctors had told him that Max wasn't going to make it. Now, if her time of death was placed at 3am, and we can say that it would have taken her at least 30 minutes to kill herself the way she did according to the police report, because of what the reenactment shows,

she would have had to start her plan at 2.30am. Now, if the call from Jonah pushed Rebecca over the edge, now she knew Max wouldn't live, maybe the guilt became too much. She hears the voicemail at midnight, she thinks about what to do for two and a half hours, and then she does it. It kind of fits, I guess.

I don't know why she doesn't answer the door. Maybe she's scared. Would you want to have that conversation? No, I absolutely wouldn't. The aunt texts Rebecca and says, I want to come speak to you. I'd immediately be terrified. What is this woman going to come around and yell at me? She's going to blame me for killing her nephew or whatever's happening to her nephew right now. I mean, either it's that she was hiding and she didn't want to answer the door because she didn't want to have that conversation. Or she wasn't in any position to be answering that call because something was already happening with Adam Shackney. Well, that's what I think. I think, when does the music start? There is a report that the police get afterwards from a neighbour saying that they heard a woman

scream at 11.30pm. But this was later discredited because they just couldn't be sure which direction the scream was coming from it could have been rebecca like with so many things in this case nothing is clear-cut there's so many little pieces but this is basically all the timeline they say hollywood is where dreams are made a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was L Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into

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Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. We have. Also, what's very interesting is that there is no other DNA found anywhere. Adam's DNA wasn't even reported to have been found on the rope, even he'd cut her down so he's definitely touched it we know he has he must have how could you cut that rope without touching it and the gags and the ropes in her mouth and around her wrists no dna on there either and we know he removed those before the police arrived so why is there no dna or at least why is nothing reported to have been found?

This, to me, in addition to the medical examiner turning up 13 hours later, her body being left out in the sun all day, this points more towards not necessarily the covering up of evidence, but the omission of evidence or waiting for it to be destroyed before it can be collected. It does feel like a conspiracy in some senses with these things. There's also stuff that they just didn't check. In the guest bedroom, the police found Rebecca's clothes and a mobile phone and a camera. There were also two knives found in the guest bedroom

and both of these knives had been used to cut the rope. Why is he using two knives? We don't know if it was him. So whoever was in the room who had tied the noose, tied up her hands, tied up... If you're saying it's suicide, she used those knives to cut a long piece of rope into pieces. I see, I see, I see. Also, in the same bedroom, they found a pair of black gloves and a single rubber glove. None of these things seem to have been tested

or if they were, they weren't reported upon and didn't play a part in the final police report. Back to the state of Rebecca's body from the first autopsy. This was carried out by a Dr. Lucas and he noted four areas of hemorrhage near the top of Rebecca's scalp. He claimed that these were consistent with Rebecca hitting her head on the balcony, on the walls, or the plants and trees under the balcony when she jumped. He also explained that the abrasions and cuts on Rebecca's back were likely caused on the way down as her body swung

and hit the wall under the balcony. When I first read this, I thought, seems fair enough. But there are no scratches on her arms and they were behind her back remember so if her back was scratched from swinging into the bushes or hitting the wall wouldn't her arms have been covered in scratches too and wouldn't there have been voids of scratches on her back where her arms were tied behind her that's not there there's no cuts or abrasions on her arms if someone was binding and gagging her while she was alive, those abrasions would be there. And they're not, they're only on her back.

So that, rather than pointing more towards suicide, that to me says that she was dead before she was bound and gagged. Yeah, because it seems to me more like the scratches and abrasions occurred on her back before her arms were tied behind her back and before she went over the railing. So it almost seems like cuts and abrasions that were made. Imagine if you dragged her. That's what I think.

I think she was moved. I think she was dragged under her arms. Because that's the thing. If, as the official report says, it was caused by her hitting and smacking against the wall after she went over, there should have been the same cuts and abrasions on her arms. And there weren't because they were tied behind her back. And even still, how does smacking into a wall break the skin? I mean, if it's pebble dash.

