Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors and Other True Cases

by Ann Rule

  Bunker Spreckels was a brilliant, blond youth who believed in living fast, dying young, and making a handsome corpse. Sadly, his prediction came true. Despite his multiple skills and Adonis-like looks, he died at the age of twenty-seven.

  His grandfather Adolph built the Spreckels mansion in San Francisco, a spectacular structure now the home of author Danielle Steel. And his uncle John designed the Spreckels estate in Coronado, on Ocean Boulevard. John spent many happy years there. He also had another home in Coronado, his “bay-side” property, which is now the Glorietta Bay Inn, and he called that his “beach house.”

  As of this writing, the house on Ocean Boulevard where Jonah Shacknai and Rebecca Zahau lived has been sold to a corporation. The asking price was $16.9 million!

  * * *

  Becky Zahau came from modest beginnings, and she was a little dazzled by the beach estate with its main house and guesthouse, twenty-seven rooms in all, and a northeast wing with two apartments and a six-car garage. A mixture of Italian Renaissance and Beaux-Arts architecture, 1043 Ocean Boulevard boasted an exercise room and a ballet studio, and the basement had not one—but two—wine cellars.

  The path up the wide sidewalk to the mansion, with its carefully trimmed low hedges and a hundred feet of purple flowers on either side, was like an entry to paradise. Inside there were marble fireplaces, winding stairs, thick carpets, chandeliers, and balconies. Windows gave a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean.

  By the summer of 2011, even though the last of the Spreckels family had long since moved on, the grand estate, in a gentle state of disrepair, was still called the Spreckels Mansion. It probably always will be.

  And this was where half the family who occupied it suffered disastrous fates.

  Chapter Three

  Jonah Shacknai shared custody of his son Maxie with his second ex-wife, Dina, who lived close by. Becky Zahau loved the little boy as if he were her own. Jonah also spent a lot of time with his two older children by his first wife, Kim. His daughter, Cameron, was fourteen, and his older son, Josh, was eleven. They, too, lived most of the year in Scottsdale. Jonah’s older children were not as accepting of Becky as Maxie was. That was to be expected—especially with a teenage daughter who wanted her father to herself.

  According to Jonah’s close friends, he was very happy to be living with Becky, and had achieved a serene and loving relationship after two rather chaotic marriages—the most combative one with Dina, who was a child psychologist.

  When Jonah and Becky were traveling or at their home in Arizona, a couple who lived in one of the apartments oversaw the estate. They also cleaned, and supervised garden workers.

  On Sunday, July 10, 2011, Becky’s younger sister, Zaré,* arrived for a three-week visit. Zaré adored her twenty-years-older sister and was delighted to fly from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Southern California for a long visit. Becky was just as happy to see her little sister, and Jonah was always gracious to members of her family.

  Becky’s background was as different from Jonah’s as it could possibly be. She was born in Burma, the second daughter of a man who worked with Christian ministries. He was imprisoned by the military regime there for fighting for religious freedom in Burma. He later sought political asylum in Germany so his family would have the chance of a better future. Becky was quite young at the time, and she and her older siblings grew up there. They were raised in a Protestant church.

  Most of Becky’s immediate family migrated to America—to the St. Louis, Missouri, area.

  Jonah was born on the East Coast to Gideon and Selma Shacknai and raised in Suffern, New York. He and his brother, Adam, were from a tight-knit, high-achieving family. Selma was an educator and therapist during most of her adult life. Gideon came to America as a young man of twenty-one, and soon got his citizenship.

  Jonah and Adam grew up in the Jewish faith. Jonah is a handsome man, with dark hair, tall and charismatic. His acumen for business is remarkable, and he became wealthy at a comparatively young age because of that.

  * * *

  Jonah and Becky had been together for a little less than two years when Maxie fell on Monday, July 11.

  In the tense days while Maxie fought for life, Becky did everything she could to make things a little easier for Jonah.

