Caitlin Rother's Blog, page 3
June 1, 2021
Get Your Summer Read On: Special Offer For Book Clubs!
Hi everyone,
I wanted to thank those of you who have helped me spread the word about my new book, DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside The Coronado Mansion Case, because books sell by word of mouth and the recommendation of friends. Posting even a short a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or a book blog is always a great help and much appreciated.
I also wanted to let you know about an offer I’m extending to those of you in book clubs for a great summer read, but first a little good news.
I’m grateful and thankful for the incredibly positive response I’ve had to the book so far, and for the reviews that have come in. Here are two of my favorites from a couple of true crime authors:
“You’ll be convinced first one way then the other as you race through the pages of this disturbing mystery. DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD is so meticulous, so organized… Caitlin Rother is the journalist we all want to be when we grow up.”
--Camille Kimball, author of A Sudden Shot: The Phoenix Serial Shooter
“The mysterious deaths of Rebecca Zahau and the young son of her wealthy boyfriend Jonah Shacknai were ripe for scrutiny by a good investigative true crime author. And Caitlin Rother delivers. Ultimately, readers of “Death on Ocean Boulevard: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case” must determine whether they believe Zahau was murdered or took her own life. But they can now do so armed with Rother’s exclusive revelations about what is a truly mind-bending case. Her fascinating book really pulls you in. It surprised me by upending my own initial thoughts. So, get ready for a gripping read.”
--Sue Russell, author of Lethal Intent
If you were hoping to attend a virtual event about the book, or wanted to wait until you read the book to avoid spoilers, I have posted links to seven weeks’ worth of TV news segments and interviews, virtual book discussions, Q&As, and podcasts on my virtual tour calendar. Just click on this link to peruse one or more of them.
Now that I’m fully vaccinated, and as more people are getting back out there, I’m starting to do some in-person events in safe settings (outdoors is always preferable), with others who are fully vaccinated. That said, most bookstores aren’t ready to do even an outside table signing, and many community groups are still doing Zoom or hybrid meetings, which is still fine by me. If you’re part of a large group that would be interested in reading the book and having me as a Zoom speaker to talk and answer questions about it, please email me at crother@flash.net or contact me here.
On to the book club offer: Because of COVID-related delays and distribution problems with the book, I’m trying to come up with creative ways to reach readers. In that vein, I’m happy to do a 30-minute Zoom or Skype presentation and discussion with clubs that have at least 15 members who buy the book (or for two or three smaller clubs that want to join together to meet this threshold, which may be more realistic).
I will send the club leader(s) a list of questions that I wrote specifically for book clubs so folks can continue the discussion after my portion of the program is over. I can also coordinate and facilitate a discount bulk purchase of signed books that are shipped to a single address, which will cost much less than if all the members buy their own books on Amazon. This same offer will work if you are back to meeting in-person (I’ll join on computer) or if you are meeting on Zoom already. Just contact me for details and to schedule a date.
Hope you have a great, safe, and healthy summer!
Warm regards,
Caitlin Rother
May 10, 2021
The mysterious death of Rebecca Zahau still haunts me
By Caitlin Rother
Sometimes I choose cases to write books about and sometimes these cases choose me.
As I explain in my new book, DEATH ON OCEAN BOULVEARD: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case, my husband hung himself, using a cord he put over the bathroom door of a motel room in San Quintin, Mexico, in 1999.
It took me many years before I could even say the words out loud that my husband “hung himself,” but I don’t think I’ve ever gone into any detail, verbally anyway, about how he did that. Honestly, talking about the scene only makes me picture him making the preparations and doing it, which is really not an image I want in my head.
It also took me a long time before I could watch a movie about suicide, particularly when someone drank himself to death, which was my husband’s affliction. That’s partly the reason it took me 19 years before I could finish my short memoir, SECRETS, LIES, AND SHOELACES: A story of hardship and healing, and that was only after I’d sat through every day of the Zahaus vs. Adam Shacknai civil trial.
It had been 12 years since my husband’s death when Rebecca Zahau’s body was found in the rear courtyard of her wealthy boyfriend Jonah Shacknai’s mansion in Coronado, California, on July 13, 2011. It’s taken nine years since then for my book to be released, time I spent comparing the two deaths, looking for similarities and differences.
You can see why the case caught my attention—on a personal and professional level—when I heard that Jonah’s brother Adam had called 911 to report that he’d found Rebecca’s body hanging naked, bound, and gagged from an exterior balcony, but had cut her down before the police arrived. It was even more intriguing when I learned what he’d told the 911 dispatcher: “I got a girl, hung herself in the guest house,” where he’d stayed the night.
Given the state of Rebecca’s body—not just naked, but with her hands tied behind her back and her ankles bound together—the public’s immediate reaction was that this was a murder. Rebecca’s family and many other people still adamantly believe this today, saying there’s no way a woman, and Rebecca in particular, would have done this to herself, outside, and in such an elaborate and bizarre way.
Although the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department (SDSD) investigated this “suspicious” death as a homicide, the agency ruled her death a suicide less than two months later, once toxicology results came back to reveal there were no drugs in her system.
That meant I couldn’t write a book about this bizarre and unusual case for liability reasons, because no one had been arrested or charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one.
At the time, when people asked me if I was going to write a book about “the Coronado mansion murder,” I had to say no, because according to law enforcement, it wasn’t a crime and I could get sued if I accused anyone of killing Rebecca.
I say this case came to me, because sources brought me information and the sheriff's investigative files, which I collected quietly, as I waited to see if the case would reach the courts.
To be honest, this case scared me. The parties were litigious and/or wealthy, and some were potential suspects in the public eye. Also, if Rebecca was murdered by a hitman or someone else, then the killer was still out there. I literally feared for my own safety. So, I stayed in the shadows.
Some cases just aren’t worth the trouble. Too dangerous, too much work, people involved don’t want to cooperate. Some of this was true in this case, but I just could not let it go.
I felt somewhat safer after the Zahaus filed their civil case in 2013, accusing Adam Shacknai and two women who were later dropped from the case (you can read my book for more details) of scheming to kill Rebecca and hang her from the balcony. But I still needed to wait to see what came out in court.
The case took another five years to go to trial, where a jury ultimately found Adam responsible for Rebecca’s death. That said, so many details that I’d learned from the sheriff’s investigative file and other sources had never been made public. They were never disclosed on the half-dozen TV documentaries either. So much of what I’d heard from various sources was never even mentioned in court.
With so many questions still unanswered, my research went into hyperdrive. After following the case since the beginning, I was the only journalist who attended every day of the trial so I knew what was new and what had yet to be said in or out of the courtroom.
Once the trial was over, I investigated all the leads I’d been given or uncovered, exploring the issues that went unresolved in the sheriff’s investigation or were raised at the trial by the Zahaus’ experts. Yet, turning over one stone only exposed more stones underneath. I became obsessed with trying to solve this mystery.
This was no simple investigation, mind you. I was told many, many crazy theories, read more of them online, and went down quite a few rabbit holes trying to find the truth, only to find that there was no there there. Many were based on speculation, false information, and conspiracy theories. I weeded through them, one by one, presenting only the best and most credible ones in the book, and using my own experience with suicide as a lens to examine this case.