That's true. That's a good point. So, okay, let's seriously look at the likelihood of suicide. Rebecca's family maintained that Rebecca was not depressed and she had no history of psychiatric illness. Does that mean she necessarily wasn't depressed? No, not really, but it's there. But the police insisted that Rebecca had displayed potential symptoms of depression in the months prior to her death. Apparently she'd lost weight and she stopped her usual exercise routine. That is hardly ironclad. I don't think you can say that because she stopped going for a run, she was definitely suicidal.

I don't think that this proves anything. But to be fair, she was very athletic. She was incredibly athletic. If you look at pictures of her, she is fucking toned. She's got a great body. And maybe that level of like unusual behavior going from that to not exercising at all can be a sign of depression but again nothing it really proves anything in an ironclad way to us with this and the other really important thing to note was that rebecca was a devout christian and her family are adamant that due to her faith

rebecca would never commit the sin of suicide i also think that that's being religious, especially Catholic. I don't know if they were Catholic. Because suicide is a cardinal sin, being associated with depression in any way is an absolute no-go. It's not something that her family would want to be associated with. So I can see why, even if she was struggling, they would deny it due to their religious background. So Rebecca was from Myanmar originally, and she moved to the US 10 years before her death. And her family insists that she would never have killed herself anyway, but she certainly wouldn't have done it naked for the world to see her.

Yeah, I just feel like Asian background, especially in Myanmar, it is a conservative country. And even though she'd moved from Myanmar to Germany as a teenager and then moved from there to the States about 10 years before she died, like you said, that is quite a cultural thing that I don't think would have left her. I can't imagine that she would have wanted or allowed her naked body to have been exposed like that if she was going to kill herself. It does seem really odd because if you're from a Christian background, I think Catholicism is pretty prevalent in Myanmar. Yeah, it's Buddhism, it's Catholicism, but it's also the religious aspect of this, where she wouldn't have committed suicide because she would have viewed it as a sin.

But then there's the cultural aspect of her coming from a conservative Asian country. I mean, I've been to Myanmar, you cover up there. It's like 45 degrees, but you cover up. That's what I mean. Like, killing herself is already embarrassing enough why is she adding this extra layer of being naked i suppose you could argue that if she's killing herself out of guilt was the inclusion of nudity to punish herself i just don't know whether because killing yourself in the catholic church means you don't go to heaven you're stuck forever in a forest with all of the dead babies who weren't baptized.

I don't think if you were knowingly putting yourself into that situation within your own faith paradigm that you would add nudity on top of it. I think suicide is enough. It seems more to me like potentially someone doing it to humiliate her. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I think. So I think it's fair to say that we aren't totally sold on the suicide theory. So let's talk murder. So a second autopsy was carried out four months after Rebecca was buried. And frustratingly, because Rebecca was embalmed, a full autopsy couldn't

be carried out again. However, Dr. Wecht, the pathologist who carried out the second autopsy, disputed many of Dr. Lucas's findings from the first one. Dr. Wecht also noted the four abrasions to Rebecca's head, but he believed that they could have been caused by intentionally inflicted blows to the head. Also, critically, Dr. Wecht reported that although these blows would not have been sufficient to cause Rebecca's death, that they could have caused her to become unconscious. And because, as we said before, absolutely no drugs or alcohol were found in her system, if Rebecca had been murdered, this could explain how someone could have managed to get Rebecca bound and gagged and throw her off a balcony while leaving no sign of a struggle.

So he's saying that she hits herself in the head, knocks herself out and then ties herself up and then, no. Dr. Lucas from the first autopsy says this was suicide the bangs to her head happens after she jumps over because she goes over the balcony head first which fits with the fact of if you were going to tip yourself over a balcony because your arms are bound dr weck does the second autopsy and he is highly highly suspicious of suicide he thinks that this is murder so dr Wecht says the abrasions to her head didn't come from her. Well, he doesn't say they didn't. He says you cannot rule out that they were intentional blows to the head caused by somebody else hitting her. The two autopsies completely

