Rebecca Zahau Wrongful Death/ADAM SHACKNAI FOUND RESPONSIBLE #5

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Imp said:
I don't know of any in the crime world, sorry. There are a couple of political investigative journalists who are excellent, but they seem to have their hands full at the moment, lol. I'm not looking forward to the treatment all the various "who done it" shows will give this case if they rely on media and Sitrick et al for their information.

I can't imagine Mary Zahau will want to talk to anyone in media about this, but I would almost encourage her to do so after she's had a nice long rest. Otherwise, their side of the story will continue to be misrepresented.
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You’re probably right..but...knowing you lot!!!...if there is one out here you will find them!
 
Brit ( #936)

“It’s also interesting that Adam stated in that interview that he was glad LE put out their statement immediately saying they weren’t going to reopen the case. Wouldn’t he want the case reopened so LE can investigate the new details in this case to prove that Adam was not involved in this?”

You make some great points...and in particular the one above...

You would be screaming from the rooftops to be fully cleared of any involvement IMO...
 
Mica said:
Thank you SBHack for your professional opinions. However, please help me understand....

The judge was very careful in guiding and instructing the jury about how to interpret the demonstrative (mannequin.) IMO, it was a 3D depiction shown to help the jury have a visual of the distance Rebecca was from the ground before Adam cut her down, and to show the way she was bound and gagged. Adam did say he found Rebecca hanging in that condition. Also, the media is often very involved with murder cases - OJ, Casey Anthony. They were found innocent in a criminal matter. Many jurors admit hearing about a high profile case in the media prior to being selected to a panel. The jury, like many others following the case, could easily conclude there was no DNA/fingerprint evidence connecting Adam because Adam wore gloves, wiped areas of the scene, and the investigation was flawed, to say the least. The jury didn’t need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to come to a conclusion, just preponderance of the evidence. How are these things prejudicial?
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I just feel that a Judge could find it prejudicial because the impact of seeing the mannequin bound and hanging could cause a jury to want to hold someone responsible despite whatever the evidence said. The image was very emotional and powerful and I think it's a good argument for them to make. Appeals are difficult in general because a Judge in the lower court has already ruled on the matter and deemed it more relevant than prejudicial but on appeal IMO it's possible a Judge could find the image too prejudicial when a graph or drawing could be used for the same points.

Similar with the media reporting; I am not sure if the defense tried to move the location of this trial because of media coverage but would not be surprised if they had and the Judge already had deemed it unnecessary. I don't personally believe the jury pool was corrupted by media coverage, especially with it being so many years ago, but it is a common argument on appeal and one of the best shots this defense team has on appeal just because of the media frenzy surrounding the case. Judges have so much discretion, another Judge may have ruled things completely opposite of how this Judge did, so it really is difficult to predict without knowing more about the Judges.

This is the California rule of evidence on prejudicial evidence:
The court in its discretion may exclude evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission will (a) necessitate undue consumption of time or (b) create substantial danger of undue prejudice, of confusing the issues, or of misleading the jury.
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http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/evidence-code/evid-sect-352.html
It is completely discretionary to the Judge's opinion basically. And didn't the Judge disallow certain exhibits with the mannequin during trial? But then allowed it in closing argument? I may be remembering incorrectly, but I know when the knots were displayed on the mannequin it had to be covered with a sheet by the Judge's order, so this may all go to show the Judge was on the fence about it being too prejudicial.
 
Tortoise said:
There is a positive from the defense having had the assistance of the spinmeister. They won't be able to claim that the jury decision was influenced by media reporting. I don't think they would be able to find one report that wasn't heavily biased in the defense's favor.

In an investigation that only lasted 7 weeks, lead detective Angela Tsuida could not offer any justification to the court for waiting 2 days past the 30 day deadline for an attempted retrieval of the deleted voicemail. That is sabotage IMO. Try finding one media report that mentions it. I couldn't find ONE. All I could find was reporting of the defense case.