The major reason why I write these books—and why readers tell me they buy them—is because we all want to know why. We all want to know the answers to those nagging questions that law enforcement doesn’t or can’t answer, and in this case there are plenty of them. You may think you know the facts of this case, but the new details I’ve uncovered will show you that there is so much more that you didn’t know.
For me, it’s like solving a puzzle as I gather clues and insights that were missed or ignored by the authorities. The urge to try and figure out what really happened is a powerful driving force.
That’s why I approached this and my other books from both a psychological and an investigative standpoint. Often, the answers lie in the characters’ backgrounds, the dynamics of their relationships, patterns of behavior, and who said what to whom and when. Cutting through agendas and finding holes in narratives that certain parties are pushing.
That means I dig deeper than the information that comes out in court or in the media, to solve the mystery and to answer the question why a suspicious death—or murder, as it may be—occurred. Then I share my findings, all woven into a suspenseful novelistic narrative, with my readers.
In this book, I reveal all the information I’ve learned and can legally present to readers about this case and the primary characters involved. But I wanted to let readers decide the ultimate question of whether it was a murder or suicide.
Another law enforcement agency, or even the SDSD—if Sheriff Bill Gore loses the next election—may ultimately choose to re-open this criminal case, or may be forced to do so. The Zahaus have filed a second lawsuit, this time against the SDSD.
There is a court hearing set for July, so we’ll see what happens next.
But if the primary characters are upset about one thing or another that I’ve included, that probably means I’ve done my job well. There seem to be quite a few closely-held secrets by the characters in this case, as people try to protect themselves or their family members. I still don’t think we know everything there is to know, and I’m not sure we ever will.
If you still haven’t purchased a copy of the book, I hope you will. If you want to order online, signed copies are available through the San Diego Public Library bookshop. I’ve also signed copies at Bay Books in Coronado, CA, and have sent signed bookplates to Book Carnival in Orange, CA, to the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ, and to Peregrine Book Co. in Prescott, AZ.
If you want to come to a virtual event and listen to me talk about the book, you can do that from anywhere. Even if you miss one or more of them, you can still watch these events, listen to podcasts and interviews, or read articles about the book by going to my virtual tour calendar on this blog, where they are all listed.
I’ve got several more events coming up this weekend and next week as well. Details to register or get a Zoom invite are on the tour calendar.
Thanks for reading!
March 27, 2021
Virtual tour calendar: events, news, Q&As, TV and podcast interviews about DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD
"You’ll be convinced first one way then the other as you race through the pages of this disturbing mystery. DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD is so meticulous, so organized... Caitlin Rother is the journalist we all want to be when we grow up."
-- True crime author Camille Kimball
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CALENDAR CONTINUES TO BE UPDATED. New listings are at the top...
COMING SOON:
--Caitlin will be featured on Ona Russell's "Authors in the Tent" series of televised interviews. Date TBA.
--October 5 at 6 p.m. PST, Caitlin will do a live Q&A with the True Crime Book Club on Facebook.
BOOK TOUR STARTS HERE:
Saturday, April 24, 2021 (embargo is lifted)
-- San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Karla Peterson interviews Caitlin and writes about the book. Read it here.
-- 6 and 8 a.m. news shows, and approximately 8 p.m. (after the basketball game): KGTV Channel 10 interviews Caitlin about the book. Watch it here.
-- Times of San Diego publishes a book review and a detailed Q&A with Caitlin. Read it here.
-- Coronado library interviewed Caitlin about why she wrote the book, and some of her thoughts about the case. Watch it here.
Sunday, April 25
-- Caitlin talks on camera with the 3BookGirls” podcasters.
Monday, April 26
-- 12 to 1 p.m. show: Maureen Cavanaugh interviews Caitlin on KPBS radio's “Midday Edition.” Listen to it here.
-- 4, 5:30, 6:13, 7 and 10:28 PM, Caitlin talks with Phil Blauer of FOX5 TV news. Watch it here.
-- 5 and 6:30 p.m. shows: Maya Trabulsi interviews Caitlin on KPBS-TV's "Evening Edition" in San Diego.
-- 6 p.m., interview with Caitlin on KFMB-TV. Watch it here.
-- Book review by Janie Hickok Siess of Colloquium. Read it here.
Tuesday, April 27 (launch/pub date!)
-- 6:40 a.m. PDT: Caitlin talks with Paul Miller on WPHM radio in Michigan.
-- 8:40 a.m.: Caitlin talks with LaDona Harvey and Ted Garcia on KOGO radio.
-- 6 and 11 pm, Caitlin talks with Mark Mullen of NBC7. Watch it here.
-- Guest blog by Caitlin runs on Colloquium book blog site. Read it here.
-- “Dark and Stormy Book Club” podcast talks with Caitlin. Listen to it here.
-- 7 p.m. PDT: Caitlin launches her book with the San Diego Public Library’s virtual branch, “in conversation with” broadcast journalist JW August, followed by questions from the Zoom audience. Watch it here.
Wednesday, April 28
-- 6 p.m. PDT: Caitlin has a virtual “conversation with” true crime author Camille Kimball via Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ, with Patrick Millikin. Watch the event here.
-- Book review by Lori Johnston of Psychotic State book blog. Read the review here.
Thursday, April 29
-- Book review posted by blogger Bella Foxx. Read it here.
-- 7 p.m. PDT, Caitlin discusses the book and takes questions at a virtual launch event with Shaun Briley, head librarian at the Coronado Public Library, with signed copies available through Bay Books (see info below). Watch the full program here.
Friday, April 30
-- Book review posted by Kathleen Higgins-Anderson of Jersey Girl Book Reviews. Read it here.
Tuesday, May 4
-- 6:30-7:30 p.m. PDT: Caitlin does a live Q&A chat (in writing) with the Kensington Book Club on Facebook. Please go here for this virtual event.
-- Book review posted by Maureen Shea Timmerman of Musings By Maureen. Read it here.
Wednesday, May 5
-- 6 p.m. PDT: Caitlin is featured on Lisa O’Brien’s “Clear and Convincing” podcast.
Thursday, May 6
-- Book review posted by Cheryl Malandrinos at The Book Connection. Read it here.
-- 6 p.m. PDT: Caitlin is “in conversation with” Maddie Margarita at a virtual event with Book Carnival in Orange, Orange County. Click on this link to join the Zoom event, or to buy a signed copy of the book. https://www.annesbookcarnival.com/events/
Saturday, May 8
-- 2 p.m. PDT: Virtual event with Sisters in Crime in Southern California chapters, San Diego, Orange and LA counties. Listen to it here .
Wednesday, May 12
-- Caitlin talks with Dan Zupansky of the “True Murder” podcast. Listen to it here.
Thursday, May 13
-- Caitlin is interviewed by the Coronado Eagle & Journal. Read it here.
Friday, May 14
-- 5 p.m. PDT: Caitlin goes live with Matt Coyle of the “Crime Corner” podcast. Listen here.
-- Caitlin is interviewed by Miriam Raftery of East County Magazine and KNSJ radio. Listen here.
Saturday, May 15
-- 2 p.m. PDT: Caitlin does a virtual event to discuss the book with Susan Lang of Peregrine Book Co. in Prescott, AZ. No need to register, just click on this link to attend the event.