  Jonah himself was staying at the Ronald McDonald House across from the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, so that he could be close to Maxie, who hadn’t regained consciousness since his terrible fall.

  No one knew exactly how Max’s accident had happened, because there were no witnesses—or none that came forward. He was a very active little boy who played soccer almost as soon as he could walk, and whose physical coordination was perfect. Why had he fallen?

  One theory was that he had been going too fast on his Razor scooter on an upper landing and hadn’t been able to stop before he hit the railing. It looked as though he had grabbed on to the crystal chandelier in an attempt to save himself, but the light fixture, the scooter, and Max had all ended up in a heap on the carpet far below, just inside the front door.

  Some thought he might have been sliding on the banister, lost his grip, and tried to hang on to the chandelier. The scooter might have been downstairs already, beside one of Maxie’s soccer balls.

  The chandelier chain had been found to be cut cleanly, rather than torn apart. That could have been done by paramedics who lifted it off the child as rapidly as they could.

  The doctors at Rady were doing their best to save Maxie’s life. They were initially puzzled, however, that he was so near death when his physical injuries didn’t seem that bad. He had no broken bones, and he was currently undergoing tests to see if he might have an undetected genetic heart malfunction, possibly a “long Q syndrome.” This is a stealthy defect, one that kills some children and young athletes without warning by throwing off the heart’s rhythm until it stops beating.

  (After his fall, Maxie’s heart had stopped beating, however, for perhaps as long as twenty to thirty minutes, according to an anonymous medical professional with a screen name of “KZ” who posted her opinion on “The Hinky Meter,” an Internet opinion posting site in Southern California. Hinky is, of course, a well-known police term for something suspicious.)

  Maxie was resuscitated, but it probably was far too late to prevent massive brain swelling.

  Perhaps Maxie hadn’t fallen over the second story railing because he was chasing a soccer ball or going too fast on his scooter. There was a possibility that he had fainted when his heart faltered, and he tumbled over the rail. At this stage of the probe, there was even a dread possibility that someone had pushed the little boy over the railing—either deliberately or accidentally.

  So, as far as anyone knew, Rebecca and Zaré had been alone in the mansion with Maxie while his father, Jonah, was working out at a private gym in the Hotel del Coronado, only a few blocks away.

  Becky and her little sister had apparently been in separate bathrooms, bathing and washing their hair when it happened. The mansion was so large that it was possible that someone else could have been inside without either Becky or Zaré realizing it. But who would want to hurt Maxie?

  Becky’s near-hysterical call to Jonah’s cell phone right after she found Maxie injured was nearly unintelligible. Jonah hadn’t even tried to figure out what she was saying. He immediately started running for home, arriving only a few minutes later to find paramedics working over Maxie.

  * * *

  Now it was the morning of Wednesday, July 13, and it was touch and go whether Max would live. Jonah was devastated. It had taken him a long time to locate his second wife, Dina—Max’s mother. She evidently had been home—but ill—when efforts were made to reach her.

  Although Jonah and Dina had gone through a contentious divorce, this was their beloved child, the one good thing to come out of their marriage. They sat beside Max’s bed watching him and praying, hoping against hope that he would open his eyes and be the healthy, active little boy he was only two days bef
ore.

  At the moment, no one but Adam Shacknai knew yet that Becky was dead. Adam Shacknai didn’t live in Coronado; he lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked as a tugboat captain. The Shacknai brothers were close in age, but worlds apart in lifestyles. Although Jonah and Adam didn’t see one another often, Adam was almost always invited to family events.

  When Gideon Shacknai called Adam to tell his son about Max’s accident, Adam dropped everything and flew to San Diego, arriving on Tuesday evening, July 12. He had apparently come to offer what comfort he could to Jonah.

  Becky picked up Adam Shacknai at the airport shortly after she put her thirteen-year-old sister, Zaré, on a plane for Missouri. Zaré had stayed only a day or so; with everyone worried sick about Max, it seemed wiser to postpone her visit to another time.

