An attorney for the family of a California lawyer who was found dead while on vacation in Mexico believes that he was assaulted by more than one person, and may have been “hit and dragged” prior to his death.
Case Barnett, an attorney for the widow of Elliot Blair, told the New York Post that the state of Blair’s body painted an “obvious” picture to experts that “foul play” was involved in his death.
“It’s either he fell to his knees for some reason or he got hit and dragged. One of our experts told us it’s likely that more than one man did this if you look at the damage to Elliot’s head,” he said.
Barnett added that he believes a dark mark on the victim’s left arm may be evidence that he attempted to defend himself during an altercation with his assailants.
The 33-year-old lawyer’s cause of death is still unknown, nearly a month after his death on Jan. 14 at the Las Rocas Resort and Spa in Rosarito Beach just south of Tijuana, Mexico, where he was on vacation with his wife on their first wedding anniversary.
Kim Williams, Blair’s widow, previously said that earlier in the evening, she and Elliot had been shaken down by local police at a traffic stop after the two left the Splash Baja restaurant and bar at around 7 p.m.
The two were stopped by two policemen in a squad truck for not coming to a complete halt at an intersection.
“The officer asked us where we were staying and what we were doing in Rosarito. Elliot told him we were on vacation. He asked us again for cash. At that point, Elliot pulled out his Orange County Public Defender’s badge,” she said.
“Elliot looked at him sternly and said, ‘Look, we’re attorneys, and we’re not going to play these games. We will do this the right way. Take us to the station, and I will pay with a card and you can give me a receipt,’” she added.
The officers continued to demand cash, and finally settled for the $160 that was in their wallets.
“We thought, ‘Thank God they didn’t pull us out of the car,’ and they didn’t do anything more. That whole interaction took around 10 minutes,” she said.
However, after the pair returned to the hotel room, Williams fell asleep and was woken just two hours later by hotel staff who informed her that her husband was dead, face down in the hotel hallway.
Biomechanics and injury expert Dr. Rami Hashish, who was hired by Blair’s family to assess the case, said he thinks it’s “relatively clear the injury pattern[s] just simply don’t add up with one another.”
“There’s bruising marks on the body. There’s indications of potentially being dragged on the front of the body. There’s fractures to the back of the skull. Nothing really points to the fact that it was necessarily an accident,” he said during an appearance on Good Morning America.
Additionally, forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden also reviewed the autopsy report of Blair that had been prepared by the Mexican authorities, concluding that Blair’s death was a case of “aggravated homicide.”
“On the basis of the materials, it is my opinion that Elliot Blair died of multiple blunt force injuries and that he was murdered after returning to the hotel,” he told the Post.
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