Death at the Mansion: Rebecca Zahau (2019) - full transcript

- Coronado Island
is a little island paradise.

It's just a mile or two from San Diego.

It has that quintessential
small town safe feel to it.

- Coronado is the lowest crime area

in all of San Diego county.

The most common crime
they have is bicycle theft.

- Nothing bad ever happens in Coronado.

- Detectives in Southern
California are stumped

by the discovery of a woman's body

at her boyfriend's mansion.

- 32-year-old Rebecca Zahau
was found dead,



hanging in the sprawling 27-room home

of her 54-year-old boyfriend,

pharmaceutical tycoon Jonah Shacknai.

- Her boyfriend's brother
Adam found her naked,

hanging from a balcony,

her hands and feet tied together.

- I preceded to turn
the TV on, and here it is.

My sister, completely nude in the yard.

She was just left there
like a piece of garbage.

- The scene was pretty suspicious.

- It was such an unusual
and bizarre crime scene.

She was found naked,

hanging outside a balcony.

Her hands tied behind her back.



Her ankles tied together.

With paint on her breast.

She had a T-shirt stuffed in her mouth.

There was a bizarre saying
painted on the wall.

The big question is,
did she really commit suicide,

or was she murdered?

- Her death came just days
after her boyfriend's

6-year-old son fell down the stairs

and suffered fatal injuries

while she was caring for them.

- Two mysterious deaths in the same house,

in the space of a few days.

- A beautiful young woman is watching

her billionaire boyfriend's young son.

He ends up in a very tragic accident.

Where have you ever heard
of a case like this?

- Did she commit suicide
because she felt responsible

for Max's death?

Or was this a murder?

- The answer is no.

It was a suicide.

- Since it was a suicide,

they thought it was all wrapped up.

But boy did it explode in their faces.

- It was a complete shock.

- It really caused a lot of outrage.

- The bizarre nature of
the crimes really seized

the public's imagination.

- There was so much talk.

- People said, "How would
she do that to herself?

"Why would she do
that to herself?"

[overlapping news broadcasts]

- I can't get her back.

Our family can't get her back.

But hopefully people will know

that she didn't commit suicide.

- I'm Loni Coombs,

and I was a criminal prosecutor

in Los Angeles County for 18 years.

As a criminal prosecutor, I had a motto.

Ever vigilant, never forget.

I am their one shot
to get their story told.

I would always have a picture
of the victim on the wall.

And today, the picture I'm focusing on

is Rebecca Zahau.

I personally have been
agonizing over this case

ever since I heard about it.

Ever since I heard that
they declared it a suicide.

I wanted to know
what's really going on here.

As a woman of color,

I think there's so many
assumptions that are made

right off the bat by people in society.

The caption for Rebecca was always

"the beautiful Burmese girlfriend

"of a multimillionaire business man

"Jonah Shacknai."

And then they would go on
to talk about his business

and all the millions that he had made.

And she was the victim here.

Rebecca, she was actually
a very worldly person.

She started out in Burma.

Her father ended up
being a political prisoner.

And after he got out of prison,
the family escaped to Germany.

They lived there for ten years.

She went to Austria to be educated.

She went to college.

She came over to this country.

She was very focused on her career.

She was a fitness buff.

She was a career woman.

She spoke six languages.

You never heard any of that.

It was just
"the beautiful."

And if she wasn't beautiful,

they probably would've barely
talked about her at all.

I'm going to be working with Billy Jensen,

who's an investigative journalist.

And together, we're going
to combine our strengths

and we're gonna look at this case

and we're gonna test what we can test

and we're gonna talk to
who we can talk to.

What are the facts the
police are looking at

to say it's a suicide?

We might be able to find things
that they haven't seen.

We might be able to point
out things that, perhaps,

were overlooked.

And whatever we come up with,

we're going to take to the sheriff's.

- My name is Billy Jensen.

I'm an investigative journalist
and victims advocate.

I've been writing about unsolved murders

and missing persons for 20 years.

And I also help police
departments solve crimes

using social media.

The proudest moment in my career so far

was probably my first homicide solve.

