SAN DIEGO – The girlfriend of a pharmaceutical company executive was found dead at a historic California mansion, her nude body hanging from a rope on a second-floor balcony with her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound.

Rebecca Nalepa's body was discovered at the Coronado home of Jonah Shacknai, chairman and chief executive of Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corp., an Arizona-based company that makes acne and facial wrinkle treatments.

Investigators have not determined if Nalepa was a crime victim and have not ruled out suicide.


"The circumstances are bizarre, you could tell this was unusual, but (suicide) is a possibility," San Diego County Sheriff's Capt. Tim Curran said Thursday.

Curran declined to comment on the evidence. He said no one was considered a suspect.

Shacknai's brother, Adam, called 911 Wednesday to report the 32-year-old woman appeared to be dead, Curran said. The brother was staying in a mansion guesthouse. Jonah Shacknai was not at home.

Curran said sheriff's investigators have not established any connection between the woman's death and a serious injury at the home two days earlier to Jonah Shacknai's 6-year-old son with his ex-wife.

On Monday, paramedics found the boy was not breathing and did not have a pulse after falling down some stairs, said Coronado Police Chief Louis Scanlon. He called it a "tragic accident."

The boy was being treated at Rady's Children's Hospital San Diego. Hospital spokesman Carlos Delgado declined to comment on his condition Thursday.

The 27-room Spreckels mansion was built in 1908 and originally owned by John D. Spreckels, owner of the majestic Hotel del Coronado and the San Diego Union and San Diego Tribune newspapers.

Coronado, a wealthy seaside suburb of about 24,000 people on San Diego Bay, had one homicide last year. The Police Department, which doesn't have a homicide unit, asked the Sheriff's Department to help with the investigation.

Jonah Shacknai, 54, founded Medicis and has been chairman and CEO since 1988. The company's products include acne treatments Solodyn and Ziana and facial wrinkle treatment Restylane.

Medicis, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., said in a statement that it was "deeply saddened to learn of a tragic incident at a California property owned by Jonah Shacknai."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/15/body-millionaires-girlfriend-found-hanging-at-mansion-may-be-suicide/#ixzz1SCO9ol3S

I don't understand, id the feet were bound and her hands tied behind her back how could she commit suicide and by hanging herself. It makes sense to me at all.

yeah, a suicide isn't going to bound her own hands and feet...doh!

didnt this happen to keith carradine?

david carridine

his was some choke out type of sexual thing..
his hands and feet were not bound

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

If a dead woman was found naked, with her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound hanging from a balcony, most people would think it would become a criminal investigation from the outset.

When the home in which the woman is discovered belongs to the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Scottsdale, Arizona based Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, this is not the case.

Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corporation is a healthcare and biotechnology company which Shacknai founded in January of 1988 after a career in government capacities and the corporate world. He also just happens to be a multi-millionaire.



Adam Shacknai, brother of Jonah Shacknai, discovered the corpse of Jonah’s girlfriend Rebecca Nalepa on Wednesday morning.

Interestingly, Shacknai’s six-year-old son was hospitalized after an “apparent accident” on Monday according to CBS Los Angeles.

Sheriff’s Captain Tim Curran of San Diego County told CBS Los Angeles that, “Because of the unique and bizarre circumstances of this incident, it has yet to be determined if this will become a criminal matter or remain as a death investigation.”

I was astonished by this statement, to say the least. How would a murdered, bound woman hanging from a balcony in her birthday suit be anything other than a criminal matter? I guess when you’re a powerful CEO of a major pharmaceutical corporation, the police give you the benefit of the doubt.

In an age where police justify SWAT teams liquefying veterans, children are executed by police officers for schoolyard scuffles, people filming police officers from their own property are arrested for no reason or brutally beaten, and Americans are arrested for gardening, why would this be treated as anything other than a criminal manner?

If this isn’t a clear case of selective enforcement and unequal treatment, I have no clue what is.
According to reports, Jonah Shacknai’s six-year-old son is now in a coma after falling down a staircase. Jonah’s girlfriend, the now deceased 32-year-old Nalepa, was allegedly the only person home when the accident occurred.

According to investigators, when Adam, Jonah’s brother, discovered the bound and murdered Nalepa he was the only other person present in Jonah’s mansion.

The officers investigating the case conjecture that the boy’s fall and subsequent coma and the murder of Nalepa are isolated and unrelated incidents.

Apparently, it is quite common for a child to fall down a set of stairs and enter a coma while only a girlfriend is present, then just two days later the woman happens to be found bound and killed. I’m not quite sure how any sane investigator would see these two events as unrelated.

Jonah Shacknai was apparently at the hospital when his brother discovered the body of Jonah’s girlfriend.

An autopsy on Nalepa has been completed but the results are being withheld until further tests are performed by the county medical examiner.

According to ABC News, the victim had recently returned to her maiden name of Zahau two months before her death. Her sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner reported that they spoke on the telephone hours before Rebecca’s death.

According to Zahau-Loehner, her sister sounded completely normal the night before she was killed.
According to a San Diego Kennel owner who spoke with the victim less than 24 hours before her death, Rebecca was “shaken by recent vents in her home.” What exactly these events are along with most details of the case are still being withheld by the Sheriff’s department.

Autopsy records, requests for copies of search warrants, and recordings of Adam Shacknai’s 911 call will all be ignored during the investigation according to investigators.

The family of the victim has not made any comments regarding the death, but apparently most of the investigation’s focus is being placed on her boyfriend, Shacknai.

The quote published by CBS Los Angeles gives a completely different impression, making it appear that the investigators have not yet decided that this even qualifies as a criminal investigation.

The IB Times makes a point which is conspicuously absent from other media reports,
“There has been no explanation yet from the medical examiner’s office about how Nalepa might have hung herself while her wrists and ankles were bound.”

If the county’s medical examiner can come up with a scenario in which someone can bind their wrists and ankles with an electrical cord and hang themselves naked from a balcony, someone should look in to giving them a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Does Shacknai’s history have anything to do with his strangely preferential treatment?

This seems quite reasonable given Shacknai was chief aide to the United States House of Representatives’ committee for health policy from the years of 1977 to 1982 and his position on the Commission on the Federal Drug Approval Process along with the National Council on Drugs.

If Shacknai was treated like any average American he would have been shot on sight dozens of times or at least beaten to a pulp. Yet, when you have government connections, millions in liquid wealth and split your time between Arizona and California, you are treated with the utmost respect.

Even if Shacknai is completely innocent and the incident with his son and his girlfriend are unrelated, why should he not be treated like a subhuman piece of filth as any other American would be?

Madison. Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

This is way to suspicious. I bet there is more to it.