Death of Rebecca Zahau

Rebecca Mawii Zahau (March 15, 1979 – July 13, 2011), also known as Rebecca Nalepa, was a Burmese American woman who was found hanging at the beach house home of her boyfriend in Coronado, California, United States, on July 13, 2011, and pronounced dead by first responders called to the residence.

Her death occurred two days after 6-year-old Max Shacknai, the son of her boyfriend Jonah Shacknai, had fallen from the staircase of the same property.

At the time he was in critical condition in a hospital.

Rebecca and her younger sister, Xena, were the only known people present at the time of Max's fall.

Rebecca Zahau (born March 15, 1979), was of Burmese immigrant origin.

She was born in Falam, Chin State, a town in the Chin Hills in northwestern Burma (or Myanmar), to her father Khua Hnin Thang and mother Zung Tin Par (or Pari).

After living in Nepal and Germany, Zahau moved to the United States about ten years before her death.

Zahau came from a family of Chin ethnicity and was raised as a Protestant.

Her parents and most family members live in Saint Joseph, Missouri.

She had an older sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner; a younger sister, Snowem Horwath, who lives in Germany; and a teenage sister, Xena Zahau, among other siblings.

In 2002, she married 36-year-old nursing student Neil Nalepa of Scottsdale, Arizona; they divorced in February 2011.

He had a son, Maxfield Aaron "Max" Shacknai (June 7, 2005 – July 16, 2011), with second wife Dina Romano.

In 2008, Zahau began dating Jonah Shacknai, the CEO of Medicis Pharmaceutical, while she was still married to Nalepa.

In August 2009, Zahau was arrested for shoplifting after stealing $1,000 worth of jewelry from a Macy's in Phoenix, Arizona, to which she pled guilty.

She worked as an ophthalmic technician until quitting in December 2010.

Shacknai's position at Medicis made him the ninth-highest-paid CEO in Arizona, earning $6.4 million in 2010.

He had two previous marriages.

His first marriage to Kimberly James resulted in a divorce and a three-year custody fight over the couple's two children.

Subsequently on July 16, 2011, Max Shacknai died of his injuries.

San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore announced on September 2, 2011, that Zahau's death was a suicide while the younger Shacknai's death had been ruled an accident, and that neither was the result of foul play.

Members of Zahau's family disputed this finding and filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against Jonah Shacknai's brother Adam.

The jury in that civil trial found Adam Shacknai responsible for Zahau's death and granted her family a $5 million judgment for loss of love and companionship, as well as an additional $167,000 for the loss of financial support Zahau would have provided her mother and siblings.

On July 11, 2011, Zahau, Max, and Zahau's teenaged sister, Xena, were at the Ocean Boulevard Beach House Mansion (built for John D. Spreckels and referred to in coverage as the Spreckels Mansion) in Coronado, California, which Shacknai used as a summer estate.

At some point during that day, Max fell face-first over a second-floor banister, suffering injuries to his spinal cord and facial bones, the former of which affected his heart rate and breathing.

Zahau said she was in the bathroom at the time; she found Max moments later, and Xena called 9-1-1.

Max was not breathing and unresponsive, and was taken to Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.

He died on July 16 due to brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation resulting from his injuries.

On July 26, investigators ruled Max's death as an accident, speculating that he somehow tripped.

However, a trauma doctor who examined the child prior to his death and autopsy stated to police that he did not believe the injuries from his fall were consistent with the cardiac arrest and brain swelling experienced by him, suggesting that Max may have suffocated prior to his fall.

On July 12, 2011, Zahau dropped off Xena at the airport for her flight back to Missouri, and then picked up Jonah Shacknai's brother, Adam, who had just arrived on a flight from Memphis, Tennessee.

Zahau, Jonah, and Adam ate dinner with a friend named Howard that evening.

Zahau and Adam returned to the home, while Jonah reportedly kept a vigil at Max's bedside with the child's mother, Dina Romano; he would leave the hospital to recuperate at a nearby Ronald McDonald House.

There were reports of loud music coming from the beach house later that night.

On the morning of July 13, at roughly 6:45 a.m., Adam stated that he found Zahau's nude body hanging from a balcony, with her wrists and ankles bound and her hands behind her back.

He called 9-1-1 at 6:48 a.m., then sent a text message to his brother to inform him of the news.

He cut down Zahau's body before the police arrived.

Medics attempted to revive her, but pronounced her dead at the scene.

Police initiated forensic and toxicology testing on her body as part of an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

In February 2019 Adam Shacknai appealed the judgment, with the defense arguing procedural errors and juror misconduct.

Prior to final arguments being presented to the judge, Shacknai's insurance company and the Zahau family reached a settlement of $600,000, resulting in the civil case being dismissed with prejudice and vacating the original $5 million judgment.