And that was catching
the person responsible

for the death of Marques Gaines

in Chicago, Illinois in 2016.

Rebecca died in 2011, but there's still

so many unanswered questions.

There's so many strange
things about this case.

Like the fact that
Rebecca's hands were tied

behind her back and her feet were bound.

You know, I don't think I would've
looked into this crime

if it wasn't with a prosecutor, like Loni.

- When I heard that this
woman was hanging naked

from a balcony outside

with her hands tied behind her back...

her feet bound together,

and a gag in her mouth.

And they were saying
that this was a suicide?

A-are you kidding?

There's just no way.

I thought, at some point,
they would figure it out

and change their minds.

- The natural inclination is to...

Is to think that there is a crime here.

- Yeah.

- But we very well might come to the idea

that this was a suicide.

- I still think it's extremely unlikely.

- There's three times as many suicides

as there are homicides
in America every year.

Most of the time, it's what happened.

The person did take their
own life, and it's tragic.

But there are sometimes when they didn't.

Staging a homicide to look like a suicide

is not a fairy tale.
It's happened before.

There are cases of people
that have committed suicide

where their hands were bound.

- Mmm-hmm.

- Because they don't wanna self-rescue.

We've seen that before.

Binding the feet is a little different.

- Mmm-hmm.

- That's one check mark in the
"this might not be a suicide."

- Yeah.

- We also have another case, as well.

We have Max's case.

When you have this mansion...

- Yeah.

- And you have two deaths within...

- Two days!
- Two days.

- In the same house.

Are they connected?

Are they not connected?

To really wrap my head
around Rebecca's death,

I need to understand
the days leading up to it.

Two days before Rebecca was found dead,

her boyfriend Jonah Shacknai's
6-year-old son Max

had a fall in their home.

And ended up comatose in the hospital.

The Sheriff's Department
determined that Rebecca felt

such guilt for what happened to Max

that she took her own life.

But her family insists
that she was murdered.

And someone is even been
found legally responsible

for her death in a civil court.

Adam Shacknai,

who is Jonah Shacknai's brother.

The entire Zahau family
wants law enforcement

to reopen the case

and to redesignate it as a homicide.

- Where do you wanna start?

- Well, I always try and start
with the victim's body

in a case like this.

Because there's a lot of evidence

on the victim's body.

It's literally her way
of speaking and telling us

what happened in those
last moments of her life.

So, I say we start there.

- All right.

This is what her hands looked like.

- Look at those knots.

- Can you even tie your
hands behind your back

like that?

- This is complex.

She has ropes down below around her hands.

I mean, it probably...
It goes around five times

on this side.

And then there's knots all throughout it.

- Yeah.

Now, if you take a look at her feet,

it looks like whoever was doing this

knew what they were doing

in terms of tying something up.

- And if I was going to
kill myself in this manner,

and I had this balcony to get over,

why would you bind your feet?

If your hands are already bound,

you're trying to get over that balcony.

This crime scene is so strange.

- There's even more weird
stuff going on inside.

The first thing that they would have seen

as they walked into the bedroom is this.

What looks like a towel and blood stains.

- And this was, uh,
Rebecca's blood, correct?

- Yes, this was Rebecca's blood.

- Now, we do know that
Rebecca was menstruating.

So, some of this blood,

you know, could have been that.

- And you've got what we saw on the door.

Was this a suicide note?

Was this somethin' that
somebody else wrote?

"She saved him
can you save her."

What do you make of that?

- Rebecca painted.

So, she had the paint supplies
but it's third person,

so that would lead it to be
somebody not Rebecca.

Here's something I find interesting.

This smaller knife,
which had been 27 right there.

Uh, they said that there was blood...

Rebecca's blood... on the handle.

Not just on a side.

All the way around.

On the front, the back,
and the sides, and the end.

It wasn't just wiped.

It was penetrating something.

That knife penetrated
that source of blood.

How did that blood get there?

She didn't have a lot of cuts
to the point where she was,

you know, bleeding on her body.

- Right.

- Because we know she was on her period,

that's indicative of
a potential sexual assault.

You know, the coroner
assumed that there was

no sexual assault here,
'cause there was no semen.