Sunday, May 16
-- 12 to 2 p.m.: Caitlin has her first in-person book signing, outdoors, at Bay Books, 1007 Orange Ave. in Coronado, CA 92118. As of 9/15/21, the store has continued to keep re-ordering this bestselling book, and always has a good supply of signed copies for sale.
Tuesday, May 18
-- 6:30 p.m. PDT: Caitlin does a virtual event with LitUp! in Orange County, a reader/writer group, with fellow author Alex Finlay, as they read from and talk about their new books. Hosted by Maddie Margarita. Watch it here.
-- 9-10 pm show, Caitlin talks with Alan Warren of "House of Mystery" radio show, which airs in Los Angeles, Seattle, Palm Springs/Riverside, and Salt Lake City. Listen here.
Thursday, May 20
-- Caitlin does an interview with Stefan Adika for his YouTube talk show "Coffee With Adika" about the Rebecca Zahau case and the new book. Watch it here.
Friday, May 21
-- Caitlin talks with “Ivy League Murders” podcast hosts Sarah Alcorn and Laura Rodrigues McDonald. Listen here.
Wednesday, May 26
-- Caitlin talks about her new book with Websleuths owner Tricia Griffith on her podcast.
Friday, May 28
-- Caitlin talks with "Murder Most Foul" podcast. Listen here.
Saturday, June 12
-- 2 pm PDT, Caitlin talks with Burl Barer of "True Crime Uncensored" podcast. Listen here.
Tuesday, June 15
-- 7 pm PDT, Caitlin does a live chat about her new book (and some of her others) with Tricia Griffith of Websleuths. The interview is archived at Tricia's YouTube channel here.
Wednesday, June 16
-- 1 pm, Caitlin speaks to the Coronado Rotary Club with book signing to follow. If you have a club of vaccinated members who would like to hear Caitlin speak about the book, please contact her at crother@flash.net, or through this website.
Wednesday, June 23
-- Caitlin speaks and true crime author Kevin Deutsch discuss DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD for his podcast. Listen here.
June 28-July 10, date TBA
-- International Thriller Writers (ITW) conference: Caitlin will be in conversation with fellow bestselling author Ron Franscell about the craft of writing suspenseful true crime.
Saturday, July 17
-- 2 pm, Caitlin discusses and signs books at an indoor event at the Bookstar/Barnes & Noble in Point Loma, 3150 Rosecrans Place. A limited number of autographed copies were available afterward, and Caitlin will sign more after they re-order. Caitlin has been signing copies at other B&Ns in San Diego as well, so check with your local store to see if they have one!
Tuesday, July 27
-- 11 am PDT, Caitlin will do a live interview with talk show host Brett Davis, a Coronado local, who also has a radio show on KCBQ, 1170 AM. Watch it here.
Friday, July 30
-- 9 pm PDT, Caitlin's interview with Alan Warren, from the House of Mystery podcast, will re-air on KCAA in Los Angeles, Riverside and Palm Springs, also streaming online here.
Saturday, July 31
-- 2 pm PDT, Caitlin did a live chat and Q&A with the Deranged True Crime Book Club on Facebook. Watch the lively discussion here.
Saturday, August 21
-- The San Diego Festival of Books was virtual this year. Caitlin was on a panel with crime novelist Matt Coyle to discuss their latest books and crime writing in general. Watch it here.
Sunday, Aug. 24
-- Caitlin chats with The Liars Club on their "Oddcast." Have a listen!
Wednesday, Aug. 27
-- Caitlin discusses Death On Ocean Boulevard with David Temple of "The Thriller Zone" videocast and podcast. Watch or listen here.
Virtual Book Tour Calendar for DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case
Saturday, April 24, 2021 (embargo is lifted)
-- San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Karla Peterson interviews Caitlin and writes about the book
-- KGTV Channel 10 interviews Caitlin about the book
Monday, April 26
--5:40 p.m.: Live interview with Caitlin on KUSI News in San Diego
--Book review by Janie Hickok Siess of Colloquium, https://jhsiess.com/
Tuesday, April 27 (launch/pub date!)
--6:40 a.m. PDT: Caitlin talks with Paul Miller on WPHM radio in Michigan.
--12 to 1 p.m. PDT: Maureen Cavanaugh interviews Caitlin on KPBS “Midday”
--Caitlin talks on camera with “3BookGirls,” posted on YouTube
--“House of Mystery” podcast with Alan Warren interviews Caitlin
https://shows.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio
--Interview airs with Caitlin by author Jon McGoran of "The Liars Club Oddcast" podcast
--Guest blog by Caitlin runs on Colloquium book blog site
--7 p.m. PDT: Caitlin launches her book with the San Diego Public Library’s virtual branch, “in conversation with” broadcast journalist JW August, followed by questions from the Zoom audience.
To register and receive Zoom link for the event, please go to: https://sandiego.librarymarket.com/events/caitlin-rother-book-launch?fbclid=IwAR3riTfVZ5Qvdn3UIz9Q20qbjvuz6HKFCDyh-wqivuJq_9nCf9qbomu67bQ
To pre-order autographed/personalized copies from the library bookshop, plase go to (they will also ship books out of town): https://www.libraryshopsd.org/product/death-on-ocean-boulevard/8436?fbclid=IwAR0Qra5xpRs9SQ0JrVVytsRHQbbaDdFClL_B5zAmmL5N6CYaZrX8o4H6ptw
Wednesday, April 28
--6 p.m. PDT: Caitlin has a virtual “conversation with” true crime author Camille Kimball via Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ, with Patrick Millikin. To register and receive Zoom link for the event, please go to https://poisonedpen.com/
--Book review by Lori Johnston of Psychotic State, http://www.psychoticstate.net
Thursday, April 29
--Book review posted by Bella Foxx, https://bellafoxx.me/tag/blogging/
--7 p.m. PDT, Caitlin discusses the book and takes questions at a virtual launch event with Shaun Briley, head librarian at the Coronado Public Library, with signed copies available through Bay Books (see info below). The library also will release a 10-minute video online, to include an interview with Caitlin.
To register and receive Zoom link for the event, please go to: https://live-coronado.pantheonsite.io/events/author-talk-death-ocean-blvd?fbclid=IwAR1Y5vo_HhtmnYVAzGFjeZhphLi19NC-POyaanHPZfMPWQsV1IOUhKRiP-8
To pre-order signed copies, please email Bay Books at orders@baybookscoronado.com, or call them at 619-435-0070. They will also ship books out of the area.
Friday, April 30
--Book review posted by Kathleen Higgins-Anderson of Jersey Girl Book Reviews, http://www.jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com,
Saturday, May 1
--Audio interview with Caitlin on KNSJ radio by Reina Menasche of East County Magazine, which will also post a story online at ,http://eastcountymagazine.org.