dispute each other because Dr. Wecht now throws so many spanners into the works. There's none of what Dr. Lucas said from the first autopsy is conclusive. He takes so much issue with everything that comes from that. One thing that they do agree on, Dr. Wecht and Dr. Lucas both found significant damage to the internal structures of Rebecca's neck. Her hyoid bone had been fractured and that's the kind of like horseshoe shaped bone halfway between your chin and your thyroid cartilage. As well as this, there were severely torn muscles in the front and sides of Rebecca's neck. Dr. Weck said after his autopsy that it's impossible to tell if Rebecca had been strangled prior to going over the balcony railing or not. And he agrees that while the autopsy

findings regarding Rebecca's neck injuries are consistent with hanging, they are not exclusive to hanging. So again, totally inconclusive. It's possible both things could have happened because I assume the state of her neck after death, they just couldn't tell. So the injury she had could have been consistent with hanging, but they also could have been consistent with strangulation as the cause of death. Let's go back to the reenactment that the new show did, they managed to replicate most stuff accurately. The woman was the same height and similar weight, but the bed in the reenactment moved 37 inches. That's five times the distance the bed moved with Rebecca. Remember in the Spreckles Mansion,

the bed only moved seven inches. Critics of this issue will say that the carpet in the house they did the reenactment in wasn't the same carpet as in the Spreckles Mansion. And they are right. But still, I don't think a carpet can change the movement by five times as much. That's bollocks. There's no way. That's mad. Seven inches to 37 inches. It seems much more likely to me that it would have moved about 37 inches not just seven seven inches seems to me like somebody who's just thrown her over and then what it still doesn't make sense because the noose was still tied to the bed so why didn't it move more i think someone's counterweighting it i think someone's leaning on the bed but why would you do

that because then somebody's pushed her over how's he got time to get back to the bed to counterweighting it. I think someone's leaning on the bed. But why would you do that? Because then somebody's pushed her over. How has he got time to get back to the bed to counterweight it? Well, maybe there was more than one person, but I think that I would be worried that the bed would move so much it would slam into the doorframe and come out of the room. I would be worried about that, even though it's a £300 bed. So they're trying to stop the bed from moving because it might do damage. The idea that you say there may have been more than one person is interesting

because originally the case that the family tried to bring was that the two sisters had been there. So Max's mother, Dina, and her sister Nina were both there and sat on the bed while Adam pushed her over. But the CCTV proves that they were seen on CCTV in the hospital at the time that she would have been killed or that she killed herself. So who else is now suddenly involved in this? The bed moving just seven inches doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. I do think that even though we can't figure out whether it would have been one person or two people, I think the bed only moving seven inches really makes a suicide very unlikely

because there's no way she can throw herself over the balcony and sit on the bed the only other thing that makes sense is that if he pushed her over the balcony and like lowered her down in which case then it would have been less movement because it would have been a less like force when her weight hit the end of the rope and jerk the bed forward. But then if you were doing that, why would you do that? Because you would want her to fall and her neck to break so that it looked like that she had hanged herself. But then maybe that's why her neck was in such a state and it wasn't a clean break. Because if you're lowering her, you're going to lower her and then stop.

And then that's going to be a movement and then lower her and then stop again. So maybe that's why there was such extensive damage to her neck rather than it just being a clean break potentially or it's because manual strangulation before yeah we don't know again just so many question marks with this case another one raised was to sort of counter whether this was a suicide comes from the footprints found in the dirt on the balcony firstly i find it very bizarre that this family is so rich and their balcony is this dirty like Like, it's just covered in dirt. They must have staff in a house that big. Definitely, but balcony is filthy. And in the dirt, the police could see just heel and toe prints from Rebecca's feet. And I've seen the picture of the balcony, like an aerial shot of the balcony, so you can

see the footprints. So why are they just got partial footprints from Rebecca? There are no clear prints of Rebecca's feet. And this seems odd because she had dirt on the bottoms of both of her feet. So they're walking her through it like she's a puppet. She's not actually walking. But then why is it not clear footprints? Why is it just like a toe and a heel, partial footprints? Is it because they're not fully putting her weight on it? If you see what I mean. Yes, because they're trying to make it look like she's been walking, but she's not actually. Because you're holding her up and therefore the full weight of her body isn't pressing down to leave clear footprints. That is the only possibility because if the dirt had come from somewhere else,

like I did read, there were no shoes found in the bedroom and the carpet was cream. There was no dirt on the carpet. How does she walk around that bedroom painting the sign up, binding herself up, not leaving any dirt on that carpet? That dirt came from the balcony. But both her feet are covered in dirt, but there are no clear footprints, which makes me think, like you said, she wasn't putting her full weight down because somebody was holding her. And also, what backs this up is that her legs were bound. So wouldn't it be more like shuffling? If you tied my feet together and I had to walk across a wouldn't it be more like shuffling? If you tied my feet together and I had to walk across a dusty floor, you'd see shuffling, not partial heel and toe prints.