But any penetration...
- Right.

- Constitutes a sexual assault.

If there's a sexual assault,

that is a huge flag against suicide.

- I don't know about you,
but if I saw someone hanging,

bound, naked, with a gag in her mouth,

I would've thought murder.

- The long drop execution-style hanging

was meant to be a humane
form of execution.

Looking at her injuries,
I am just not seeing this

as being consistent with somebody

who was dropped ten feet and then boom.

- We have to look past
the unusual appearance

of the death and focus on
the facts and the evidence.

Our office concluded that
the cause of death was hanging,

and the manner of death is suicide.

- Was it a crime?

What do we think happened?

What are the theories
that could've happened?

- Okay.
- Let's lay 'em all out.

- Okay, okay.

Let's start with the one
that the police say it is-

suicide.
Okay.

- Okay?

- But I have a gut reaction that it's-

it's not a suicide.

- You and everybody on the internet

has a gut reaction that
this is not a suicide.

- Yeah.

- Second would be that she was murdered,

and it was staged to look like a suicide.

- Okay.
Murder.

Staged.
Okay.

Let's look at the people
who were in Rebecca's life

at the time of her death.

The person closest to her
was her boyfriend,

Jonah Shacknai.

And Rebecca and Jonah had been dating

for a couple of years and living together.

And so, they were staying at
the Spreckels Mansion there

on Coronado together for the summertime.

He had a son named Max,
who was 6-years-old,

who Rebecca was very close to.

And he was in a coma in the hospital

at the time of Rebecca's death.

- Then we have Max's mother,
Dina Shacknai.

Dina Shacknai is Jonah's second ex-wife.

She and Jonah shared custody of Max.

And obviously she wasn't
living in the house,

but she was living just around the corner.

- Dina has somewhat of
a tumultuous relationship

with Rebecca.

There might have been some
jealousy over the fact

that Rebecca was Jonah's girlfriend

and that she had a close
relationship with Max.

Now, when Max had her accident,

Dina's twin sister Nina
immediately flew in

to San Diego for support.

And Jonah has a brother
named Adam Shacknai.

And Adam is a tugboat operator

in Memphis, Tennessee.

After Max fell, Adam also flew in

to be there for his brother Jonah.

- Adam was staying in the guest house

of Spreckels Mansion.

And he was the last person
to see her alive.

And was the one that found
her body in the morning.

- And from Rebecca's family,

we have her 13-year-old sister Xena.

- She was visiting Rebecca
on summer break.

And she was the only other person home

on the day of Max's accident.

- Rebecca sent Xena home to Missouri

so she could focus on supporting Jonah

while he was going through
everything with Max

in the hospital.

And lastly, we have
Rebecca's older sister Mary.

They were very close.

Had a lot of communication with each other

just before Rebecca's death.

Mary's working very hard
to have Rebecca's case

reclassified as a homicide.

- If we're gonna get any
closer to figure out

what happened, we gotta
figure out who Rebecca was,

as best we can.

- I've actually been able to contact Mary.

- Great.

- So, she is going to, um,
meet with us this afternoon,

she said.

- Sounds like a plan.

- Hi, Mary.

- Hey.
- Hey, how are you?

Mary adamantly disagrees
with the sheriff's ruling

of suicide.

And I wanna know, what is it
that she knows about Rebecca

that leads her to believe there's no way

that Rebecca would've taken her own life.

- What was she like?

How would you describe her?

- I would say she was
vibrant, compassionate,

and definitely a go-getter.

Rebecca and I, we grew up
a Christian, you know.

And our parents raised us
to stay glued in our faith.

And we grew up singing in the youth group,

singing church hymns.

And then later on, more popular rock type

of music, but... She was funny.

And she was charming.

And she could make you laugh
even on your worst day.

I don't know how to say it.

She just had this funny laugh.

And just made me laugh
because she laughed funny.

Simple things like that,
you don't think about

until you miss it.

- So, when Rebecca goes to, uh, Arizona,

she meets a man.

To come to America.

To start going out with
this incredibly rich guy.

Like... Well, Rebecca's story
was a Cinderella story.

That would be see as a...
As a... as a fairy tale.

