The relatives of an American public defender who passed away this month while visiting Mexico for his first wedding anniversary claimed the man “was the victim of a horrible crime” and that the case had been forwarded to the local prosecutor “to conduct a probable homicide inquiry.”
According to a statement from the family’s lawyer, David Scarsone, Elliot Blair, 33, an assistant public defender in Orange County, California, passed away from “serious head trauma,” the liaison stated, citing an autopsy.
At the Las Rocas Resort in Rosarito Beach, which is 45 miles south of San Diego, where he and his wife Kim were staying, Blair was discovered dead on Saturday.
According to their statement to the Orange County Register, the Baja California Attorney General’s Office stated that the death appeared to be the “product of an unfortunate accident from a fall by the now deceased from a third-story floor.”
CNN’s request for comment from the agency did not immediately receive a response. Police in Rosarito Beach did not immediately respond to calls from CNN.
According to Blair’s family, they haven’t spoken to Mexican police officials regarding his passing.
According to its statement, “The family, which has substantial legal experience in criminal law, wholeheartedly thinks that Elliot was the victim of a horrible crime based on their initial research.”
The Family Says That The Husband Wasn’t Drunk
Blair’s family denies his death occurred from the couple’s resort hotel balcony and claims it happened outside the room’s front door on an open pathway, according to the statement, even though they do not provide any particular evidence of a crime.
Elliott was not drunk at the time of the incident, according to the family, who also informed the coroner’s liaison that they would employ a private company to carry out a separate investigation that would include toxicology. They said the liaison had informed them that a toxicological report was still incomplete.
The family stated that they are against having Blair’s body cremated, noting that they have been repeatedly informed of this fact in meetings with a funeral home.
Baja officials urged cremation to family of OC public defender Elliot Blair, who died in Rosarito.https://t.co/7Z4l7qxGJS via @ocregister
— Roxana Kopetman (@roxanakopetman) January 18, 2023
According to the contribution page created by Annie Rodriguez, to whom CNN has reached out, a fundraiser in honor of Blair has been set up to assist Blair’s widow with the “complicated process involved in moving Elliot’s body from Mexico to the USA and dealing with all the red tape.”
The statement reads, “We wish we could provide everyone more information, but Mexican officials have only provided very limited information.”
According to the page, Elliot and Kim had worked for Orange County’s public defender’s office since 2017.
The website states that Elliott “was known for a smile on his face and a bright intellect.” The degree of affection he had for Kim cannot be adequately expressed in words. His life was Kim. In their first year of marriage, they had only recently begun to create a life together.
Martin Schwarz, the public defender for Orange County, recommended Scarsone to CNN.
Read Next:
