Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors (29 page)

Ciolino located a second resident who had heard a woman’s frightened screams in the night.

“That’s ‘Homicide 101,’ ” Ciolino would later state on the
Dr. Phil
show. He’d read the Zahau case files, talked to witnesses, and visited the death scene and the surrounding area for himself. He was not allowed to go inside the mansion or the guesthouse. (Nor was Seattle attorney Anne Bremner when she sought permission to go inside.) Ciolino wondered why the case had been closed so prematurely. Something wasn’t right.

“It didn’t pass the ‘smell test,’ ” he said bluntly. “It stinks.”

Ciolino went to Dr. Mark Kalish, a board-certified psychiatrist, and laid the troubling case out for him. At length, Dr. Kalish shook his head. “This was no suicide,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Sometime later, when Dr. Phil asked him why someone would tie a victim up so elaborately to make it look like suicide, the PI from Chicago flatly replied, “Killers are stupid.”

Paul Ciolino criticized the San Diego investigators. “I’ve seen it before,” he said. “I call it ‘confirmation bias.’ The detectives draw their original conclusions—and then they look for clues and evidence to support them. When they do that, they miss details that might point in an entirely different direction.”

Jonah had put the Coronado mansion up for sale—not surprising. There were too many memories of despair and loss there now. But Paul Ciolino worried about the dozens of prospective buyers who were “constantly contaminating” the scene more and more. If there was evidence there—and there probably was—visitors were probably taking some of it away with them—no matter how small—and they were tracking in stuff from wherever they had been, leaving their fingerprints as they moved from room to room.

Moreover, Anne Bremner, California attorneys David Fleck and Martin Rudoy, who also represented the Zahau family, along with Ciolino, were convinced the sheriff’s department still had possible vital evidence that had never been tested, statements that had never been followed up. Jonah Shacknai joined them in asking that more investigation be done. Although not as vociferous in his plea as the others were, he seemed to feel that not enough had been done to find out what really happened to Becky.

Seven weeks just hadn’t been long enough to thoroughly work such a tangled case—actually
two
tangled cases.

Chapter Twelve

But when 2012 arrived, nothing had changed. Rebecca Zahau’s family mourned the daughter and sister they loved so much, but there were no answers to their questions. The investigation into her death was closed. The world went on without Becky and without Maxie. For the thousands of people who had followed their cases avidly, it seemed impossible to let go of wondering. The websites were still filled with queries, opinions, theories—both from those who were highly educated in medicine, psychology, and criminal justice and those whose gut instincts and empathy drove them to keep tabs on what was now a closed murder probe.

On January 6, 2012, the Zahau family’s legal team—law partners David Fleck and Marty Rudoy in California, along with Anne Bremner in Seattle—drafted an eighteen-page-letter to Julie Garland, the senior supervising deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice. The department’s office had earlier declined to review the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and Coronado Police Department’s handling of the Rebecca Zahau case.

There were very narrow criteria for such a review. The state of California had scarce financial resources and their policy was that they could only review cases where a clear conflict of interest existed, where local authorities’ resources had been exhausted and they had asked for help from the state, or when there were allegations of gross malfeasance by a local law enforcement agency or agencies.

The Zahaus’ attorneys felt they had a case that fit within the DOJ’s requirements. The letter was a bold move—and quite probably the final chance to see Becky’s death satisfactorily investigated.

Fleck, Rudoy, and Bremner mentioned the “blue ribbon” panel of experts who had joined them in their disbelief that Becky had been a suicide: forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht; retired Los Angeles homicide detective Steven Fisk, with five hundred homicide, suicide, and suspicious death investigations under his belt; private investigator Paul Ciolino; and several expert instructors from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

They felt there was a clear conflict of interest in the close relationship between Sheriff Gore’s office and Adam Shacknai’s attorney, Paul Pfingst, the former two-time district attorney of San Diego County. Attached to this letter was the photograph of Pfingst at Becky’s death site
inside
the yellow crime scene tape even before the arrival of the deputy medical examiner. One of the detectives clearly had his arm around the former DA’s shoulder.