- Jonah Shacknai was and still is

a pharmaceutical magnate.

He made millions and millions of dollars

by launching his own company.

- Rebecca was working at
a ophthalmology clinic

in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Uh, Jonah came in...
I believe for an eye exam...

And he was immediately taken with her

and they had been together

nearly two years when she died.

I don't believe that
everybody in Jonah's life

was totally kind and welcoming at first.

I heard several people say
she did not seem like

the kind of woman
that Jonah would be with.

And I don't know what to read into that.

Perhaps that she wasn't white?

Perhaps that she was
20 years younger than him?

- It was a little awkward,

you know, when I first met him.

And he definitely perceived that.

I wasn't rude or anything,

but I wasn't thrilled about it, you know.

And it was one of those things where

you wanna support your
sister, she's an adult.

- Why didn't you approve of it?

- What is a guy with so much money doing

with somebody like my sister,
who is half his age?

I know, deep down, that it
was just not a good match.

Why my sister?

- What did you think he wanted?

- To me, it felt like
he saw a nice person...

And my sister was...
And took advantage of her.

I mean, she was almost
like a glorified nanny.

I think he knows that
she would take care of his kids,

and she was more of a
convenience, in all honesty.

- Jonah had three kids.
- Yes.

- How did she get along with them?

- Oh, boy, that's a long story.

Um, I don't know all the
details, but I do know

that the teenagers were a challenge.

But, she got along with Maxey really well.

And we all call him "Maxey" because

that's what she called him.

She actually took the time
to play with him.

She would actually get down
to his level and play games

with him or read the books to him.

She was very attached to him.

- When did she contact you
after Max's accident?

- Um, it... the same day.

Y-you can tell she was upset.

But she wasn't hysterical
or anything like that.

But she was teary-eyed.

I mean, I can tell in her voice.

- So, the next day after the accident,

you guys talked as well?

- The next day was...
I'm trying to think... Yes.

- It was Tuesday.
- Yes.

- That was the day Xena was coming home.

- Yes.

And we had been talkin'
about my dad's birthday,

and he was gonna turn 80.

And, um, I said,
"You know, I think we should

"throw a big birthday
party for dad."

And I told her that she could come home.

She said "I will plan on coming.

"Let mom know I will call her
first thing in the morning,

"'cause I have to get up at five

"to make
Jonah's breakfast."

Thank you.

And that was the last time
that I talked to her.

First thing in the morning,
my husband came to work

and he's like, "We need to
go to your, um, office.

"It's about your sister."

He said,
"Rebecca is dead."

"They said
she committed suicide."

And I said,
"What? No way."

And I looked at my husband and I said,

"We're going to San Diego

"because somebody
killed my sister."

Did I think about the
possibility of suicide?

Yes, because when they first told me,

they said she hung herself.

She left us a note.

I'm like, "I don't know,
maybe she could've done it."

Well, little did I know
what the crime scene

looked like.

She tied herself in impossible manners,

gagged herself.

I mean, how she can finish
what's she doing

and then hop to the balcony?

And you're tryin' to tell me
that she committed suicide?

It makes no sense.

- Did they tell you about
what was written on the door?

- Honestly, I think that was
just written to throw-

throw people off.

And as soon as I saw the
handwriting, I told them,

"That's not my
sister's handwriting."

But you know, it was almost like they had

already made up their minds.

So, whatever I said,
they're like "Uh-huh."

- The fact that Rebecca was naked.

What does that tell you?

- That piece alone makes me
so angry and so upset.

Because just the fact that her family

would see her that way,

she would have never done it.

- What do you think happened?

- My sister was murdered.

And that gets me so heartbroken and hurt

and angry.

At the same time, that's
my drive to keep going,

because I still have to believe

that the truth will prevail eventually.

As long as I'm alive,
I'm going to fight for it.

- From the very beginning,

law enforcement declared this
to be a suicide.

And it continued to hold to that ruling,

even though people have questioned it

all through the years.

And Rebecca's family wants law enforcement

to reopen the case.

- I'll be the first to admit

that this was a unique and unusual case.

And I-I've personally
investigated many suicides

and homicides of various types.