Monday, May 3
--“A Dark Turn With Kevin Deutsch” podcast interviews Caitlin
https://open.spotify.com/show/1KGygiZffXhMOvz0I9Ch5g
Tuesday, May 4
--6:30-7:30 p.m. PDT: Caitlin does a live Q&A chat (in writing) with the Kensington Book Club on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/kensingtonpublishing
--“The Dark and Stormy Night” podcast talks with Caitlin about the book
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-dark-and-stormy-podcast-dark-stormy-NxvErwAJDUp/
--Book review posted by Maureen Shea Timmerman of Musings By Maureen, http://musingsbymaureen.blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 5
--6 p.m. PDT: Caitlin is featured on Lisa O’Brien’s “Clear and Convincing” podcast
Thursday, May 6
--Book review posted by Cheryl Malandrinos at The Book Connection, http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/
--6:30 p.m. PDT: Caitlin is “in conversation with” Maddie Margarita at a virtual event with Book Carnival in Orange, Orange County. Please go to the store website to receive Zoom link to the event, and to pre-order or order signed copies. https://www.annesbookcarnival.com/events/
Saturday, May 8
--2 p.m. PDT: Virtual event with Sisters in Crime in Southern California chapters, San Diego, Orange and LA counties. Event is open to anyone else who wants to attend. Will post link to register and receive Zoom link here.
Tuesday, May 11
--Posted after 6 p.m. PDT, Caitlin talks with Dan Zupansky of the “True Murder” podcast
https://www.stitcher.com/show/true-murder
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-murder-the-most-shocking-killers/id393525078
Friday, May 14
--5 p.m. PDT: Caitlin goes live with Matt Coyle of the “Crime Corner” podcast
https://anchor.fm/matt-coyle?fbclid=IwAR2xSeZwiAwvPknWNr1DAzNfWjRDDyR9KWlq8xqkXZabu7mlIO8iT7Mzk_k
Saturday, May 15
--2 p.m. PDT: Caitlin does a virtual event with Susan Lang of Peregrine Book Co. in Prescott, AZ.
https://www.peregrinebookcompany.com/
Sunday, May 16
--12 to 2 p.m.: Caitlin has her first in-person book signing, outdoors, in front of Bay Books at 1007 Orange Ave., Coronado, CA 92118.
To pre-order a signed copy (they will also ship books), please email Bay Books at orders@baybookscoronado.com, or call them at 619-435-0070.
Tuesday, May 18
--6:30 p.m. PDT: Caitlin does a virtual event with LitUp! in Orange County, a reader/writer group where three authors read from and talk about their new books. Hosted by Maddie Margarita.
https://www.annesbookcarnival.com/events/
Friday, May 21
--Caitlin talks with “Ivy League Murders” podcast hosts Sarah Alcorn and Laura Rodrigues McDonald.
January 18, 2021
Spreckels Mansion Makeover
By Caitlin Rother
As the site of Rebecca Zahau's controversial death by hanging in 2011, the historic Spreckels Mansion has been in the public eye for years.
I've been watching it closely because it's also featured on the cover of my upcoming book, DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside The Coronado Mansion Case, which comes out on April 27, 2021. (Click on the title to pre-order.)
In the years after Rebecca's death, I watched as the house went on and off the market, most recently for between $16.9 million and $17.5 million. In 2020, I saw it was taken off the sale market and was listed as a monthly rental for $80,000 and then $60,000. I later learned that it had not just been taken off the market, but sold -- for $11 million -- right after the COVID shutdown hit back in March 2020.
As I interviewed people about the history of the house itself, I learned that modifications were made to the interior by the people who owned it after Rebecca's boyfriend, Jonah Shacknai, but I could see the changes in the front yard for myself. Six mature palm trees were planted in the front yard, and other landscaping was added behind a new stucco wall and iron gate, which lent it more of a secure feel.
Still, the mansion that some local residents called "the murder house" continued to sit vacant.
When I walked by it in early December 2020, it still looked like this photo above. But when I went back last week, I saw that the new owner had made some dramatic changes to the front yard, removing the trees, the lawn and landscaping, and putting in these rocks. I'm guessing the rocks are temporary, probably as a way to keep the construction dust down until new landscaping is put in.
Just fyi, these last two photos were taken in the late afternoon, so it's still the same cream color, it's just the lighting that's different. And although the yellow "caution" tape is up again, this time it's for a different reason.
The front yard has been returned to a more historic look, as featured on my book cover (see below), and as it was before Rebecca's tragic death in the rear courtyard. I'm curious to see what the new owner does next.
* * *
If you are an established book blogger, reviewer, podcaster or reporter, and you would like to write a review or story, or interview me for a podcast or TV segment about the book, please contact me through this website. I'm scheduling interviews and virtual book events now. Please also see the Events page on this website for the virtual events I've got on the calendar so far.
Let me know if you're interested in having me speak to your group, which will depend on the group size and projected attendance.
The book is available for pre-order now here.
December 9, 2020
The COVID Benefit-Challenge Ratio
By Caitlin Rother
I’ve been meaning to blog since my last post in April. Really. Only I’ve been too busy writing books, literally, and believe it or not, I mean books plural.
Although there were early days when I couldn’t stop reading news articles and spent hours trying to focus, the past ten months overall have been an amazing time for me creatively. Even if it has been pretty dang lonely and depressing at times, as an author this forced isolation has been quite motivating.
First, I finished DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case, about the Rebecca Zahau case. It’s coming out on April 27, 2021, and is available for pre-order now.
After taking a couple weeks off, I switched to another book project under contract, which I worked on every day for several months… until I lost the contract due to COVID budget issues.
I was pretty upset about that, but I picked myself up and moved on to another book project. The problem is, researching true crime right now—I’ve slowly been chipping away at the McStay family murder case—is not only unsafe due to COVID, it’s almost impossible. Courthouses are not places I want to be, and everything is moving soooooooo sloooooowly that lawyers, judges, and court clerks are on furlough half the time, and take forever to get back to me, if at all. Same with other sources.
So, I pulled a book from the back burner, and this time I decided to go with a fiction project, which seemed like a safe and fun alternative.
A good 12 years ago, right after my first and only novel, NAKED ADDICTION, came out, I started writing a sequel. But even after five years of rewrites, it still didn’t work. I stuck it in a proverbial drawer, and almost gave up on it.
Until this year, during the grips of COVID lockdown, when I finally figured out how to fix the book. Having lost my projected income for next year because of the cancelled contract, this seemed an opportune time to take another stab at it. So, I managed to get a contract to publish the sequel with the same publisher as NAKED, which is WildBlue Press, and I dug in.
Stuck at home, I worked like a fiend to dash off a 121,000-word draft in a little more than two months. The premise is essentially the same as the original, but I overhauled the narrative structure, which substantially changed the way the story unfolds.
The majority of the book is new and I feel pretty good about it for the first time. It’s as if I finally know what I’m doing. Although I pulled in some scenes from the old draft, I made myself completely rewrite and tighten them to go with all the new material and the new structure.
In the first draft I had introduced a new female reporter protagonist to interact with my detective, Ken Goode. When that didn’t work, I brought Goode back as the protagonist (as he was in NAKED), which meant that I almost had to tell the story backwards. I’m still working on it as we speak, because it’s about 118,000 words, which is too long.
I’ve also given the book a new title: DOPAMINE FIX.
