Was Sylvie Cachay's death at Soho House an accident or murder?

This story previously aired on July 16, 2016.. It was summer in Miami — two years before her death — and Sylvie Cachay was on top of the world. From all over the country, top bathing suit designers were vying for attention.

But it seemed all eyes were on Sylvie and her swimwear line, Syla. "You see a lot of stuff. ...

but it's rare that you see wow. And that's definitely what we felt," said Sylvie's former publicist, Lesa McHale. "It was sort of a PR dream ...

The coverage was across the board from InStyle, and Vogue and Lucky and Elle," she explained. "... they were attracted not only to her product, but to her ...

as an individual as sort of a style-setter in her own right." Sports Illustrated chose Sylvie designed bikinis to feature in their swimsuit video. "She got her clothing in Barneys and all these amazing stores within the first year ... which is unheard of," Ben Baker said.

"I shot her look books. I was her photographer." Ben Baker was a lot more than her photographer. In 2008, he was Sylvie's fiance.

"She's obviously a beautiful woman," he said. "She's the sort of person that, when that person walks in a room, everyone pays attention." So it was no surprise that a woman like Sylvie would occasionally stay at the exclusive Soho House hotel. "[It] fit the criteria of what the typical member would be, someone in fashion or film," Bryan Alvarez, the former Soho House night manager explained.

"It's ... ah, trendy." He says Sylvie actually had special status at the Soho House, a coveted membership that meant perks like access to the private club or the pool — a place so hard to get into that the TV show "Sex in the City" devoted an episode to it. Her friends say Sylvie understood how important socializing at the club was to her career.

"This is a girl who's in fashion. She's stylish. She's inspired by new and fresh," said McHale.

"She really never thought she couldn't do anything ... she really believed," said Patrick Cachey. Her brother, an MIT graduate, marveled at how his sister launched her own business at age 29.

"Starting your own fashion line might be a dream of tens of thousands of people. But actually doing it is a whole another world. And she did it," said Patrick Cachay.

Sylvie grew up in privileged suburban Virginia; her father a prominent surgeon and her mother an artist. Sylvie understood work ethic — her parents emigrated from Peru. "Did you worry about her when she moved to New York City?" Roberts asked the Cachays.

"Not really, not really from day one in New York, she started looking for jobs," said Dr. Antonio Cachay. "In one week she already had her job with Tommy Hilfiger," said Sylvia Cachay.

"You could see her personality at age 3 ... she wanted to walk on the streets of New York with a big ribbon like that and a bow this big. I was a little embarrassed.

But she was not at all," Sylvia continued. It was almost a forgone conclusion that Sylvie would make it in New York, but in 2008, the market crashed. "That was a terrible time for, you know, many young designers in fashion, just many designers in general," McHale said.

"Backers were pulling out." "She looked for other backers," Patrick said. "... she had to make the decision to close down temporarily." "It was definitely a death ...

it was her baby. It was her dream and so it was very difficult to see it go away so drastically and suddenly," said Alicia Bell, a fellow designer and close friend. "I would say that she was lost." "You know, it's hard when you have worked your whole life and have built something and then it's taken from you," Bell told Roberts.

"And on the heels of that she broke off her engagement?" Roberts asked. "Right. With Ben.

That ended. It was a very troubling time for her," Bell replied. Bell says Sylvie ended her engagement to Ben to concentrate on her business.

"It was really tough. I mean, she was down," said McHale. Cheri Fogelman was Sylvie's trainer at the gym.

"She wasn't eating right. She lost a lot of weight actually," Fogelman explained. "She just was so sad." "And I said, 'You know, at some point, you do have to get a job because, you know, you need income to survive the crisis,'" Patrick said.

"She went and actually got a very good job." Sylvie was the lead designer for Anne Cole swimwear. But friends say she wasn't happy. Sylvie hadn't given up on her own line.

It was then, in the summer of 2010, that Sylvie's attention was diverted when she met someone. Nicholas Brooks was just 24 — almost 10 years younger — and he had a trust fund. On their first date they walked her dogs.

"She had these two dogs that she was very, very, very in love with," said McHale. Pepper, her toy poodle, ran into the street and was run over. "She called me from the animal hospital and it was horrifying.

Crying, crying, crying. And, eventually, she had to put him down that night, but that was their first date," said Bell. "She told me about how Nick was there that night ...

and that he scooped Pepper off of the street and hailed a cab, and took her to a vet," Fogelman said. "... stayed all night with her and was there by her side, comforting her.

He was a shoulder for her to cry on. And he sounded like this -" "Knight in shining armor?" Roberts asked. "It seemed good that this, you know, Prince Charming came in, you know, during this horrible stuff," said Bell.

But there would be no fairy tale ending for Sylvie. Six months later, she was dead in a posh New York City hotel room. Sylvie's mother was home in Virginia when her husband rushed in.

"I said, 'What happened' and he says 'Sylvie.' I said, 'What happened to Sylvie? ...what is wrong?' And he says, 'Esta muerta.' Which means, 'She's dead.' I said, 'not my baby, no, no, no.' And we fell on the floor. We just fell on the floor.

And we were just holding each other, like for more than an hour there. It was just awful, awful," Sylvia told Roberts. Police were also trying to make sense of Sylvie's death.

Former NYPD detectives Robert Moller and Tommy Jones knew Sylvie's body had been pulled from an overflowing bathtub. They saw an empty bottle of pills on the dresser. But it was the fact that Sylvie was dressed that raised the first big flag.

"When we walk in the room we see Sylvie Cachay, she's dressed in a black turtleneck and panties," said Det. Moller. "...

her watch was on. Her Rolex watch," Det. Jones said.

"... normal people don't take baths with their clothes on." Investigators noted the bruising on Sylvie's neck. "They were light colored marks but they were marks ...

caused by choking," Jones explained. "She also had a cut inside her lip ... could've been caused by ...

someone would take their hand and put it over your mouth and push." It was starting to look like someone had murdered Sylvie. "We find out she checked in with someone else - 'where is this person, why isn't he here in the room with her?'" said Moller. Sylvie had checked into the hotel with her boyfriend Nicholas Brooks.

Now he was the first person detectives really wanted to talk to. But he was nowhere to be found. It was 5:30 in the morning, nearly three hours after Sylvie's body was found, when Nicholas Brooks walked back into Soho House.

"We were in the lobby — myself and the rest of the staff," Bryan Alvarez, the former Soho House night manager explained. "We pointed him out to the police officer saying, 'Hey this is — that's him." Alvarez watched as an officer told Nick that something happened to his girlfriend. "His reaction was a little weird in ...

he didn't react to like someone who just lost someone close to him," Alvarez said. "His reaction was very blank." "He appeared to be inebriated," Jones said. "...

eyes were bloodshot and smelt of alcohol. Sorta slurred his words." Detectives brought Nick to the precinct. They wanted to know where he had been all night and what had happened to Sylvie.

"We placed him in the interview room and he basically really couldn't hold a conversation with us. So I said, 'It's late, why don't you take...