We have to look past the
unusual appearance

of the death and focus on
the facts and the evidence.

Our office concluded that the
cause of death was hanging,

and the manner of death is suicide.

- The last outgoing call
from Rebecca's phone

was found to be to her own voicemail.

Rebecca received news regarding
Max's grave condition

at about ten minutes
to one in the morning.

She made the decision
to take her own life.

She removed her clothing
or was already unclothed,

perhaps coming out of the shower.

Painted the message on the door,

cut the rope into sections,

and secured the rope to the bed.

She bound her feet,

placed the rope and
the shirt around her neck,

fashioned her wrist bindings,

and secured her hands behind her back.

Rebecca moved out to the balcony,

leaned forward over the railing, and fell.

- Sean Elder is a skeptic
of the Sheriff's Department

ruling that this is a suicide.

Sean is a journalist and an author.

He wrote an article about
these suspicious deaths

at Spreckels Mansion for
"Town and Country Magazine."

He spent over two years
investigating this case

and talking to all of the people involved.

So, he's gonna have a very
interesting overview

of this case.

- You've been livin' with
this case for a long time,

haven't you?

- Almost two years now, yeah.

- What was the main thing
that-that said, okay,

this is not what it seems to be?

- Just started with the basic
facts of Rebecca's death.

That she... her hands and
feet with bound behind her.

The San Diego Sheriffs,

uh, they went to great lengths
to convince people

this could actually be done.

That somebody could kill
themselves that way.

Somebody could tie this
ra-rather complicated

rather nautical knots.

How would somebody slip them around,

put them on their back, do the same thing

with their feet,

then put a gag in their mouth?

Then you have to have her
jumping off a little balcony.

You just start to think,

"This doesn't make
any sense at all."

What I found even stranger
as I begin to dig deeper

and as I begin to go back
to the actual facts

of the case as they were happening,

that suicide determination started

with the very first call.

When Adam Shacknai called Jonah and said,

"Um, I got some bad for ya,
are you sitting down?

"Um, Rebecca's
killed herself."

And, Jonah went into the
hospital room where Max was

and Dina was sitting and she said,

"What's wrong?"

She looked at him, she could
tell something had happened.

"So, what's wrong?"

He said, "Rebecca
killed herself."

And she said,
"Oh, my god. Why?"

And he said,
"Asian honor."

And he made this gesture,
sort of like, uh, seppuku,

like a ritualistic suicide.

This was repeated by some of the...

Of the officers on the scene.

I don't know about you,
but if I was out here

and I saw someone hanging
from a balcony like that,

bound, naked, with a gag in her mouth,

the first thing I wouldn't think was,

"Oh, that person must've
hung themself."

I would've thought murder.

I would've thought execution.

I would've thought something ritualistic.

And then if you add to that,
the day of Rebecca's death,

the police seized two computers

from the Spreckels Mansion.

They did a search of
the internet search histories

on both computers
and found a number of links

about porn, including anime porn and, uh,

Asian bondage porn.

And in a case like this, when you hear

that an Asian woman has
been tied up and killed,

and then you then find
that somebody was searching

for, um, something related
to Asians and bondage

on the internet?

It just makes people think
that the two had something

to do with each other.

People say, "Oh, you're
tryin' to cover that up?

"Well, what's
goin' on there?"

I think the public latched on to it for
a variety of reasons.

The unusual nature of her death.

Perhaps a fetishization of Asian woman.

The fact that the police
had not publicly at least,

talked much about those ropes,
which left a big void

and causes people to speculate.

And the fact that the knots
seemed way too complicated

for the job they were set out to do.

I think it casts another,
uh, aura of mystery

around this case...
That the police did not seem

to follow up on this.

It seemed to be rather glaring and obvious

that there was a connection...

Or a possible connection there.

And yet, we heard nothing
about them investigating it.

The same black paint that
was found that was painted

in the message on the door,
was found on her body,

around her nipples and
the inside of her thigh.

To me, it seems like some kind
of sexual humiliation.

- Every time I'm thinking
"There's no way she would do that,"

I go back to the physical evidence.