Like NAKED, it’s largely set in La Jolla, and it takes the reader into some San Diego-area favorite places, like Mister A’s, Balboa Park, and Coronado. It’s got built-in conflict, suspenseful and romantic tension, and a biotech-inspired plot that is surprisingly timely given the FDA approval of the COVID-19 vaccine that is taking center stage in all of our lives.
It’s crazy how many pages I’ve written and rewritten this year. Because writing is the only way I know how to keep myself alive and sane. Sitting here at this computer, typing away.
Writing has also served as a distraction to help me survive pre-election chaos, recover from election chaos, and breathe during post-election chaos. Until today, when I saw that seventeen states are supporting the Texas AG’s bid to reverse the Biden win in the Electoral College and his 7 million-plus win in the popular vote. Seriously? That is not how elections are supposed to work. I doubt it will fly, given the failure of other legal attempts to overturn our democracy in the past five weeks, but I don’t recognize the country I’m living in and haven’t for a few years now.
I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t know, but this pandemic, the election, maybe even writing all these books, and the lockdown we are in once again have left me exhausted. Some days are better than others, but some days all I can do is search for a way not to feel exhausted, because writing requires energy, and the prolonged denial and delusion of some of my fellow citizens has sapped the joie from my vivre.
It’s tough when the fear factor increases, as it has while I’ve been watching the case numbers and hospitalization stats rise to alarming proportions. Higher than ever before, and still trending in the wrong direction.
The news media doesn’t help, focusing on our impending doom: we’re almost in the purple tier, still closer, still closer, about to happen, any day now, and then, yes, now it’s here, and it’s only getting worse. Etc. etc. etc.
As a former news reporter, I know the media is a necessary part of a functioning democracy. It’s just frustrating when the people who need to listen to and read the news aren’t paying attention. That’s partly why I quit being a reporter to write books instead. It was that way before only now it’s worse. Now there are an astounding number of people who think the earth is flat, who still think the virus is a hoax, no worse than the flu. They’re still saying that on their deathbeds.
My fear of getting sick is as bad as it was in the beginning, because our hospitals in Southern California are now almost at capacity. We watched it happen in New York and now it’s happening here. Because people won’t listen, still don’t want to wear masks, and believe that pretending the Scourge isn’t real will make it go away. Well, it won’t, and until this ends, I guess I’ll just keep writing away. Who knows how many books I’ll finish at this rate!
That brings me to my other task at hand, which is to figure out how to promote DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD, while we are all still isolating. The Rona has put me and other authors into a perpetual state of “I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I’ll try to plan around the uncertainty.”
Going virtual was great at first, but people already have Zoom fatigue along with COVID isolation fatigue. Everyone is just tired of everything. But people are still reading, right? Still listening to podcasts? I sure hope so.
If you are an established reviewer, podcaster, reporter, or bookseller who is interested in interviewing me, hosting me for a virtual book event, or anything else that might help get the word out about DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD, I’m open to ideas! I live in San Diego, but this is my chance to meet readers all over the country. All you have to do is ask.
Thanks for reading the blog. If any of you want to send a signed copy of one of my books as a holiday gift, please contact me through this website or by email, crother@flash.net.
Stay safe and healthy out there, and please wear a mask!
April 19, 2020
Life With the Rona
Each day seems to blend into the next as I isolate alone here in my house, and yet I’m experiencing markedly extreme moments of emotion.
Hopelessness. Gratefulness. Helplessness. Appreciation. Sadness. Raw vulnerability. Fear. Connection. Confusion. Joy. Loneliness. Love.
A good meal with a glass of a favorite wine tastes far better than usual. My eyes tear up when I’m out for my daily walk and have to veer into the street to go around a young unmasked couple and their two babies, who might be carrying the Rona. We don’t look at each other, and it makes me sad.
Sometimes I sing when I’m out on a walk. It’s hard while I’m wearing a mask, so I don’t sing that often. But when I do, I never know what will happen. One day it makes me happy, another day it makes me cry.
My partner smiles at me on a video call and I feel the love in the pit of my stomach, because we are isolating separately. I hear a beautiful song and it makes me remember that I am still here. I am healthy for today. I am alive. I have a house over my head, the mortgage is paid off, and for now, my partner is doing my grocery shopping for me, because I have respiratory issues. He’s a keeper.
Depending on how much time I spend reading news articles, some days feel like a roller coaster ride of medical studies with new findings, as a few government leaders make good, smart leadership decisions while others—more than I’d like to count—make horrible, ridiculously irresponsible and selfish choices. Idiocracy and Darwinism abound. It’s just a matter of time before we all feel the fallout.
At the same time that people are expressing their fears and anger online about Covidiots not wearing masks and standing too close together in the grocery store, protesters with AK47s are taking their frustrations to the street, complaining that they have lost their liberty. To me, they are acting like spoiled children. Why can’t they just stay home for a while until the danger has passed, until things can calm down? It’s only been a month. It’s not forever, but if they keep acting like that it could be. Maybe they are living on the fringes financially. That might make sense, but it seems to be more about their philosophy, that they have a sense of entitlement. They want to be free to act the way they want, even if it kills others.
How did we get here? Such divisions. Such insanity.
I’m not sure where we will end up, but at times it feels like no one is at the controls of this airplane, and all I want to do is hide in the bathroom until we land. Only I don’t know which direction the plane is flying and all the air traffic controllers are out sick.
The daily video calls with my partner, the cell phone calls with old friends and family, and the Facebook chats with all the other people in my life, have kept me from going insane day to day, as I try not to wonder how long this will be my life.
One day at a time, I tell myself. Just do what you have to do, focus at the task at hand to get through today, then go to sleep and get up to do it again. Stephen Colbert has been a saving grace. Late night comedy on my cell phone helps me go to sleep. What’s a little radiation while I’m in isolation?
Thankfully, I have a very important book project that I’m on deadline to finish. Some last-minute interviews have added a whole new level to the narrative, which has been stressful to accommodate, but it will make the final project much better. It helps keep me focused, most of the time, anyway.
What will I do once I finish? Start back on my other book, and try to keep at it. I am incredibly grateful that I have two books under contract at once, which is a first for me, and couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. At least I won’t starve.
Most days I find it hard to conjure up the energy to make myself a nice meal, but when I do, I enjoy it supremely. I need to do more of it. Self-care, they call it. Bravo.
I had my first Zoom meeting today, a panel discussion with two other writers and a moderator, which was supposed to happen in real life, but got cancelled because of the Rona. It was good, a way to stay connected, and to try to stay relevant when we’re all stuck inside. I want to do more of that. I will if someone asks. In between books.
But the Rona is all-powerful and it saps energy. It is all-knowing. It keeps its deadly secrets to itself, and every time we try to understand it, it throws us a curve ball. New information that will change again tomorrow negates what we thought we knew yesterday.
People like me are desperate for information, because that has always been my coping mechanism. Gaining more of it has always been the key to dispelling fear. Except the information is only good for today, until it has been replaced with something else. The numbers aren’t real, there are too many unknown variables—not enough tests, faulty tests, models that are too conservative or too scary, but still not accurate because we just don’t know enough.
It’s too soon, and one level of government is fighting another. Who knows who is telling the truth these days? What is credible? Honest accounts of people who have been sick and have recovered. Those I believe. The doctors and nurses who write about having to watch people die every day. They are the truthtellers.
