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Well-known pathologist testifies in trial that Zahau was strangled

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-zahau-pathologist-20180312-story.html

By LYNDSAY WINKLEY

MARCH 12, 2018 3:55 PM PT

Several months after Rebecca Zahau’s body was found bound and hanging at a Coronado mansion, a well-known forensic pathologist went on the “Dr. Phil” show to announce that while he couldn’t say with certainty that the woman had been killed, his findings during a second autopsy raised serious questions about the death.

That same pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht, was much more definitive while testifying in Zahau’s wrongful death lawsuit on Monday.

“In my opinion, Rebecca Zahau’s death was a homicide,” he said in San Diego Superior Court. “She was manually strangled and it was set up to look like a suicidal hanging.”

The Zahau family filed the lawsuit after sheriff’s homicide investigators and the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the bizarre, July 13, 2011 death a suicide.

Authorities suggested the 32-year-old surgical technician was deeply remorseful about being in charge at the mansion when her boyfriend’s son, 6-year-old Max Shacknai, fell from the second floor into the foyer.

He died days later. The child was the son of pharmaceuticals millionaire Jonah Shacknai and his ex-wife Dina Shacknai.

Rebecca Zahau’s family members have long contended that she, a woman of strong Christian faith, would never commit suicide. Instead, they allege Adam Shacknai — Jonah Shacknai’s brother and the only other person at the house at the time — struck Zahau on the head, strangled her and stripped her naked before tying her up and tossing her off a balcony with a noose around her neck.

Shacknai’s attorney, Dan Webb, said in opening statements that no evidence connects his 54-year-old client to the death. Webb said investigators found none of Shacknai’s DNA on the ropes binding Zahau or on the bed legs where the noose was anchored.

Wecht has been consulted in and appeared in media reports to discuss a number of high-profile deaths including that of JonBenet Ramsey, Danielle van Dam, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and President John F. Kennedy.

He estimated he’s done about 20,000 autopsies over the course of his career and supervised another 40,000.

On Monday, the forensic pathologist said he was asked by a lawyer for the Zahau family to conduct a second autopsy on the body, which he agreed to and performed at a facility in Pittsburgh in October 2011.

Initially, Wecht determined that Zahau’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to hanging, and her manner of death to be “undetermined.” When he went on the Dr. Phil show, he said he was strongly leaning toward the death being a homicide.

But when asked to review those findings for the wrongful death suit, and after doing additional research, the pathologist took a stronger stance — that Zahau had been killed.

Wecht discussed several of his autopsy findings to support that conclusion.

The first was the presence of four hemorrhages on the right side of Zahau’s scalp. Wecht determined the injuries were caused by blunt force trauma suggesting Zahau may have been bludgeoned with a hard, possibly rounded object that could have led to her losing consciousness before her death.

Dr. Jonathan Lucas, the San Diego County deputy medical examiner who performed the initial autopsy, had previously called those wounds “relatively minor,” adding that they may have been caused by her head striking the building after she fell from the balcony.

Wecht also said that a fractured band of cartilage in Zahau’s neck wouldn’t have been injured in a hanging death, but it could have been during strangulation. There were other injuries to the muscles and skin of Zahau’s neck that also suggested someone used their hands to strangle her, he said.

The pathologist also questioned how her neck remained unbroken, despite falling 9 feet from the balcony.

“If she had simply gone over the balcony railing with the body hurtling down, the force that would have been generated would have resulted in a… fracture,” Wecht said.

There were several other injuries, including a bruise between Zahau’s ribcage that was indicative of blunt force trauma and possibly of a struggle.

Webb, the defense attorney, spent hours cross-examining Wecht. He suggested on multiple occasions that if the pathologist had received more information from law enforcement investigators, like the fact that no one but Zahau’s DNA was found on the ropes she was bound in, that he may have come to a different conclusion.

He also questioned Wecht’s apparent departure from his previous autopsy findings. Webb continued questioning Wecht for the rest of the day Monday.