And I said there wasn't DNA on the rope

or any-any of those sorta things

that you automatically go to

that you would see in a
wrongful conviction case,

for instance.

- Okay, there's no DNA and
there's no fingerprints.

That makes it simple, right?

Why?
That was a common room.

Why would only her DNA be there?

And why, for that matter, on the knife

that Adam supposedly cut the rope with

to cut her down,

his fingerprints weren't even on it.

How do you do that?

So, there are things like
that that just...

They stink to me, you know?
They stink on ice.

- I have a problem with the crime scene

being a murder scene because
there's no foreign DNA.

But Sean brought up
an interesting point...

The lack of any foreign DNA at the scene

is a big question.

But it's just one question
in a thousand questions

that are surrounding this case.

- All right, where are we?

As a former prosecutor,

I know that having a seasoned investigator

is crucial.

So, we're teaming up with Paul Holes,

who's a forensic investigator.

He's gonna bring that perspective

of being able to look at
all of the trace evidence...

The DNA,

the prints, the blood...

And really tell us
how it all fits together

in the big picture.

- How ya doin', buddy?
Good seeing you again.

- Going good.

I'm Paul Holes,

I'm a retired cold case investigator.

And I, with a small team,
was able to identify

Joseph DeAngelo as
the Golden State Killer.

I spent 24 years looking for him.

I initially started out working

as a forensic scientist,
applying DNA technology.

And then over the years, I have moved into

the investigative realm.

I am going to bring valuable insight

as to whether or not
Rebecca killed herself

or somebody came in and murdered her.

Why don't you go ahead and
tell me where you're at?

- A-as far as I'm concerned,
from the very get-go,

I said, "There's no way a woman
is going to commit suicide

"naked out in public
like that."

- The thing that bothers me
most is the lack

of physical evidence
on the scene of anyone else.

From footprints to DNA.

- When it comes to
leaving physical evidence,

oftentimes, it's-it's
going to be dependent on

the types of interactions the offender has

with the crime scene, with the victim,

as well as what precautions
that offender is taking.

It is very variable,

and that's where you can't necessarily

draw conclusions by
the absence of the evidence.

- Mmm-hmm.

- To say there was nobody else present

or nobody else that was involved.

What I wanna show you first, initially,

is just a little bit
about the crime scene.

Look at this.

Pathologist notes that this
was a long-drop hanging.

You have a body falling
from that balcony ten feet

and instantaneous deceleration,

with the forces being applied
to this victim's petite neck

across the dimensions
of the rope into her neck.

These types of hangings are-are very rare.

You don't see them in suicides.

So, it's something that pathologists

don't encounter frequently at all.

You see those more in the
countries where they use

that type of hanging for executions.

And that's where your
experts are going to be

to evaluate the types of injuries.

- Yeah, this is Old West-type stuff.

- Exactly.

- This is not somebody
hang themself in a closet.

- Right.

The long-drop execution-style hanging

was meant to be a humane form of execution

because the idea was is to snap the neck

so the people would just
immediately be k-killed.

Versus sitting there struggling

as they asphyxiated to death.

That's where looking at her injuries,

I am just not seeing this
as being consistent

with somebody who was dropped
ten feet and then, boom.

So, with this long-drop
execution-style hanging,

this is devastating to the neck.

Oftentimes, it causes
breakage of the vertebrae

in the neck, or in...
What's called

internal decapitation,
or even decapitation.

The pathologist noted hyoid fracture.

Noted cartilage fracture.
Noted hemorrhage.

That is much more consistent
with manual strangulation.

So, the hyoid bone...
This is a-a floating bone

in the neck that oftentimes is diagnostic

for manual strangulation.

Because it floats, when
you have a narrow thing

such as a ligature,
it's able to move out of

the way from the forces of
the ligature being applied.

But when have broad hands
wrapping around the neck,

the hyoid can't slip away,

and that's when it get fractured.

- At this point in the investigation,

evidence is pointing both ways.

But if Paul's right,
it's gonna be way more likely

that somebody strangled Rebecca

and then used the hanging
to sort of cover it up.