We had to rely on our lovely Lezah being in court to very kindly report back. Lezah's post on Greer's questioning of Det Tsuida can be found here https://www.websleuths.com/forums/s...rage-and-discussion-2&p=13998653#post13998653

The same team of detectives who immediately suspected homicide saw nothing wrong in taking the word of the brother of the prime suspect with the inconclusive polygraph, rather than fact checking the evidence at their disposal!

I know I didn't believe the detective, I wonder if the jury did.

Report from Sep 2011:



So did SDSO make up the influential part that JS informed RZ of Max's imminent death?
Or did JS say that back in 2011 and change his story in 2018?
Why would JS make up a story like that to give SDSO if indeed he did?
Why didn't JS correct SDSO and the media after this erroneous statement was published, because it was surely pivotal to their conclusion of suicide.
Is it standard practice for SDSO to claim to know uncorroborated information given to them by the homicide suspect's brother as a fact, when there are conflicting accounts from the doctor and the mother?

Even now reporters cling to the narrative that Max's accident leading to Jonah's voicemail (stated as fact) endorses LE's conclusion of suicide.

Not one news outlet states the reality, what came out in the civil suit:

By deciding that AS was responsible for battering and killing Rebecca, the jury decided that Jonah's voicemail, if she ever even heard it, played NO part in her death. There is evidence of sexual battery, strangulation and thereafter a simulated hanging. While SDSO's findings remain in place for the time being, a jury was presented with evidence that shows their findings concerning the voicemail message were flawed, contradicted by Jonah himself and the doctor treating Max, and therefore baseless. The ME signed off his report based on the findings of the investigators. There is no connection with Max beyond his uncle being the person found responsible for assaulting and killing Rebecca.
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Thank you, Tortoise! Tight, concise, illucidating. In the thousands of articles written since RZ’s death only one that I have seen states tthat she was found lying in the grass with wrists and ankles bound and a noose and shirt wrapped around her neck. And that was only at the end of the lawsuit, and a huge outcry here on WS about the fact that the main suspect’s narrative was so early on (from day 1) promulgated by SDSO to the media.
 
Tortoise said:
Hi SBHack, I wonder if you could be specific about the legal requirements you are referring to, so that we can understand this please. TIA
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I just meant the requirements for wrongful death:

Wrongful death requires a showing that:
The death of a person is caused by the wrongful or negligent act of the defendant
With a showing of negligence or actual intent
Can only be brought by heirs of the deceased
And damages must be shown (this can often just be the loss of affection)

Motive is not required (it is actually never a required element in the US, whether criminal or civil) but negligence or intent is required.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/wrongful-death-lawsuits-california.html
 
SBHack said:
I just meant the requirements for wrongful death:

Wrongful death requires a showing that:
The death of a person is caused by the wrongful or negligent act of the defendant
With a showing of negligence or actual intent
Can only be brought by heirs of the deceased
And damages must be shown (this can often just be the loss of affection)

Motive is not required (it is actually never a required element in the US, whether criminal or civil) but negligence or intent is required.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/wrongful-death-lawsuits-california.html
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Thanks. I'm presuming from this that you weren't confident they showed AS was responsible?
 
*Lash* said:
Another gem, :tyou: found with help from another poster.

Michael Sitrick has his Wirtschafter moment - June 15, 2006

Snip-
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This struck me as well. I mentioned somewhere a while back that the tactic of dumping endless amounts of useless rhetoric sounded vaguely familiar ;) Tammy Taylor is also the Stirick rep listed as the contact for Webb's extremely angry and inflammator press release.
 
Do we know if Wecht asked Lucas where he put her esophagus?

I suppose it must have come out in court for us to know about it but I didn't get a feel for who said what to who about it.

This case makes you want to scream from the rooftops. I don't know how Mary remained so dignified.
 
Tortoise said:
Do we know if Wecht asked Lucas where he put her esophagus?