  * * *

  On this Wednesday at 6:48 A.M., Adam Shacknai called 911. Indeed, he called three times and he both frustrated and worried the dispatcher, saying first, “I got a woman hung herself . . . I cut her down.”

  Adam either could not—or would not—give the address where the dead woman was. It took the third call for the emergency operator to elicit the information that something terrible had happened at 1043 Ocean Boulevard. She immediately sent EMTs and Coronado police officers.

  A mystery within a mystery within a mystery had just begun to bubble from a secret place—an inscrutable series of conundrums almost impossible to explain.

  Chapter Four

  The first patrol officers to arrive at the scene were led to the rear courtyard, where the slender body of a woman lay on the dew-damp grass just below one of the balconies in the main house. She was completely naked except for some kind of blue clothing—a shirt, perhaps—that was wound several times around her neck. A length of reddish nautical rope cinched her neck. Her wrists were bound behind her back with the same rope; another length of the rope secured her ankles. It appeared to be a waterskiing towrope; the handle was still caught up in it.

  Adam Shacknai told the Coronado police that he had wakened early and was on his way to the main part of the mansion to get a cup of coffee in the kitchen when he saw his brother’s girlfriend suspended from the balcony with a rope around her neck. He said he raced into the kitchen to find a knife so he could cut her down.

  “She had that cloth wedged in her throat,” Adam said. “I took it out.”

  The rope around Becky’s neck had been cut, and the investigators saw that the other end of the rope dangled from the balcony above her. There was a round patio table, its wood weathered, that appeared to have been placed under the balcony rope. One leg was broken.

  “I moved that table over,” Adam said, “so I could reach her to cut her down.”

  The patrol officers tried to find a pulse, but she had none. They began resuscitation but were very relieved when the EMTs from the Coronado Fire Department arrived.

  Only six minutes had passed, but it seemed like hours.

  Paramedic John Feliciano quickly checked the woman, and then shook his head. “She’s cold to the touch—and rigor mortis is already beginning in her jaw.”

  For rigor to be noticeable, Becky Zahau would have to have died hours before. Feliciano pronounced her dead. She had been for some time.

  At 8 A.M., chief Lou J. Scanlon entered the Coronado Mobile Command vehicle that was parked in front of 1043 Ocean Boulevard. He saw a tall man with dark hair and black-rimmed glasses standing inside, and suggested he take a seat. Officer Robert Kline was the only other person present, and he said to Scanlon, “This is Adam—the brother.”

  Chief Scanlon had already heard that Adam was the brother of the property owner, that he had been staying in the guesthouse at the rear of the estate and had discovered the woman’s naked body.

  “This must be traumatic for you,” Scanlon said. “Officer Kline will stay here with you.”

  At first Adam Shacknai seemed not to hear what he’d said. And then he blurted, “This is fucking crazy. I don’t think my bedside manner is that bad—”

  What did he mean by that? Possibly he was in shock, Scanlon guessed. It seemed off the wall.

  Adam Shacknai said nothing more to Lou Scanlon and stayed in the motor home with Officer Kline.

  * * *

  Shortly after eight, the Coronado Police Department asked San Diego County sheriff’s detectives and criminalists from their crime lab to respond to the mansion on Ocean Boulevard.

  No one in the sheriff’s department knew exactly what had happened—no more than that a woman’s body had been discovered less than two hours earlier.

  At 8:39 A.M., San Diego County homicide sergeant Dave Nemeth conducted a hastily arranged briefing. The word was that there had been a “suspicious death” in Coronado. The deceased was said to be Becky Zahau, who resided at the Spreckels Mansion with her boyfriend, Jonah Shacknai.

  It promised to be a high-profile case, and the sheriff’s office quickly agreed to aid the much smaller Coronado Police Department. The investigation into Becky’s death would be handled by the San Diego Sheriff’s Homicide Team #2, with detective Angela Tsuida as the lead investigator. Coronado police sergeant Mitch McKay was at the death scene and he briefed the crew of San Diego County sheriff’s detectives who gathered there.