- You get into the physicality of Rebecca

trying to kill herself

by tying her hands behind her back,

by binding her ankles together

using relatively complex binding

around both the wrists and the ankles.

And then now, she's having to,

in essence, hop to the balcony

and get herself up over the balcony

in order to die.

It becomes one of those circumstances

that just doesn't seem to make
a lot of sense to me.

- When they were trying to sell the idea

that she committed suicide,

the police did a video of a woman

putting the bindings together

to try to show how easy it is.

- Yep.
- Oh, this could be done.

And I think you've got
that on the computer.

- I do.

So, let's go head and-and roll that.

- To do this, I would have to
be watching a video of it

as I did it, and even then,
it would take me a long time.

- Obviously, not an easy process.

The person demonstrating the process...

That is impressive.

Highly skilled in terms of
being able to go through

all of those manipulations of the rope.

However, is that what
we're seeing with Rebecca?

- I-I even see one thing
right off the bat.

She's using her dominant
right hand to pull that...

The tightness at the very end.

Here, it's in the left hand.

And she was right-handed, so.

- Right.
- That's a good point.

- Now, when you have people
who are involved,

let's say in bondage, that's what they do.

And so, they do become very practiced.

Did Rebecca possess this skill set?

- One thing you can't
escape is that there were

bondage elements to this case.

The way that Rebecca was bound.

There was bondage found on
the computers and searches

for bondage porn.

If Rebecca was in to bondage,

she very well might've had the experience

to tie these knots herself.

Or, if there was somebody else there,

they knew that bondage lifestyle

and were able to transfer those skills

over to commit a murder.

- Hey.
- I'm Billy Jensen.

- Billy, it's a pleasure.
- Hi, I'm Loni Coombs.

- This is the Shibari room.

- Shibari is the Japanese form of bondage

where someone is tied up
in intricate knots

and suspended.

- Hi, Loni.
- Hi, Fae.

- We're meeting with
experts to get a sense

for whether those knots
that were found on Rebecca

line up with the knots
from bondage in Shibari.

Here's the situation
that we've got right now.

We have a case where
a woman was found hanging.

- Uh-huh.

- And her feet and hands were bound.

- Okay.

- She was naked, and she
was hanged from a balcony.

We wanted to take a look at the knots

and see what type of knots are done,

ah, with Shibari,

and whether the knots
that we're seeing on her

match up.

Can I show you some pictures

of how this woman was found?

- Do you recognize any of those knots?

Do any of them look...
- Well, I can see that,

you know, they tried to do
some half hitches.

It just looked like they
were trying to wrap it

any way they could to get
this rope to lock down.

- So, does this have
any basis in Shibari at all?

- That's not even remotely
close to Shibari.

That looks like maybe
some sloppy Western work.

Or like somebody had some boating skills

once upon a time.

And, you know, it almost
looks like they were

cleating a boat,

but they had human limbs instead.

- Hmm.

- If this was something
that somebody was gonna

actually tie on themselves,

you just have to do the figure eight.

And the trick is going
to be slip the hand out.

And if we go behind here.

Slip my had back in.

- Let me try this here.

Now, I put one around.
- Mmm-hmm.

- This is what you're saying?

- And then you just start
doing a figure eight wrap.

- Yeah, flip it over.
- There you go.

- All right.

All right, then I'm gonna...

- Slip that behind.

- Do this.

- Grab your two rope ends
and just keep pulling

'til you make it tight enough.

- Yeah.

- Is it tight?
Can you pull your hands out of it?

- I mean, it would
probably take 15 seconds.

Yeah, eventually I could do that.

But if this was the last thing she did,

if she had her feet bound,

the noose around her neck,

and then she finally did this,

and then hopped over.

It could've happened.

It wasn't that much of a challenge,

to be honest with you.

It really wasn't.

So, just looking at the knots,

do you think she could've done it?

- Just based on the ties themselves?

- Yeah.
- And stuff like that?

I could be that she did it to herself.

What I'm not seeing is a relation to,

like, Shibari or kink
or something like that.

I don't see that part.

- Rebecca's bindings don't
appear to be related

to bondage.

But to me, this means
that this suicide theory

that we're looking into
is still a reality.

I mean, very much a reality.