You wouldn't be taking steps. You'd be ruffling around in it. Also, there was other footprints found on the balcony. One of the other set of footprints found out there was quickly ruled out as a boot print from the first responding officer. So that's gone. But there was a third set out there, as yet unidentified. These footprints seem almost to step exactly into Rebecca's steps, like someone is behind her forcing her over or holding her up. That's pretty weird. Let's look at the likelihood of murder as opposed to suicide. The head injury could have been enough to knock her out and you want to finish her off. The head injury could have been enough to knock her out. And you want to finish her off. She's unconscious and you've decided to throw her off the balcony to make it look like a suicide.

So why are you doing all of the weird shit? Why are you doing the noose and the shirt gag and the hands and feet bound? I can't understand why, even if someone was murdering her, why there's a rope and then the shirt on top. That doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't understand that. Unless it's because they think she is just unconscious, we'll throw her over the edge. But what if she regains consciousness

and she doesn't just break her neck when she goes over and she starts screaming and then the neighbours hear it and come running? There are so many red flags that make the suicide questionable. But also, if you're framing it as a suicide why you do all of this additional stuff as well you're drawing more attention to it but then also could it be that she's trying to make it look like a murder but then why who is she trying to frame

that i don't have the answer to but then even if she's trying to make it look like a murder i can't explain the footprints murder i can't explain the footprints and i can't explain the bed moving even if we talk about the how once again we can't explain the why it's one or the other we have a how or a why we never have both so even if it was a murder what's the motive the motive for suicide seems pretty strong because of max injury and she was absolutely devastated that max was to die and couldn't cope with it. But we just, we don't know what that voicemail Jonah left said. He said he just gave her the situation. But what if he told her it was all her fault, that Max was going to die and that he was

going to destroy her? We just don't know what was said on that call. Absolutely. And I think it's so vital because if it was a really aggressive message from Jonah, it could even further strengthen the case for it being suicide. We just don't know. If you think about murder, the motive for murder could be revenge. Max was going to die. At this point, they knew that night that Max was going to die. Was Rebecca killed because her killer thought she was responsible for Max's death?

She was the only adult in the house when he suffered that fatal injury. If so, the only person it could reasonably have been without going down the road of like hitmen was Adam Shackney. Because the rest of the family were all seen on CCTV at the hospital around the time Rebecca died. But what if it was something else? And the something else is that it wasn't a revenge killing, but in fact, a sexually motivated one. Before we look into this

theory, though, note that there was absolutely no evidence found that Rebecca had been sexually assaulted in any way. And almost everywhere you hear or read about this case, you'll see that it's widely reported Adam Shackney was looking at Asian bondage porn on the night of July 12th. But it's really important. We couldn't find any official reports of this. And it really doesn't seem like a bondage killing. It really doesn't. I feel like if they're using the Asian bondage porn as a kind of motive to be like, oh, this is what I'm into. And oh my gosh, I'm alone in a house with an Asian woman. I don't think you'd hang her. You'd do loads of other stuff. And if he's that into bondage, he's going to know better knots than that. That's true.

It was stated by the Zahal family's attorney, Anne Bremner, who claims that the searches for raped sexy Asian girls and bondage anime were made by Shackney the day before Rebecca's death. Adam Shackney did allegedly admit during a lie detector test to looking at porn on his phone. Why are people still using lie detector tests? Why are they still a thing? I hate it. I cancel it. It's cancelled. And his was inconclusive. So it proved absolutely. They're always inconclusive because they don't mean anything. Allegedly, he admits to watching this porn on his phone on the morning of the 13th of July, prior to finding Rebecca's body. He found her body at seven o'clock in the morning.