“Paul Pfingst used a non-published phone number to reach the police,” the legal trio noted, “to tell them not to give his client (Adam) a polygraph. In this recorded call, Pfingst referred to the incident as a ‘homicide.’ ”

“We know from experience,” David Fleck wrote, “that homicide detectives do not hobnob with a prime suspect’s defense attorney during an active investigation, and it is highly unusual for a defense attorney to be at a [working] crime scene. At a minimum, it creates a disconcerting appearance of impropriety.”

Fleck, Rudoy, and Bremner listed again the circumstances when Becky Zahau perished. They could, of course, recite the details in their sleep—but they wanted to be sure the California Department of Justice was fully aware of them.

“According to Adam Shacknai, a tugboat captain from Memphis, he found Rebecca hanging and he cut her down. She was naked. Her feet were filthy with dried mud. Her hands were bound behind her with sophisticated knots. Her ankles were bound with sophisticated knots. The noose around her neck was applied
over
her hair. There was a T-shirt wrapped around her neck three times and stuffed into her mouth as a gag. The blood had pooled in her back—not in her feet or legs. Painted on the door to the bedroom where the rope was anchored to a bedpost was the message: ‘She saved him. Can you save her.’ It was not a suicide note; she left no suicide note.

“Detectives concluded that Rebecca tied herself up, made her way onto the balcony [with feet bound] and threw herself over, leaving minimal footprints. They admitted there was no suicide note, and made no attempt to explain the message on the door.”

The orange-red towropes that bound Becky Zahau’s ankles and wrists, twisting her into what everyday people might call a “hog-tied” position, were fashioned in a complicated pattern. Her family’s attorneys had conferred with rope experts, and they’d learned about a Japanese “art” and/or “sexual sadomasochistic” practice of tying ropes around human beings. It is called
Shibari.

Sometimes,
Shibari
can be as innocuous as a delicate art of wrapping perfect packages. At other times, it is a sexual practice or fetish, one that few have heard of. Currently trendy in the Orient and Europe, the intricate machinations of what can only be termed “rope sex” demand the winding, knotting, and rewinding of ropes around the limbs and other body parts of sexual partners or those who pose in bondage positions. It can be very, very, dangerous, particularly when precise balance must be maintained between more than one person. One wrong tilt and participants can—and have—died. An Italian case involved three people, all balanced precariously. One woman, new to
Shibari
, fainted and her full weight shifted. It is just one instance where this extreme fetish, which requires total control, ended in the fatal strangulations of two of the participants.

“These were nautical knots, likely tied by someone right-handed, according to our experts’ reports,” David Fleck’s letter to Garland continued as he spoke of those that bound Becky Zahau. “They are not the safe knots used in conventional bondage. There are two styles of knots [employed;] some are utilitarian and nautical—others are reminiscent of
Shibari
-type bondage. It would have been unlikely for Rebecca to have tied these knots because of their complexity. Less sophisticated knots would have done the trick. Unless there was an intent to make a display, there’s no reason to use such an elaborate knot.”

Dr. Cyril Wecht had come to the same conclusion. Becky Zahau simply didn’t have the knowledge or even the dexterity to bind herself in the position in which she was found, much less be able to get to the balcony railing in one hop and plunge over.

There had been one set of her tiptoe footprints, hampered by being tightly bound, and a half print of one of a man’s boots in the dust—which was believed to have been left by a police officer. These, admittedly, were some of the most troubling pieces of physical evidence that seemed to indicate she had committed suicide.

Where and how, then, had Becky’s feet been caked with mud?

Step by step, the all-encompassing letter asked Julie Garland for further investigation and brought up things that they felt had not been efficiently explored: the four hemorrhages on Becky’s skull; the multiple abrasions; the unexplained duct tape residue on her ankles, when detectives had found no such tape in the mansion; the injuries to her neck, throat, and back, with no broken vertebrae, and no damage to the
back
of her neck, making it look as if the manner of death was manual strangulation—not hanging.

Retired homicide detective Steve Fisk was concerned by the substantial percentage of the fingerprints that were dusted and lifted only to be termed “unusable.”

