On July 13, 2011, 32-year-old Rebecca Zahau was found dead — bound, gagged and naked — outside in the courtyard of her billionaire boyfriend’s mansion on Coronado Island. A strange, cryptic message was written inside, and just two days earlier, her boyfriend’s 6-year-old son Max died from a fatal accident while in her care. Her death was ruled a suicide, but many people close to her said otherwise. After years of public speculation and internet theories, Zahau’s case still leaves questions, but a new limited series from Oxygen hopes to find some answers. “Death At The Mansion: Rebecca Zahau” will premiere at 6 p.m., June 1 following a team of investigators as they take another look at her mysterious death. One of those investigators, crime journalist Billy Jensen, said that this case has all the elements you’d want in a crime story, but unfortunately, it isn’t fiction. “There was the accident with Max a couple of days before, and there’s a lot of intrigue around that,” he said. “The 911 call that day really affected me because you know that there’s a little boy there right below her who’s going to die. It’s really sad.” Jensen said that he and the rest of the team will not only be ‘shooting holes” in a lot of popular internet theories but will be testing to see if the manner in which Zahau died could really be a suicide. “It’s investigating if somebody could physically do that; tie their hands behind their back then and then hang themselves,” he said. “I actually do an experiment and recreate it. We really get into the physics of it and the science of it as opposed to just the theories.” Even though Zahau’s family won a $5 million dollar wrongful death lawsuit against her boyfriend’s brother, Adam Shacknai, her death is still worth investigating, according to Jensen. He said they’re turning their findings into the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, but he’s unclear if they’ll do anything with it. Still, he thinks he’s closer to finding out what really happened on July 13. “I know more a lot about the victimology of the case than I did before because we have her diary and her text messages and interviews that we did. So I really know a lot more about Rebecca now.” According to Lt. Justin White of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, “the facts of that investigation have led to the conclusion that Miss Zahau took her own life.” He also said the department has not yet received anything from Oxygen. “Death At The Mansion: Rebecca Zahau” will premiere at 6 p.m. on June 1 on Oxygen. For more information, visit oxygen.com.