So he's watching porn at like, what, 6am? Good. So presumably after she's already been dead for hours. But again, we can't really be sure what happened there. We can't be super sure of the timings so the whole thing really is a bit of a mystery as we said at the start the sheriff's department came out after their seven-week investigation and said it was a suicide and no criminal charges were to be pursued it really doesn't seem like they tried very hard suicide Suicide's an easy answer. Close, you know.

Exactly. But Rebecca's Ahau's family were not going to leave it at that. They were absolutely convinced that Adam Shackney had killed Rebecca. So two years after her death, they filed a civil case for wrongful death against him. Originally, the case included the mother, Dina, and her sister, Nina. But then once the evidence came out that proved that they absolutely couldn't have been involved, the lawyer removed them from the case. And then that's when it was able to go forward. And finally, on February 28th, 2018, this civil case started. And it's important to know,

even if you are found not guilty in a criminal trial, where the standards for prosecution are very high, or even if you never go to criminal trial like in this case you can be taken to civil court to be sued for being responsible for a crime anyone can file a civil suit but the judge would be the person making the final decision whether the plaintiff had real grounds or enough factual evidence for a lawsuit to be worth considering and once they removed dina and nina from the case the judge did think that there were grounds for a civil trial. And we finally saw its conclusion on the 4th of April 2018, so just a couple of weeks ago, when a jury found Adam Shackney to be responsible for the death of Rebecca Zahal. Adam Shackney must now pay her family $5 million and he must also pay $167,000 for the loss of

financial support Rebecca was providing to her mother and her siblings. There's no real clear definitive answer that points one way or another but I think we're both in agreement that suicide doesn't seem that likely if we're going to take... No way she was murdered. She was murdered. If we're going to take the idea of Occam's razor we've talked about it before the situation that asks you to take fewer assumptions is the one that is right. Suicide asks you to make a huge host of assumptions. With murder, there are things that don't perfectly fit, but it asks you to take fewer assumptions and believe things less bizarre. I don't know who did it.

I don't know who murdered her. I don't know how many people murdered her, but she was murdered. I think we can say that. I don't know what to think of Adam Shackney being found guilty in that civil court. But is there a difference between being found guilty and being found responsible? Because technically Rebecca is responsible for Max's death. She's not guilty. I don't know. In the official ruling it says Rebecca Zaha was found to have died at the hands of Adam Shackney. I guess it's just he's not going to face jail time. From a civil trial you won't face jail time.

But I also think there's so much ground for a retrial here. Why hasn't there been a retrial? Oh no, he never went to trial. So it's not even a retrial. This should be cause for a trial. Yes, exactly. So maybe that's why then, because it never went to trial in the first place, because I was wondering why, because of all of the mishandling of evidence and all of that stuff, that's all grounds for a retrial. But because there was no trial in the first place, you can't do it. But they've kind of painted themselves

into a perfect situation. There's no appetite from the Sheriff's Department to pursue this as a bring criminal charges against Adam Shackney or anybody because they've just decided it's a suicide. And also your district attorney would have to think that there is a strong enough case here

that they are going to win in court. Yeah. The mishandling of the evidence, the botched investigation, the poor narration of this story. There is no appetite and there's no strong enough case that any district attorney, I think, would want to take this to court because they'll lose. This is the best that could have happened, I guess, for the family is that they were able to get some justice through the civil courts. When I started this case, I thought, yes, it was absolutely 100% Adam Shackney. I think it was 90% probably him. Who else is it? It makes the most sense reasonably that it was him. But nothing I've seen has been like 100% cut and shut. It was him. It so rarely is though. I can't count how many

cases we've done where we've been like, this is the most likely thing, but I can't account for this, this, this. But if you were in a jury and this had gone to trial, would you have enough reasonable doubt? I have a reasonable doubt that it wasn't a suicide. Okay. But would you have reasonable doubt that he didn't do it? No. Yeah. I would convict probably based on this. Oh, I would convict him, yeah. Tell us what your thoughts are on this case. It's quite a strange one. And please follow us, if you don't already,

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It makes such a difference. Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. See you next week. Bye. Bye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection.

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