And yet, we have a president who seems oblivious to this. Talking about his own TV ratings, he seems to think he is engaged in a pro-wresting match, where the contestants wear make-up and capes. He eggs on the protesters like he’s an MWA promoter, encouraging people to go outside and fight to open up businesses because he thinks that will improve the economy, which he needs to win re-election. Like we are all on the Jerry Springer Show. Or Survivor.
But this is reality, not reality TV. Or is it? Some days I’m not even sure. Yes, people need to earn a living, but this will simply kill all the progress we’ve made during the lockdown. It will only infect more vulnerable people and will literally kill the people who would otherwise vote for him. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t understand any of it. We have become the new Puerto Rico, and we aren’t even getting paper towels tossed at us.
It’s like the world has gone crazy. As if something in the air or the water has seeped into people’s brains and changed their perceptions, slowly, like an invisible gas or a bad hallucinatory drug trip. Because everything is upside down, and what was true has never been and what was supposed to happen will never be.
So, here I sit at the computer and work on this blog, or my book, because it is something that I can control. It is something that helps to distract me from the madness. It helps me to forget, for at least a little while, that outside my door is an invisible virus that gives some people no symptoms, makes some people really sick, and can kill off the people I love. Or me.
It’s all I can do to keep the virus and the madness at bay. Whatever you have in your life that you can do to keep you focused, I hope you can find it and do it.
As long as my savings hold out, and I can keep talking to my friends and family on the phone or online. As along as I can still have happy hour on Facebook Messenger with the man I love, with maybe the occasional visit where I try not to worry that he is asymptomatic and will give me the sickness that might turn my lungs into glue, and permanently damage my heart, kidney or who knows what else. As long as I don’t lose my mind, I will get through this, one way or another. Or I won’t. And that’s about all I know right now.
Namaste.
February 11, 2020
I Got Hacked: Lessons Learned
I’ve always known it could happen to me, but I didn’t really know how to protect myself—or maybe I just didn’t have a big enough budget to worry about it, so I lived in denial. But it finally hit home.
When a hotel wifi, or Starbucks, or any open restaurant, says, “Beware, this is not secure,” they mean it.
I was just minding my own business, working on my laptop as I always do when I travel, happy to have wifi at all, because when you’re self-employed, and don’t have a big company providing you with security or IT services, you just do what you can, and hope for the best.
But on this trip, when I accessed the wifi on my laptop and phone, as usual, the Big Bad Hacker guy found me. I say “guy,” only because when I saw the Yahoo verification emails flashing before my eyes—and before he deleted them out of my account, because, yes, he was IN my account—the first one said “Charlie” was linking my account to his. Then it was “Pat.” Then it was a woman’s name, and I lost track after that.
We were in San Francisco for a trade show and the SPIE Music Jam at PianoFight--I sang and briefly played the keyboard--so we were up very late. The hacker sent my partner an email around 7:30 A.M. Talk about a rude awakening.
Yes, it is your world’s worst nightmare (other than the anesthesiologist stealing your fentanyl during surgery, so you wake up and feel the pain, but can’t scream, which I also read about today). Someone is literally taking over your online identity and you have no power to stop them. Scheduling jobs with your kitchen contractor, then deleting emails, so you have no idea it even happened. I’m still missing a full week of emails that he deleted, presumably to cover his tracks, and I don’t know how many others might be gone—and worse, never arrived.
If I didn’t respond to you within the last week or two, please email me again!
Anyway, I pictured it to be a man, or maybe a whole room of men, sitting around a table, or a group of tables, hacking me and all the other vulnerable, innocent people, who are just trying to make a living, and stealing our livelihoods, our personal and financial information. I later found out that they were in San Francisco, at least that’s where my suspicious-activity alerts said they were. He apparently was using Verizon on a Samsung phone. I was able to capture several IP addresses.
And. They. Have. No. Conscience. While. They. Do. It.
I didn’t really have time to get angry about it. And I’m am very grateful that I have a partner who has a computer security company on retainer for his business, who I was able to call for help as soon as it happened.
We were able to force the hacker out of my primary email account after a couple of hours of changing passwords multiple times. The only way to get him out for good was to change it remotely—not on my laptop, where he might have had some kind of keyword logging accessibility and could see what I was typing as I changed my passwords (we weren’t sure what he had access to).
I want to give a shout out to Steve and Carl at 7Circuits.com for helping me out. They responded immediately, with good nature and humor and capability, and have done so repeatedly in the days since as other related issues have come to my attention.
But even then, the hacker still eluded us, and continued to hack.
He somehow found an old Hotmail address I’d created, literally 16 years ago, and as soon as we forced him out of my regular email, he started sending a series of emails to everyone I’d ever emailed on my regular account (since 2002) on the Hotmail account.
I’m not sure if the Hotmail account had gone dormant and he resurrected it, because it had my name in it and he could pretend to be me, or what. But it was so old I’d forgotten it had ever existed. When I created it, I had not published my first book yet, and who knew then that anyone would ever care who I was. I made it close to my name and my other account, so it would be easy to remember: If it popped up in your emails, it was crotherr@hotmail.com. But that was the hacker contacting you, NOT me.
First, he asked my friends—and professional sources—for a favor. Then, if he got a fish on the line, he asked them to go out and buy gift cards for a sick friend with “Liver cancer,” because I was travelling and I couldn’t do it myself, but I would reimburse them when I returned. The whole email had no punctuation and most people who know me know I use punctuation and that I also wouldn’t capitalize Liver. But I digress.
If it went further, he apparently asked the victim to scratch off the goop, take a screen shot of the numbers underneath and send them to him so he could cash them in without any chance of being caught. Sadly, a well-meaning family member was scammed. Another friend I’ve known since junior high school also tried to send money, but I was able to stop him before the transaction could be completed.
Please beware of ANYONE who asks you by email or by phone to go out and buy gift cards for any reason.
Others engaged with the hacker, to try to elicit information or mess with him on my behalf or out of their own desire to screw with this bad person. I was told to advise folks not to do this, because it only opens YOU up to the phishing scam, where he can then get access to your information and start sending out emails to everyone in YOUR address book. Everyone you’ve ever emailed from that account. You would not believe how many people, some of whom I haven’t spoken to in eons, emailed, texted, and called me – “Is this you?”
Anyway. I have literally changed my passwords multiple times, and created a bunch of new ones (they tell you not to duplicate passwords, but geez, how creative can you be when you’re under the gun? And don’t forget to write them all down.) I’ve added two-step verifications, which was too hard to do on my own before, but I now see that living with the “I don’t know how to do this” attitude just doesn’t cut it these days. So I learned.
I also alerted my bank and changed my online ID to a new unique one, then we took a walk on Mt. Tam during a lull during which I mistakenly thought I was rid of the hacker. At some point I also posted on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that I was having these problems. I wanted to warn people not to send this guy any money, but I also thought someone might offer some good suggestions.
As it turned out, this was a great step to take, because a friend from college actually works for Microsoft, which now has control over Hotmail accounts. He saw my plight on Twitter and offered some suggestions. I didn’t even know who he was at the time. Just a stranger offering some help, I thought.
