going on. hello july 11th, 2011, max was staying with his dad and rebecca. dina ws in conorado, too, at a home down the street that is when jonah called her. he said dino you have to get here right away. as rebecca explained it to police jonah had been at the gym, six-year-old max was home with her. rebecca said she heard a crash and found max on the floor near the staircase, the mansion s heavy chandelier had fallen to the floor next to him. rebecca said max wasn t breathing, she started cpr. rebecca s 13-year-old sister xena, who was visiting, called 9-1-1. my sister is trying to resuscitate a boy. i m sorry she he can t breathe. police and paramedics arrived within minutes, jonah called dina from the hospital. when he tells me, thank god that she was able to give him cpr, i think to myself thank you, thank god. he s gonna be okay? he s gonna be okay. max was unconscious. dina and jonah took up a vigil at the hospital. jonah s brother adam flew in from his
mississippi river as a tugboat captain. when he ties things off he uses a figure eight, and then closes it with a single hitch or two, guess would not s are tied on both her legs and her hands? figure eights, tied off with a single hitch or two. sheriffs investigators had questioned adam extensively after rebecca s death. you didn t hold anything back from investigators? nothing. you help them to the extent that you could? yeah, exhaustively. you thought you had nothing to hide? i knew i had nothing to hide. and when investigators determined there was no evidence placing adam at the scene, they cleared you? they did. did you think this was over at that point? yes, i did.
that says to me this is some scattershot attempt and you are suing everybody that comes into your line of sight looking for a sympathetic jury. that s it. and a lot of people looked at it that way. reporter: why shouldn t that shatter the credibility of the rest of your case? i think the reality of it is that we always had adam involved all through the process. reporter: in the lawsuit, greer outlined quite a detailed and unsubstantiated narrative. he argued rebecca was killed not to avenge max, but instead during a sexual assault. greer s theory is that it began when rebecca stepped out of the shower and found adam in her bedroom watching her. she then gets uncomfortable and tries to escape. she screams for help about 11:30 that night. reporter: greer says that explains the screams heard by a neighbor. right after that, to silence her, adam hits her on the back of the head, knocks her at least partially unconscious. then he has time to think and he grabs the black paint
cause you to believe that he ever would have done the acts that he s accused of in this case? never anything. it s inconceivable. reporter: adam took the stand too. did you hit rebecca on the head? i never hit rebecca on the head. or anywhere else for that matter. and then did you devise this scheme to try and cover up your wrongdoing by painting this saying on the door and making it look like she had been hanged by someone else? absolutely, positively not. reporter: the case went to the jury. did you feel confident as deliberations began? i felt we could possibly win very convincingly. reporter: less than four hours later, a verdict. i sat down next to mary and i said, mary, i m sorry. this is probably not good news. the injure come jury coming back this quick.
family $5 million. courtrooms are supposed to be a place where justice is dispensed. was this about justice? no, it wasn t. reporter: since this wasn t a criminal case, adam didn t go to jail. he returned home to tennessee and filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied in january 2019. then in february adam s insurance company and rebecca s family reached a settlement of $600,000. and the case was dismissed. after the civil trying the sheriff s department took a fresh look at rebecca s death. eight months later that review also concluded that rebecca died by suicide. dina shacknai would like to see authorities reinvestigate her son s case. do you think they will reinvestigate max s death? i think it s the right thing to do. do i think it will happen? i really don t know. how does a mother ever truly accept the tragic loss of a child?