I suppose it must have come out in court for us to know about it but I didn't get a feel for who said what to who about it.

This case makes you want to scream from the rooftops. I don't know how Mary remained so dignified.
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K_Z wrote an excellent post about it, I'll see if I can find it.
 
Tortoise said:
Actually I may have got that wrong - as this is $5 million it could be "Civil - Unlimited" which is 60 days.

I hope someone who knows can step in to help.
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I’m reading as Civil Unlimited, too, because the amount of the judgement was over $25,000.

If you wish to appeal a probate, family, felony, or unlimited civil (disputes involving more than $25,000) matter, the 4th District Court of Appeal will review the decision made by the trial court and determine if a legal error was made. Note: Although the 4th District Court of Appeal will review your appeal, you must file your Notice of Appeal in the appropriate Superior Court business office location.

http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1567242&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL


Civil-Unlimited - Deadline as early as 60 days after the judgment or order appealed from(California Rules of Court, rules 8.100; 8.104)

http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1567251&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
 
Lezah said:
The message on the door...

I have been watching AS in all his available interactions...his testimony, and his after trial interviews, lie detector....etc and trying to reconcile the third person message on the door. Trying to better understand the psychology of the author rather than the actual meaning behind the words.

When looking at AS, particularly the panic attacks and severe anxiety referred to on the stand, the social ‘awkwardness’, the arrogance ( “all the questions are going to be easy...”) ...his general demeanor...

So, I have been looking through published research on personality types conducive with my observations of AS..and the research references regards anxious, socially awkward personality types ...were often associated with illeism, it was pure coincidence ...but how very, very interesting.

Typically, the use of the third person by individuals themselves (called illeism..who knew!) is generally associated with egocentrics and ‘oddball characters’ - individuals tendency to be characterized as self-obsessed or perhaps appearing ‘detached from reality’...

Remind you of anyone?

( NB my recollection of AS/DS testimony re AS communications with family, writing and stories - third person descriptions as it were, of his life experiences... also, never publishing or openly sharing his writings, the reluctance on the stand to elaborate his writings - stays with me - it gave me the impression his writing was perhaps a ‘vicarious way of living’, perhaps another example of his ‘detachment’..)

Anyhoo... the reaseach indicates that Illeism can often be used by these personality types - particularly in heightened anxiety situations as a distancing, coping mechanism to deal with ‘out of control’ situations.

Extract - illeism and socially anxious individuals:

“These findings have multiple implications for research and theory on social anxiety, as well as coping more generally. With respect to social anxiety, they highlight the effect that shifting the language people use to refer to the self under stress has on the cascade of events during and after a social interaction. In this vein, the fact that we observed beneficial effects of non-first-person language use on postevent processing—a cognitive process that has been linked with maladaptive psychological and physical health outcomes in both healthy and clinical populations (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008)—is particularly noteworthy. It suggests that the current findings may have broad implications for self-control research and practice in multiple populations.

Link

http://selfcontrol.psych.lsa.umich....egulatory_mechanism_How_you_do_it_matters.pdf

(Edited to add - it should be noted that the personality type of RZ in in no way similar to AS. As evidenced in testimony fro AS, DS, JS as well as her own family, RZ was a loving, caring socially interactive person)

Just my opinion....
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This is absolutely astonishing research on your part! Illeism seems to fit like a glove for Adam. Where does it go from here? I hope that Greer continues to read all of these wonderful posts.
 
Tortoise said:
Do we know if Wecht asked Lucas where he put her esophagus?

I suppose it must have come out in court for us to know about it but I didn't get a feel for who said what to who about it.

This case makes you want to scream from the rooftops. I don't know how Mary remained so dignified.
Click to expand...

Actually minorone posted Mary Zahau's daily update from court that particular day. I couldn't figure how to bring it here as it is in a closed thread.

