Speculation swirls around the Jan. 14 death of California public defender Elliot Blair, who died under mysterious circumstances while vacationing in Mexico. Local authorities initially ruled his death an accident, but in an interview that aired Thursday, family attorneys told “Good Morning America” his “bruising did not match the account of the local authorities in Baja California.”
Desiring additional information, Blair’s family arranged for a private autopsy to verify whether or not his injuries were consistent with his reported “fall from a resort balcony in Mexico.”
The New York Post reported that a source close to the family said the autopsy indicated Elliot Blair was likely murdered.
“The autopsy confirms that he, Elliot Blair, was murdered that night,” adding that evidence suggests more than one man may have attacked Blair.
Another source, reportedly close to the family, told the Orange County Register that two officers in Rosarito stopped Blair and his wife, Kimberly Williams, for not stopping completely at a stop sign just hours before his reported death at the Las Rocas Resort & Spa.
The source alleges that Blair could not provide officers with the funds they demanded but gave them $160 in cash and was released.
Williams confirmed the stop and confrontation with police, telling ABC news on Thursday:
“We’ve never been pulled over before. … We were both rattled, but at the same time, we both had this feeling of thank God they didn’t do anything more to us.”
Less than two hours later, Blair, 33, was dead. Local authorities reported he fell from the third floor of his hotel.
Williams reported that she and her husband traveled to the resort to celebrate their anniversary. She was asleep when a security guard and the hotel manager came to her room and woke her, saying, “Excuse me, miss, excuse me, excuse me, is this your boyfriend down here?”
“I turned to the side, I didn’t see him there, so I ran out the front door and they’re pointing over the side of our front door area to the ground. Well, that was my Elliot down there,” Williams told ABC News.
His family is petitioning local authorities to investigate the alleged shakedown and determine whether that confrontation is somehow tied to Blair’s death.
Williams, who also serves as a deputy public defender in Orange County, told ABC News: “He was my rock in this world. We bought our dream home, planned to have children together … Without him, I feel like I have nothing.”
The State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California has said in a statement that Blair’s death “was the result of an unfortunate accident due to the fall of the deceased from a third floor.”
A toxicology report found that there was a “considerable” amount of alcohol in his body at the time of his death.
Williams contends Elliot consumed five or six drinks over six hours that fateful night and was not so drunk that he’d fall over a balcony by accident.
“In my nine years of being with him and knowing him, I can tell you, I’ve never seen him sloppy. I’ve never seen him not be able to stand. I’ve not seen him not be able to walk and care for himself,” Williams told ABC News.
Dr. Rami Hashish, an injury expert consulting the family, told ABC News, “I think it’s relatively clear the injury pattern[s] just simply don’t add up with one another.”
Hashish added, “There’s bruising marks on the body. There are indications of [Elliott] 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.”
Williams contends: “I just know it’s not an accident. I know he didn’t fall. I just know that. I want to do everything we can to figure out what happened in that 45-minute, hour time span because that’s what Elliot deserves. And that’s the hardest part for me, is not knowing.”
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