Billionaire at centre of double-death mystery

An exclusive Californian suburb that has been the scene of just two murders in the past decade has hit the news for two bizarre deaths within days in the same family.

First the 6-year-old son of billionaire Jonah Shacknai, Max, died on Monday last week after he reportedly fell down a flight of stairs at the 27-room home.

Two days later the body of Shacknai's girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, was found naked hanging from a rope tied to the second-floor balcony of the historic building in Coronado, a wealthy seaside suburb of about 24,000 people on San Diego Bay.

Her hands were tied behind her and her feet were bound, police said.

She had been babysitting Max when he was reported to have fallen.

Yesterday, the Shacknai family confirmed that Max died "despite heroic efforts on the part of paramedics and hospital staff", ABC television reported.

It has been reported that Zahau, 32, also known as Rebecca Nalepa from a previous marriage, dated Shacknai, 54, the chief executive of an Arizona pharmaceutical company selling acne and facial wrinkle treatments, for two years.

Officials said the body of Zahau, an ophthalmic technician, was found by Shacknai's brother Adam, 47, who cut the rope from which she was hanging and called police.

US media said police had searched the Zahau mansion twice but remained tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding Zahau's death.

"The circumstances are bizarre; you could tell this was unusual, but [suicide] is a possibility," Captain Tim Curran of the San Diego County sheriff's department told the Associated Press last week.

Results of an autopsy on Zahau's body have been sealed as authorities wait for further tests to be conducted.

People who knew the couple did not report anything that suggested their relationship was troubled.

Zahau's sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner, said they spoke last Tuesday and Zahau was "normal, fine, just getting ready to go to bed".

Zahau's brother-in-law Doug Loehner added: "Jonah is a stand-up guy. He was very devoted to Rebecca. She treated his kids as her own."

Shacknai's Phoenix-based company boss, Michael Trier, also spoke glowingly of Zahau, saying she was committed to her career and had a "personality very much full of life".

Curran said investigators had so far not found any links between Max and Zahau's deaths.

Paramedics last Monday found the boy not breathing and without a pulse after falling down some stairs. Coronado police chief Louis Scanlon called it a "tragic accident".

Max was taken to Rady Children's Hospital and remained there in a coma.

Coronado had one murder last year and a total of two in the past decade, news reports said.

The local police department does not have a homicide unit and had to ask the sheriff's department to help with the investigation.

"A case like this would be unusual anywhere," Coronado Mayor Casey Tanaka told the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper.

"It is one of those things that no community wishes for and no community is really ready for when it happens."

- AGENCIES