I’d tried calling Microsoft myself, but could not reach a person. Imagine, a $126 billion corporation with no human beings answering phones. Meanwhile, the hacker had blocked me out of my own account Hotmail and Microsoft accounts, and all my efforts to respond to the security alerts, where I could report the suspicious activity, were being kicked back. I didn’t think there was anything left for me to do, but let it continue. Thankfully, my friend was able to reach some muckety-mucks in legal and get the email account blocked. I’m so grateful to him.
I don’t know why the hacker picked me. If he’d looked more closely, he would have seen just how many lawyers, prosecutors, detectives, former FBI agents, the sheriff, the prison system—all these law enforcement people—were in my address book. But that’s because criminals are living like we do, I guess, moving as fast as they can, living in denial, before they get caught on the line.
It was tough to try to stay ahead of him, because he was fast. But I thought he was out of my accounts. I’d closed any financial online accounts as a precaution, scanned my computer for malware and any other virus or issue, and we thought all vestiges of the guy were gone.
Then, last night, I realized that no one was getting back to me after I’d been emailing them all day. In fact, not for several days, unless my email address was in a group email or it came through Twitter or my website, which is why I didn’t notice at first.
Turned out that he was gone, but he’d left his dirty little footprints in my email account Settings. We’d erased the sub-account he created, and also some filters, but we missed this one important item. Anytime anyone hit “reply” to my email, he had forwarded that response email to the Hotmail account. So for days I hadn’t been getting email responses and didn’t even know it.
Thankfully, a friend (a former FBI agent – the hacker should have picked his victim better!) alerted me to it. Bollocks!! But I removed the forwarding (don’t forget to save the changes) and I felt like a security expert. Kill him!
So, my message here today, is this: Do what you can to protect yourself now. Trust me, this was no fun, and I’m lucky it wasn’t worse. Our Lyft driver told us this happened to him in an airport in Germany and he ended up losing thousands of dollars. Get help if you don’t know how to do it yourself.
Oh, and by the way, I know all the people who told me to call the police to report this were trying to be helpful, but that is not the right thing to do. Local police can’t do anything unless someone steals your identify and steals money directly from you. In this case, because the hacker stole money from a family member online, there was nothing the police could do. They told me to contact the FBI and file a complaint on a website, which I did. Here is the website: www.ic3.gov.
Even though I had managed to capture the hacker’s IP address, which the hotel security told me was a Verizon account, the Verizon fraud rep said she couldn’t do anything, because they need a subpoena to investigate anything. The hotel was also useless. They just told me they’d got no other complaints from other guests, and they were sorry for the inconvenience.
Was I chosen because I’m a New York Times bestselling author? Probably. Sadly, people think that all authors are wealthy and have wealthy friends. To this, I say, HA.
It was random, but it also seemed somewhat targeted. Perhaps after they Googled me? A contractor recently told me he thought I was famous, just like the Kardashians, but that was an enormous joke to me, because that is only how it looks to certain people who have no idea what my life is really like. It was funny when it happened, but now, I fear, this is one of the consequences of looking famous to outsiders.
Just fyi, I am not rich, and neither are my friends. And with AB5, we are losing our freelance gigs, or they are becoming unbelievably bureaucratically cumbersome, as we speak.
I’m still waiting to see if the FBI responds to the complaint I filed. I sure hope so, because I’d like to see this sucker punished. That's FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, in the photo above. Hope they give me a call!
Here are some tips I’ve gotten this past week, but will not even try to explain the technology:
--Get a vpn while traveling or to use in coffee shops, which is kind of personal network. My expert recommends Cyber Ghost, which costs about $3 a month.
--Use a mobile hotspot to stay out of the insecure public areas on the internet where anyone can see you there and get into your email. This will use up a lot of data, so make sure you have a good plan. I will be changing mine to accommodate the hotspot I didn’t know was working already.
--Download the Eset mobile security app on your phone.
--Set up two-step verifications on your most important sites, like social media, your email, and other sites that have access to your financial information.
--Remain calm but stay alert, call your bank to flag your account, and be ready to drop everything to respond to creeps like this.
--Alert and warn everyone that it isn’t YOU, so they don’t get scammed.
November 29, 2019
Works in progress, moving on and letting go
As Nanowrimo is nearing an end, I’m pleased to report that I have added at least 20,500 words to my working manuscript for the Rebecca Zahau death case this month. That doesn’t include all the words I’ve rewritten or edited out, so it actually may be 25,000 words or even more.
I start with my book proposal as a skeleton, because it includes a couple of sample chapters as well as chapter summaries for the entire book. Much of what I do is to flesh out the summaries into scenes and narrative, adding in new information I’ve gathered in my research, which in this case is constantly evolving.
But something happened this week that I need to stop and write about today, in addition to all the “stuff” this book is bringing up about life with my husband, because he, too, was found hanging. My editor asked me to include some of the parallels and contrasts in the book, so I guess you can say this blog today is part of my writing process.
These feelings are lingering around the edges of my brain, and they need to come out before I can proceed with Rebecca’s story, which, by the way, has a new title: SHE SAVED HIM CAN YOU SAVE HER: The Mysterious Death of Rebecca Zahau.
As some of you may know, I was married to an alcoholic with borderline personality disorder, who committed suicide in 1999. I wrote about my roller-coaster marriage in my mini memoir, SECRETS, LIES, AND SHOELACES, which I published last year.
One of the points of the story is that recovery from a relationship like ours is long and, like the disease of addiction itself, has bumps and triggers. I had one of those this week when I finally forced myself to go through one of the last remaining boxes of my late husband’s things.
It’s taken me years to slowly give or throw his stuff away, because I feel negligent if I don’t go through it first, and that process alone is so exhausting and emotional that I have to wait until I can face it. It’s been 20 years since he died, and after cleaning out and reorganizing the garage six months ago, I came across this box.
At first glance, it seemed to contain mostly financial papers, copies of credit card bills and such. I went through a bunch of these papers right after he died, because I knew he had a lot of pre-existing debt before we were married, and I wanted to make sure collectors weren’t going to come after me. But I recall saving this box because I wanted to make sure there wasn’t some kind of life insurance or retirement benefits that could be lurking in his papers, which could disappear if I simply tossed them into the trash. Complicating matters further is that I’m very allergic to dust, and even when a box is kept closed for that long, just turning pages makes my eyes and nose go crazy.
Nevertheless, I decided it was time. I was ready. Yet again, I was surprised at the emotion and the discovery. Still. The reminders of how much he loved me, how his life revolved around trying to make amends to me, to recover for me, to be with me again after I had to call police and put him in jail for picking up a bat and threatening me with it. I’d told him to get his act together and not to contact me for at least three months.
After he went into the Pathfinders treatment and sober living program in San Diego, he bought an appointment book, which I found in this box. As I went through it, I noticed there was little written in it but meetings with psychiatrists and therapists, and milestones in his protracted journey to get back together with me.
One of the things I’ve blocked out in my own recovery was the actual date of our wedding anniversary. Our “honeymoon” was a total misnomer, because he went into a fugue state and became a monster while we were in New York City, and I cried, horrified at the person I’d married. But there it was in the book. October 25.