The case for murder #2 / Wrongful death trial begins. Trial coverage and discussion #2

March 14 2018 12:26 am post #893


03-14-2018, 12:26 AM#893 minorone minorone is offline
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Mary posted an update on "Justice For Rebecca"

Day #2 of week #3 trial was long and another emotionally challenging day. The forensic kinesiologist, Dr Kent, testified that her injuries specifically her neck are not consistent with what the San Diego Sheriffs Department claims as a suicide with 9’2” long drop. The defendant’s attorneys asked him the same questions in many different variations and cross examined him for most of the day. They tried very hard to discredit him but he confirmed that the hyoid, thyroid, and cricoid bone fracture on Rebecca’s neck are not consistent with any hanging. One would see the hyoid and thyroid fracture but not all three. It is more consistent with two separate events. He also explained this type of long drop would have caused significant cervical bone damages and changes, possibly decapitation. He testified that the findings seen are more consistent with someone lowering her body.
I also found out yesterday and today that Dr Lucas, the San Diego county medical examiner, removed her throat so noone can do a second evaluation of these damages. Organs are removed and bagged, placed into the individual but not the throat/throat structure.

Tomorrow, deposition tapes will be played of several people including the neighbor who heard screams for “Help” the night Rebecca was killed. Please continue to pray and spread the link. Thank you again for rallying with me in this fight for “Justice for Rebecca Zahau”.
 
Thanks screecher. Now I remember why I had those questions. Mary's update seems to suggest that it should not have been removed, but at the same time it isn't clear to me if it is usual for it not to be put back inside the body.

What is clear is that Mary thinks whatever happened was not standard practice. I hope we find out more about it because it's looking very suspicious.
 
screecher said:
Actually minorone posted Mary Zahau's daily update from court that particular day. I couldn't figure how to bring it here as it is in a closed thread.

The case for murder #2 / Wrongful death trial begins. Trial coverage and discussion #2

March 14 2018 12:26 am post #893


03-14-2018, 12:26 AM#893 minorone minorone is offline
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Join Date
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Location
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Posts
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Mary posted an update on "Justice For Rebecca"

Day #2 of week #3 trial was long and another emotionally challenging day. The forensic kinesiologist, Dr Kent, testified that her injuries specifically her neck are not consistent with what the San Diego Sheriffs Department claims as a suicide with 9’2” long drop. The defendant’s attorneys asked him the same questions in many different variations and cross examined him for most of the day. They tried very hard to discredit him but he confirmed that the hyoid, thyroid, and cricoid bone fracture on Rebecca’s neck are not consistent with any hanging. One would see the hyoid and thyroid fracture but not all three. It is more consistent with two separate events. He also explained this type of long drop would have caused significant cervical bone damages and changes, possibly decapitation. He testified that the findings seen are more consistent with someone lowering her body.
I also found out yesterday and today that Dr Lucas, the San Diego county medical examiner, removed her throat so noone can do a second evaluation of these damages. Organs are removed and bagged, placed into the individual but not the throat/throat structure.

Tomorrow, deposition tapes will be played of several people including the neighbor who heard screams for “Help” the night Rebecca was killed. Please continue to pray and spread the link. Thank you again for rallying with me in this fight for “Justice for Rebecca Zahau”.
Click to expand...

Where is Rebecca&#8217;s throat? <modsnip>


>>snip

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Section 27491.4 of the Government Code is amended to read:

>>snip

The coroner shall have the right to retain only those tissues of the body removed at the time of the autopsy as may, in his or her opinion, be necessary or advisable to the inquiry into the case, or for the verification of his or her findings.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1189
 
Screecher, I’ve brought things to a new thread the same way we bring forward posts on an open thread: click on the post number, copy the url, and paste it into the new thread.

I found Minarone’s post on a different thread than you listed. It’s the first trial thread and has no number. On page 60 of 73.

”Wrongful death trial begins. Trial coverage and discussion.”

https://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?366653-Wrongful-death-trial-begins-Trial-coverage-and-discussion

Voila: :)
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/s...verage-and-discussion&p=13990600#post13990600
 
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