INSIDE EDITION reports on the bizarre deaths at a mansion in California. CEO Jonah Shacknai's 6-year-old son fell down the stairs, and his girlfriend was found dead two days after the fall. Now police are investigating if the woman's death was
A 27-room mansion in one of the nation's most beautiful beach communities is now the scene of a baffling mystery.
First, a 6-year-old boy died after falling down the mansion's grand staircase.
Then, just two days later, the girlfriend of the boy's millionaire father was found dead under bizarre circumstances.
Incredibly, authorities in Coronado, California, say they're not sure if 32-year-old Rebecca Zahau's death was a homicide or a suicide, even though she was found naked, hanging from the second floor balcony with her hands and feet bound with orange electrical cord.
"Have you ever seen a suicide where someone bound their own hands?" INSIDE EDITION's Jim Moret asked Coronado Chief of Police Louis Scanlon.
"Yes."
"You have?"
"Yes."
"So it's possible to bind your hands behind your back?" Moret asked.
"Yes."
The mansion is owned by tycoon Jonah Shacknai, who's made millions selling a popular acne treatment and an anti-aging product sold as an alternative to Botox.
Zahau was babysitting his son Max when the boy took a tragic fall down the stairs last week. He died from the injuries on Sunday.
"Does it appear at this point that the two deaths are related?" asked Jim Moret.
"At this point we have no indication that there's any direct connection between the two deaths," Chief Scanlon said.
The mystery of what happened inside the mansion deepened with the revelation that Shacknai and his ex-wife Dina accused each other of domestic violence. She claimed he sicced his dog on her and photos were taken of her injuries while they were going through their divorce.
She told police in 2008, "I feel scared of what he is capable of doing to me physically via the dog as well as the lengths he would go to try to 'destroy' me..."
Today, the couple is standing together in their grief over Max's death, saying in a joint statement that the reports of domestic violence "are not reflective of the totality or the precise details of the events during a difficult time in our marriage that we worked through together."
Police say Shacknai has been cooperating in their investigation into the mystery of why two people died just days apart in his beachfront mansion.
Investigators are awaiting toxicology reports to determine Zahau's exact cause of death.