As I flipped backward in time, and saw the few other entries with my name, I remembered once again just how much he really loved me and wanted to make things right:
“Wrote Caitlin.” April 26.
“Talked to Caitlin for first time.” June 20.
“Made Amends to Caitlin, 9th step.” June 27.
“Saw Caitlin for 1st time.” July 25.
I remember the day he called me to make amends was a Saturday, and I had a party to go to that night. We had set a date and time for that conversation, but it wasn’t great timing. It took a good 90 minutes, and it left me quite confused and emotional afterward. I’d needed to hear his apologies, but the whole exchange still hung over me like a pall for the rest of the day and throughout the party. Luckily, it was my best friend’s party. His ex-wife was an alcoholic too. And I learned recently that she eventually drank herself to death.
It’s not surprising, I guess, that Rich didn’t mark the day when he violated one of the conditions of our separation, which was that he stay away from one particular Starbucks I frequented in Hillcrest. I still remember seeing him in the parking lot that day, as adrenaline and anger flashed through my entire body, lighting me up with fire and a feeling of betrayal and fury that he had stepped all over my boundaries. I wrote him an angry letter after that, and I believe he apologized, but I still remember the incident, like a wound deep in my gut. I’m not sure if his April 26 letter, marked in this book, came before or after that.
It was more surprising that he didn’t mark the trip we took together to London later that year, a platonic trial during which I tried to see if I could forgive him one last time. Maybe by then he didn’t feel he needed to mark dates in the book because I had opened that door again. Let him try to prove to me that he had changed, that he could be the man I hoped he could, and try to get his life back out of the toilet when he’d put it. Lost his job at the county, his reputation, any feelings of self-worth, and his career aspirations of opening his own investment firm.
Seeing those pages with my name on them made me sad all over again. And not so angry anymore. It hit me once more that he’d been trying to stop drinking for me, not really for himself. We tried living together one more time, but it was too late. I regularly cried at dinner. He was addicted to playing video games on his computer, and he was still depressed. I just couldn’t conjure up any love for him anymore.
After he started drinking again and I told him it was over, it was only four days before he killed himself.
And this box, full of files of unpaid bills, collections notices, and letters showing that he’d attempted to pay off some of them, was just part of the flotsam and jetsam that he left behind. I saw that he did have a life insurance policy with JC Penney, but it seemed to have lapsed, because he had neglected to keep up with the monthly payments.
I also found a file full of photos of a bunch of Chinese people and other pension fund executives, which I believe were taken on a trip to Hong Kong. He brought me back a whole bunch of gifts from that trip—earrings, silk pajamas, all kinds of cool stuff. He was good at that. But he wasn’t in any of the photos. I think he kept them because it helped him remember who he used to be, a respected investment maverick who should have had a promising future ahead of him.
There was a bright spot in that box. I don’t remember if I’d looked at this before, but I found a letter to one of his consulting clients who had just let him go. Rich told the client that what he was doing was unethical and wrong, and that Rich was going to report him to the authorities. I also found a complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission, outlining all the unethical and illegal acts that this man had committed. I can’t tell if he ever filed the thing, but there it was and it made me feel proud of him.
I looked up the name of the company and the venture the man was trying to get off the ground (I found paperwork for the distribution of shares, and if I recall there was going to be a public offering). While I found no trace of the company online, I did find an obituary of the man, showing that he died in 2012, so I’m guessing that the whole thing never took off. I can’t ask Rich’s close friend and AA sponsor, because I looked him up and he, too, died in 2014, after recovering from a serious stroke. He was a nice man. I wish I’d stayed in closer touch.
The letter and SEC complaint were written only a month before Rich killed himself, and I’m happy to see that he was trying to do the right thing. That was the part of him I can hold on to. And throw the rest of the dusty papers away. At least most of them. Maybe someday.
I worry that if I toss them all, the triggers needed to conjure up the few good memories will away go too.
October 14, 2019
BIG NEWS: Now that my book deal on Rebecca Zahau case is finalized, I'm looking for tips!
As was just announced in Publisher's Marketplace, I'm delighted to tell my readers that after months of protracted negotiations and interest by several publishers, I have signed a contract with Kensington/Citadel to write a book on the Rebecca Zahau death case.
I've been following this case since the very beginning, when Rebecca was found dead in the back yard of her multimillionaire boyfriend's mansion in Coronado (featured above), known as the historic Spreckels Mansion. Rebecca was allegedly found hanging from a second-story exterior balcony of the 1907 home, owned by pharmaceutical magnate Jonah Shacknai.
Here was the announcement, which was carefully worded to give readers a taste of what's to come, but leaves room for discovery as I continue my years of research into this complicated case.
"True crime: Co-author of HUNTING CHARLES MANSON Caitlin Rother's JUSTICE FOR REBECCA, about the death of Rebecca Zahau, found hanging -- naked, bound and gagged -- from her multimillionaire boyfriend's balcony in Coronado, CA; authorities said it was a suicide, but in 2018 a civil jury held the boyfriend's brother responsible; new, exclusive details help to unravel the mysterious, symbiotic fatalities of Rebecca and her boyfriend's son, to Michaela Hamilton at Kensington, for publication in spring 2021, by Peter Rubie at FinePrint Literary Management (world)."
The research is going well. I've recently learned some things I wasn't expecting, which, of course, will only make this book better.
The tentative pub date is May 2021, or sooner if I can get it done faster. But it takes a long time to research and write a complicated book like this one--it's trickier without a resolution in criminal court--and then another year to get it out in print, so hang in there, I promise you it will be worth the wait!
This one will be a nice trade paperback, which is larger and easier to read than my previous mass market paperbacks with Kensington/Pinnacle. It will be book number #14 or #15, depending on when the book on the San Diego Zoo's Frozen Zoo comes out.
For those who are unfamiliar with this story, Rebecca Zahau was found hanging naked, hands tied behind her back, ankles bound, and a gag in her mouth.
Authorities (the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, aided by state Department of Justice agents) ruled it a suicide. Her family, many experts AND a civil jury, all said it was murder. The jury found the boyfriend's brother, Adam Shacknai, responsible for her death last year. He says it was suicide too.
I'm already getting some great interviews with people you haven't heard from before on TV or elsewhere, so I'm pretty excited! I believe there is still much to be revealed in this case, and many questions to be answered. This is my goal, and this is my challenge.
My plan is to find the truth, no matter where it takes me, and get as close to it as I can. I have no agenda, I'm not taking sides, I have no horse in this race, and I want to hear all sides from all parties. But clearly there would not be interest in this case if it wasn't so controversial, and if so many people did not accept the official finding that this was a suicide. Some people, including Dina Shacknai, also challenge the official finding that her son Max's tragic fall, two days before Rebecca died, was an accident.
When I talked to folks at the Indie Author Day at the Coronado library this weekend about my upcoming book, one fellow author asked me, "Oh, the mansion murder case?" She asked for the pub date so she can get it on the calendar for her book club to read!
But do you see what I mean? In the past eight years since Rebecca was found dead, I can't tell you how many times I've been asked, "Are you going to write a book about the Coronado mansion murder?"
What do you think? If you have any tips or leads or want to share information with me about this case, please contact me at crother@flash.net.
Thanks for reading!