She could bind her feet and her hands.

There wasn't anything fancy
about those knots

that were found on her feet, her hands,

or even the noose.

So, this didn't take
any expert information

or knowledge.
She could've done it.

- So, where are you at with this thing?

- You know, I started out
with my gut reaction

that there was no way this was a suicide.

It just didn't make sense at all to me,

and I didn't think it was
possible, honestly.

But, then we look at
the physical aspects of it.

The fact that
is it possible? Yes.

Could it be done
by one person? Yes.

Could it have been
done by her? Yes.

All those things are yes.

It's interesting because you started out

as thinking this was
more likely a suicide.

- I did.
- Okay.

- The reason why I was at suicide was that

there was no other DNA found at the scene.

- Mmm-hmm.

- But then I talked to Mary and that...

Coupled with the strangeness
of the crime scene

and that knife

that looks like it was
involved in a sexual assault...

Adding all that together,

I was veering towards murder.

But I wanted to see if she
was potentially involved

in a bondage lifestyle.

I don't even care about
that anymore because

those weren't bondage knots,
which we learned.

- Right.

- And they were pretty easy to do.

- Yes.

I still think it was strange,

I just don't think it was difficult.

- Yeah. But then
the question is this,

why is she naked?

- Yeah.
Does not make sense.

- All right.

If she's found hanging
with her wrists bound

behind her back.

- Mm-hmm.

- And her feet bound, but she's clothed?

- Mmm-hmm.

- At this point in time,
would you say suicide?

- Yeah.

Actually, that-that would
make a big difference to me.

That would give me a lot more pause.

Because then I think you
would really have to say,

"Okay, was this just that impulsive,

"extreme behavior,

"and that she was so overcome with grief

"that she decided
to do this."

But the naked?

I-I don't see anyone saying,

"Oh, this is the best way.
This is gonna be easy.

"Lemme just take all my
clothes off and do this."

- I wanna know, did she
do other things naked?

Did she like to be nude a lot?

- Well, e-even if she was,
I'll just tell you

from the female perspective,
if you're on your period,

you're not walking around naked!

- All right.
So, you're in the shower,

you're thinking, "You know what?

"I'm going to kill myself."

Is she really going to get
dressed to commit suicide?

- Yes, because it's not
somethin' you do quickly.

She's gotta go outside to
the garage to get the rope.

She's gotta go down to the
kitchen to get the knives.

She's got to paint the sign.

She's got to figure out
how long the rope's gonna be,

so she doesn't land on the ground.

You're not gonna walk
around naked that time

all over the house
and outside to the garage.

- Yeah.
It's so weird.

- Yeah.
- It's just so weird.

- Yeah.

- Child died.
Distraught female.

She's emotional.
She just hung herself.

- She was incredibly distraught,

almost incoherent.

But was she distraught
enough to kill herself?

- Suicide is one way to regain

your family's sense of honor.

But being naked, that is very shameful.

So, i-it's a bit befuddling.

- You think this was a suicide?

- Yes.
Rebecca hung herself.

- It's not suicide.

Someone did this to her.

- The whole case had an
appearance of a sexual crime

from the beginning.

- A lot of blood right there?

- Have you ever seen a suicide note

written in third person?

- This is angry.

This is black.
This is dark.

- There's a pattern print
that looks like a leather glove.

- 'Cause all these years,

I and my family have been fighting

just to prove that she was murdered.

- We tried to get a meeting

with the San Diego Sheriff's Department.

They refused to meet with us.

- Rebecca Zahau's manner
of death was a suicide.

- The Sheriff's Department
thought that they were

gonna convince us that it was a suicide

and we were just gonna go away.

- If Rebecca was murdered,

who had the motivation to do it?

Who would do such a degrading thing

to this poor woman?

- It's right in front of our eyes.

- Sexual assault with a steak knife.

That said murder.

- Everything that you see here
is very humiliating.

And one of the important things
about a lot of sex crimes

that I have seen is that
you want to punish them.

- We found no evidence
that would lead us to believe

that Rebecca died at the hands of another.

- I will not stop until
the world knows the truth.

- Did you do anything to Rebecca