The Blotter Presents, Episode 098: ID And Oxygen On Rebecca Zahau
Plus, two American Experiences: "The Bombing Of Wall Street" and "The Island Murder"
the true crime that's worth your time
On this week’s The Blotter Presents podcast, Sarah takes a look at two competing properties that seek to cover the death of Rebecca Zahau, a Burmese immigrant who was found dead inside Coronado, CA’s historic Spreckles mansion. Though officials ruled her death a suicide, Zahau’s family continues to argue otherwise, and in 2018 filed a wrongful death civil suit against Adam Shacknai, the brother of Zahau’s boyfriend (and the home’s owner) millionaire pharma king Jonah Shacknai. (The suit was reportedly settled in February for $600,000.)
Investigation Discovery’s Rebecca Zahau: An ID Murder Mystery is a two-hour doc that aired Monday and is available for streaming here, while Oxygen’s limited series Death At The Mansion: Rebecca Zahau kicks off on June 1. Producers of both shows say that their intentions are to question the narrative presented by San Diego County authorities -- a reasonable goal, for as Sarah notes on the podcast, Zahau was found hanging from a balcony in the mansion, “functionally hogtied with red nautical rope and gagged with a t-shirt but otherwise naked,” a circumstance that seems to suggest that another party might have been involved in her passing.
The challenge for both shows, it would appear, is the dearth of new information -- hardly surprising, as it seems like every detail that could have been mustered would have been presented at Adam Shacknai’s civil trial. Which take does what best with what’s becoming a fairly cold case? Listen to today’s The Blotter Presents for more. -- EB
For the pod’s Cold Case section, Sarah takes another look at two episodes from the 30th season of American Experience. That season’s fourth episode,"The Bombing Of Wall Street" and the fifth one, entitled "The Island Murder” cover (respectively) a 1920 attack on the financial center by alleged anarchists; and so-called Massie Affair, an alleged assault at a Waikiki Naval event that led to the arrests of several native Hawaiians.
If you want to learn more about the Massie Trial, this episode of Offshore (a podcast by the Honolulu Civil Beat) is a good place to start. Regarding the Wall Street bombing, I’m a fan of Beverly Gage’s The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror -- it recently got a reprint, so used hardcover copies can be found for a Lincoln or so. -- EB
Listeners of last week’s podcast, on Who The Hell is Hamish?, will be pleased to know that two of the alleged scammer’s exes are now pals. Hamish McLaren’s ex wife ex-wife Bec Rosen and his last pre-arrest girlfriend, Tracy Hall, call themselves the “Hamish Survivors' Club,” Hall said in an appearance on the show Sunday Night, saying “it's good to be able to share stories and have a laugh.” The women, whose accounts were central to the WTHiT podcast, say they connect at least once a week. -- EB
That Sunday Night segment was also the source of some journalistic squabbling, as the broadcast coverage of the McLaren affair reportedly “borrowed” heavily from the WTHiT podcast, without mentioning it as a source. MediaWeek reports that the show “has been forced to acknowledge” the podcast after using audio from the pod without mentioning the source. WTHiT host Greg Bearup first raised the alarm, saying Sunday Night’s host “ripped off the entire thing without acknowledgement.” A spokesperson for Channel 7 (which produces Sunday Night) says that credit has been added to the online version of the story. -- EB
Thursday on Best Evidence: I’ll be writing tomorrow’s issue, which will go out to paying subscribers, from a cross-country flight during which alcohol is served so ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. But on the docket so far I have John Walker Lindh, homicidal children, and what it’s really like to quit your day job to become a detective. -- EB
What is this thing? This should help.
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