  Each two-detective partnership would have a specific assignment. Some of them would interview possible suspects and witnesses, and some would gather physical evidence; fingerprint experts would lift what prints they could. There would be literally hundreds of photographs taken—both on the scene and from helicopters circling like hungry hawks above the posh neighborhood.

  Already the pilots could see nearby residents sitting on their roofs and high balconies, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on in the courtyard where detectives swarmed. It was sad that the dead woman had no protection from prying eyes, some behind binoculars.

  Who lived in this estate? What had the neighbors heard—if anything? It was a new age, and forensic computer experts and those trained in retrieving phone calls in and out would strive to find whatever might lie hidden inside electronic devices.

  Detective Brian Patterson began writing an affidavit for a search warrant of the home, outbuildings, and vehicles. Detectives D. Hillen and Hank Lebitski were assigned to interview the man who had called 911: Adam Shacknai. Detectives Todd Norton and M. Palmer would interview Jonah Shacknai.

  The dead woman still rested on the grassy courtyard. There was no urgency now; she was gone and could not be brought back. But once a homicide victim has gone to the medical examiner’s office to await autopsy, and the crime scene is released, nothing can be reconstructed exactly as it was, so it is essential that detectives spend hours—sometimes even days—at the initial crime scene. The teams of San Diego detectives wanted to keep it untouched by outsiders as long as they could.

  They did not erect a temporary tent over Becky Zahau’s body to give her some privacy from onlookers, as homicide investigators often do. Becky was dead, but it upset her family when they heard how long she had lain exposed to the world.

  San Diego County medical examiner Dr. Jonathan Lucas was notified, but it would be late afternoon before he arrived at the scene.

  For now, CRIME SCENE: DO NOT ENTER tape marked areas where no one but the investigators were allowed to go. Too many “looky-loos” can cause vital evidence to be lost forever. Even department brass were asked, albeit politely, to stay outside the tape.

  * * *

  As their fellow detectives went over the perfectly manicured grounds for anything that might be of evidentiary value, Hillen and Lebitski interviewed Adam Shacknai at the Coronado Police Department headquarters. With Shacknai’s permission, their conversation was taped.

  It was, however, a rather brief interview, lasting less than an hour. Adam repeated his recall of the prior evening, adding some details. After having a quick dinner with his brother, Jonah, and Becky, who had picked him up at the airport, they dropped Jonah off at the Ronald McDonald House and
then returned to the Spreckels Mansion. Adam said he slept in the guesthouse and, as far as he knew, Becky had retired to her room in the main house. He believed that they were the only two people present at the estate during the night.

  The Memphis tugboat captain said he was crossing the square of grass below the balcony of Becky’s bedroom/office when he saw her hanging there. Luckily, he had been able to find the right drawer in the large kitchen where knives were kept, and he grabbed one and raced back to cut her down.

  When Adam hadn’t been able to revive her, he said, he called the 911 operator.

  As many people close to Becky would do, Adam Shacknai agreed to be processed for evidentiary purposes. Asked if that was okay with him, he said, “All right—okay.”

  Detective Angela Tsuida called and asked if Shacknai would be willing to give them his shoes and fingerprints. Adam agreed to that, too. Denys Williams, an evidence technician with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, took a number of photographs of Adam, some with his shirt removed. She then took swabs from his mouth, and retrieved head hair samples and fingernail scrapings.

  When Williams was finished, Hillen and Lebitski came back into the interview room and spoke with Adam on tape for about six minutes. When he was asked if he would be willing to take a polygraph test regarding the statement he had given them about finding Becky, Adam said he had no objection to that.

  The detectives tentatively set up a lie detector test for 5 P.M. Then they dropped Adam Shacknai off at a car rental kiosk at Lindbergh Field, at his request.