“They might not have been clear enough for use in a court of law—but they could have been used to see if there were points that matched known persons of interest,” he commented.

Some DNA had been collected and evaluated, but there were no DNA exemplars from Dina Shacknai, and no fingerprints from her, either.

Just as they had wondered about why Becky’s long hair had been tucked
under
the blue shirt and the orange-red noose, Anne Bremner and her assistant, Misty Scott, also noted that hanging is an unusual way for females to kill themselves. Sometimes only women understand what women are likely to do. Bremner and Scott have sensitive antennas that catch subtleties males might not recognize.

The National Institute of Mental Health did a study on the most common methods women use in suicides, and number one, by far, was poisoning (including sleeping pills). Number two is a gun—although women rarely shoot themselves in the head or face.

Detective Fisk, with all his many years of experience, had never seen—or heard—of a woman who hung herself naked. Becky Zahau would have been aware that her nude and twisted body would be visible to the public—including her neighbors on Ocean Boulevard. One cannot be “embarrassed” after they are dead, but Fisk knew the vast majority of female suicides attempt to look attractive—even in death.

The three attorneys suggested that the San Diego County medical examiner and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department had jointly ruled Becky Zahau’s death a suicide, “relying primarily on each other’s flawed analysis of the situation, and ignoring compelling evidence of murder,” with circular logic going virtually nowhere.

The Zahaus’ legal team was concerned that there were other individuals who might have wanted Becky dead, although only Adam Shacknai had been questioned intensely. Whether any one of them had reason to really kill her, however, was a big question.

There was no love lost between Dina Shacknai and Becky Zahau. Even though Dina had seemed eager to divorce Jonah and benefited handsomely from their divorce settlement, she must have resented the woman who had replaced her. Witnesses had told detectives that their relationship had been “on the edge of civil.”

The wife of the couple who took care of the Shacknai mansion had told detectives about a public event in February 2011, when Dina and Becky had a confrontation.

“The black paint on the bedroom door matched the black paint on Rebecca’s body. But she was an artist,” Fleck wrote. “She wasn’t likely to smear paint on herself. Our handwriting expert expresses concern over the conclusion that Rebecca painted the message on the door, based on a number of factors.

“The San Diego Sheriff’s Office relied on a recent receipt for painting supplies purchased by Rebecca as proof of intent to commit suicide. However, my partner, Marty Rudoy, spoke with Mike, the salesperson/manager at Coronado Hardware. Mike confirms that none of the supplies purchased on that receipt were artistic brushes, nor was any of the paint [artists’] ‘tube’ paint. The painting supplies that were purchased were the type for painting a room, including large brushes and gallons of paint. None of the supplies listed on the receipt found in the car were used in this crime. The receipt is a red herring.”

Attorney David Fleck wrote that there were many things that he felt flawed the sheriff’s investigation, far more than he could list, even in an eighteen-page letter.

He asked for myriad specific actions the San Diego sheriff’s investigators could take that would help to unlock the
real
events of the night of July 12–13, 2011.

“Despite the length of this report,” Fleck wrote, “it just scratches the surface of what we have found. For example, there are two witnesses who need to be interrogated by law enforcement as they have reported new, unverified, information regarding several of the individuals discussed herein. [We can discuss this with you in person, but the information is so sensitive that we do not feel comfortable sharing it with San Diego County law enforcement at this time.]”

But Fleck agreed that there were steps that could only be accomplished effectively by law enforcement.

He listed a number of witnesses whose identities remain confidential and asked that witnesses to Dina’s altercation with Becky be interviewed.

Although stacks of police files had been turned over to Rudoy, Bremner, and Fleck, there were many they still did not have. Fleck asked that the sheriff’s office obtain records from the local cable company, Verizon, Yahoo, ADT, Adam’s iPhone, and Dina’s cell phone for forensic analysis. He also asked for receipts of specific customer records (currently preserved under the Demand for Preservation of Evidence). The Zahaus’ attorneys could not obtain any of these without notifying the consumer(s). Fleck noted that he knew that some of the records might be out of state and beyond subpoena.