Jury finds Adam Shacknai responsible for Rebecca Zahau's hanging death

A jury in San Diego found Adam Shacknai responsible in the bizarre 2011 hanging death of Rebecca Zahau at a Coronado mansion.

After a monthlong civil trial, jurors deliberated for a few hours Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning before awarding Zahau's family more than $5 million in damages.

Far more important for Zahau's mother and sister is a verdict they say vindicates their sister and contradicts investigations by the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office and Sheriff's Department, which found she committed suicide.

"For seven years we had to fight to make it known she didn’t commit suicide even though we knew she didn’t," Zahau's sister Mary Zahau-Loehner said outside the courtroom, KGTV News in San Diego reported. "It has been a struggle."

Zahau's family attorney, C. Keith Greer, said after the verdict that he hoped investigators were paying attention, KGTV reported.

Shacknai is the brother of Zahau's millionaire boyfriend, Jonah Shacknai, founder and former CEO of Scottsdale-based Medicis Pharmaceuticals. He told jurors during the trial that it was inconceivable his brother killed Zahau.

The verdict comes despite any fingerprints, DNA or other physical evidence linking Shacknai to the crime. He was, however, the only other person at the mansion when Zahau died.

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The 12-member jury found Shacknai responsible for her death in a 9-3 vote. The majority agreed Shacknai touched Zahau with intent to do her harm before her death and the touching caused her death. 

Jurors awarded $5 million to Zahau's family for loss of companionship and $167,000 for financial support she could have provided to her family. The court has not yet decided if punitive damages will be awarded.

Because this is a civil trial, there doesn't have to be a unanimous verdict. Shacknai will not face any criminal charges and cannot be sentenced to prison. 

Civil verdicts are often appealed.

Death at a beachfront mansion

Greer said Shacknai, who was alone with Zahau at the 27-room beachfront mansion, sexually assaulted her, hit her over the head four times and hung her nude body from a courtyard balcony. Greer said Shacknai staged it to make it look as if Zahau killed herself.

Dan Webb, Shacknai's lawyer, countered there was no evidence connecting him to the murder. Only Zahau's fingerprints and DNA were found on the knives and the ropes she used to bind herself. He said Shacknai had been questioned and cleared by homicide investigators in Zahau's death.

Shacknai called 911 about 6:45 a.m. July 13, 2011, and reported finding Zahau hanging from a balcony. As he spoke with police, he cut her down.

Later, he called his brother to tell him what had happened, according to court testimony.

What San Diego Sheriff's Department investigators found at the Spreckels Mansion on July 13 had the hallmarks of murder. Zahau's lifeless and nude body was found below a courtyard a balcony. She was bound hand and feet. A shirt was stuffed in her mouth.

The rope noose cinched around her neck was tied to bedroom furniture inside the room. On the door of the bedroom, officers found a cryptic message in black paint: "She saved him. Can he save her?"

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About seven weeks after Zahau's death, officials with the Coronado Police Department, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office and the sheriff's homicide squad concluded that Zahau killed herself. 

They demonstrated how she tied the knots, placed the noose around her neck and threw herself over the balcony. Dr. Jonathan Lucas of the Medical Examiner's Office, who performed Zahau's autopsy, said her hand was still clutching the end of the rope that she used to tighten the binding around her wrists.

Zahau's DNA was found on the knots of the rope and on one of the knives she used to cut the rope. Black paint was found on her hands and the rope. Her fingerprints were found on the paint tube and the other of the two knives. Her foot and heel prints were found in the dust on the balcony.

Authorities said she killed herself out of remorse for a fatal accident at the mansion two days earlier involving Jonah Shacknai's 6-year-old son, Max. Zahau was looking after Max when he fell from a second-floor landing and was taken to the hospital in a coma.

On July 11, 2011, emergency crews were called to the mansion after Max was found motionless on the floor beneath a stairwell landing. The Coronado Police Department, which handled the investigation of Max's death, determined that it was accidental.

Coronado police said Max appeared to have been running down a hallway at the top of the stairs when he pitched over a second-floor railing, crashed onto a chandelier and hit a banister before falling to the floor.

Shacknai, who worked for a tugboat company that operates on the Mississippi River in Memphis, had flown to be with his brother and nephew. He was staying in a guesthouse at the Spreckels Mansion, just a few hundred yards from the landmark Hotel del Coronado.

Family adamant: Zahau did not kill herself

Zahau's mother and sister have offered multiple theories in their determination to prove she would not have taken her own life. 

They initially filed a $10 million lawsuit accusing Adam Shacknai of conspiring with Jonah Shacknai's ex-wife and her twin sister to kill Zahau in retaliation for allowing Max to be injured. 

The Zahaus dropped Dina Shacknai and her sister Nina Romero from their lawsuit last year after surveillance footage showed they were at the hospital when authorities say Zahau died.

They instead focused solely on Shacknai.

Jurors during the monthlong trial heard competing testimony from medical examiners, knot experts, psychologists and sheriff's investigators. They also heard emotional pleas from the Zahau and Shacknai families.

Zahau's mother, Pari Zahau, and her sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner, said they were not seeking monetary damages. They said their goal was to clear Zahau's name and show she did not kill herself. 

Zahau, who immigrated with her sister to America from Myanmar more than 15 years ago, lived in New York and California before moving to Phoenix with her ex-husband in 2007. She worked as a technician for a Phoenix-area eye clinic. They were divorced in 2010.

Zahau-Loehner told jurors her sister was deeply spiritual, echoing sentiments she has expressed for years about her sister's religious beliefs and her passion for life. 

Zahau-Loehner said in a 2011 interview with The Arizona Republic that she had talked to her sister by phone hours before she died. There was nothing to indicate her sister was contemplating suicide, she said.

"She sounded tired, but other than that, she sounded like Rebecca," Zahau-Loehner said in the 2011 interview. "I wouldn't call her distraught. She was upset, very concerned and very worried over Max's condition, just like any caregiver or parent would be."

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