Rebecca Zahau
© unknownRebecca Zahau's family doesn't believe her death was a suicide.
The body of Rebecca Zahau, the girlfriend of Jonah Shacknai, the CEO of the Scottsdale-based pharmaceutical company Medicis, will be exhumed so a private pathologist can conduct a second autopsy to try and determine whether her bizarre death at a California mansion was a suicide or a homicide.

Read all about Zahau's strange death here.

Police in San Diego ruled Zahau's strange hanging death to be a suicide last month, but the 32-year-old's family doesn't believe she could have killed herself, and has asked Pennsylvania-based pathologist Doctor Cyril Wecht to conduct a second autopsy, despite the California Attorney General's decision to not review the case.

Zahau's body was found by Shacknai's brother in July, just days after the CEO's son, Max, was rushed to a hospital in critical condition after falling down a flight of stairs in the mansion. Zahau was caring for the boy at the time of the fall.

Max Shacknai later died from his injuries. Police suspect Zahau killed herself because she felt guilty over Max's death.

"Were these deaths the result of criminal conduct? Was Max's death a homicide? The answer is no," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said at a press conference last month. "It was a tragic accident. Was Rebecca's death a homicide? Again the answer is no. It was a suicide ... These deaths were not the result of any criminal acts."

Despite the ruling, Zahau's apparent suicide remains controversial for a lot of reasons, especially because her body was found with her hands and feet bound behind her back, naked, and hanging from a balcony.

Wecht has already reviewed the case and found evidence that he claims shows Zahau couldn't have killed herself.

"She has subgaleal hemorrhages; those are hemorrhages on the undersurface of the scalp. I see no reason why she should have those. You get those when your head strikes something or is struck by something," Wecht found last month.

Brain hemorrhaging could have happened when Zahau was cut down from the balcony where she was found hanging -- she may have hit her head -- but it wouldn't have happened in four different places in the brain, Wecht concludes.

"Even if (her) scalp hit bushes, that kind of impact would not produce subgaleal hemorrhage," Wecht continues. "We're talking about contusions on the top of the head. So, even as the body is falling down - let's say there are branches - how do you get bruises on the top of the head as the body is falling vertically downward?"

Zahau's family doesn't buy the cops' suicide theory.

According to the Associated Press, Zahau's body could be exhumed as early as today.