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Wife Of Public Defender Who Died In Fall At Mexican Resort Says Autopsy Shows He Was Murdered
Kimberly Williams, the wife of Elliot Blair, says a private, American autopsy suggests that her husband did not stumble off a balcony in the hotel's hallway during their anniversary trip.
The wife of a California public defender who died from a fall off a hotel hallway balcony at a resort in Mexico says a new, private autopsy shows he was murdered.
Elliot Blair, 33, was on a first anniversary trip with his wife, fellow Orange County, California public defender Kimberly Williams, at the Las Rocas Resort and Spa in Rosarito, south of Tijuana, when, on Jan. 14, he died from a fall from a third story balcony in the hallway outside the couple's hotel room.
Authorities called it an "unfortunate accident," Oxygen.com previously reported, suggesting that Blair — who was only clad in a T-shirt, socks and underwear — had left the hotel room where Williams lay asleep and drunkenly plummeted to his death from the balcony in the hallway outside the couple's room.
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Williams has repeatedly pushed back on those findings, arguing that her husband only had five to six drinks over the course of six hours on the night before his death, and the couple had been dancing at the hotel bar less than an hour before his body was discovered by the hotel staff.
In a new interview with "Good Morning America" on Thursday, Williams and her lawyer announced the result of a new autopsy.
"The autopsy confirms that he, Elliot Blair, was murdered that night," attorney Case Barnett told the outlet.
"There's bruising marks on the body. There's indications of potential being dragged on the front of the body," Dr. Rami Hashish, a biomechanics, body performance and injury expert working for the family told "GMA." "There's fractures to the back of the skull. Nothing really points to the fact that it was necessarily an accident."
Barnett told the outlet that the evidence leads him to believe that Blair may be been beaten to death, possible by more than one person.
Despite the fact that the State Attorney General's Office of Baja California has said a "considerable" amount of alcohol was discovered in Blair's system, a specific number was not released and, because Blair's body had to be embalmed before it could be returned to the United States, the family was unable to determine his Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) during his private autopsy.
"In my nine years of being with him and knowing him, I can tell you, I've never seen him sloppy," Williams told "GMA." "I've never seen him not be able to stand. I've not seen him not be able to walk and care for himself."
She noted that the couple had repeatedly stayed at the resort in the past, including in the room they were occupying on the night of his death, making it unlikely he would not have known the layout of the hallways and balconies.
She did, however, note that the couple was pulled over on the way back to their resort after dinner by local authorities who claimed they rolled through a stop sign and demanded cash. In an earlier report from the Orange County Register, a source said the local police allegedly demanded an amount the couple didn't have, but accepted $160 to let them go.
"We've never been pulled over before," Williams told GMA. "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.'"
They returned to the resort unscathed and danced in the hotel bar, ultimately going to bed around midnight. She said she was completely asleep when a security guard and the hotel manager woke her up around 12:50 a.m., saying, "'Excuse me, miss, excuse me, excuse me, is this your boyfriend down here?'" she told the program.
"I turned to the side, I didn't see him there, so I ran out the front door" of the room, she said. "And they're pointing over the side of our front door area to the ground. Well, that was my Elliot down there."
She said authorities asked her if they had been fighting, if he could have died by suicide or if it could've been an accident.
"I just know it's not an accident. I know he didn't fall. I just know that," she told "GMA." "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."
Barnett said that the family had hired private investigators in Mexico to try and determine what happened, but said they they have "hit a wall with the investigation."
