and this is "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
They were a gorgeous couple.
- From the minute you saw her,
you felt happy just being with her.
- He was once a pro athlete, football royalty.
She was expecting their first child.
- The baby was moving, and she said,
"Come and feel my tummy."
- Then, a crime that stunned the city.
The beaming mother-to-be, gunned down in her own home.
- You'd see bullet holes in the floor
where my sister was murdered.
It was terrible.
- So full of love and life.
Who would want her dead? Her celebrity boyfriend?
Or, maybe one of his other girlfriends.
- She said, "You don't know that he's seeing other girls?"
- Mysterious letters were spilling secrets.
Did someone want her out of the way?
A mother-to-be killed,
and a mother of three who was not what she seemed.
Now, an undercover plan to catch a killer.
**
- Hello, and welcome to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
Rhoni Reuter was a small town girl from Wisconsin.
Shaun Gayle was a football superstar
with the Chicago Bears.
After dating for nearly two decades,
the couple was expecting a child together,
but their story was no happily ever after.
Instead, Rhoni was dead, and to solve the mystery,
investigators would have to find the person
hiding a secret obsession.
Here's Rob Stafford with "Deadly Liaisons."
**
- It was morning in a condo complex
in the upscale Chicago suburb of Deerfield.
The day was just getting started, quiet,
until the screaming.
A woman in the building heard it,
so she called her pregnant neighbor upstairs.
No response.
Now, feeling something like dread,
the neighbor picked up the phone again
and dialed 911.
Police rushed to the scene.
The 911 caller had been right to be worried.
In the unit above her,
they found her pregnant neighbor, dead.
What had happened upstairs, and why?
Solving the mystery would lead police
to a famous and beloved pro football player,
would involve several women in his life,
and would set the stage
for a high stakes cat-and-mouse game
between authorities and the person
they ultimately came to believe killed
an expectant mother in cold blood.
Her name was Rhoni Reuter.
**
- From the minute you saw her, you felt happy,
just-just being with her.
**
- Rhoni was stunning, stylish, and sweet.
Her brothers, Thad and Wade,
adored her, as did their wives, Anna and Lori.
- Rhoni is the person that you see
that you would want to be.
She was everything.
She would do anything for anybody.
- She was very caring, always thought of other people.
She called us every night.
- There was a warm tenderness that Rhoni brought
everywhere she went.
- Rhoni was a woman with no enemies,
so who on Earth could have wanted her dead?
The investigation began at a crime scene
that was only minutes old.
Detectives Vince Nichols and Juan Mazariegos
of the Deerfield Police Department
caught the case.
- You could still smell the odor of gunpowder.
No immediate signs of a struggle.
- And no signs of forced entry.
Bullet casings and live ammunition
from a nine millimeter Beretta semi automatic handgun
littered the kitchen.
Deerfield police chief John Sliozis thought
that was telling.
- The sheer number of shots would indicate
that this-- there was some emotion,
there was some-- something driving the shooter.
In all likelihood,
the victim could have known the offender.
- So who's the first person you want to talk to?
- Shaun Gayle.
- The boyfriend? - Correct.
- Shaun Gayle, her boyfriend of 17 years,
was an ex football player, smart, popular, and charming.
The two met in 1990 at a charity event.
Back then, Shaun was a member of the iconic '85 Bears team
that won the Superbowl.
- Superbowl champions!
- For the most part, they were just together
all the time.
They talked every day on the phone.
Um, they took trips together.
- Rhoni's family says she and Shaun
seemed to make it work.
The revered pro athlete and the girl from a small town
living in a big city.
She eventually juggled two jobs,
one in the food industry, the other part time at Macy's
because she loved fashion.
And then, in March 2007 after many years with Shaun,
Rhoni became pregnant at age 41.
She would finally become a mother.
She was elated, which was obvious
when Wade, his wife, and parents visited Rhoni
in Chicago that September.
- That was the happiest I had ever seen my sister
in my life.
She was just glowing.
- And the baby was moving.
And she said, "Mom, come and feel my tummy."
"The baby's moving."
I will never forget that.
**
- Rhoni was a woman in love,
even though this was no conventional relationship.
She'd been with Shaun for close to two decades.
They never married or even lived together,
so Anna wondered why Rhoni stayed with him
when she wanted both.
- You know, I'd say, "What is it about him?"
And she said, "I don't know what to tell you, Anna.
"I just love him."
- And it was unclear if anything would change,
even after the baby was born.
- Did she want to get married?
- Yes, she did. - Did he?
- I don't know.
- And there was one other thing.
Rhoni's family rarely saw Shaun.
- We just knew that Rhoni said Shaun was a private person
and didn't want people bothering him.
- Just as Rhoni's family was wondering how a baby
might affect Rhoni and Shaun's relationship,
she was suddenly gunned down early that October morning.
- So that was probably the most angry I'd ever been
in my life. I was in an uproar.
I mean, I just wanted to go down there
and get the person.
I wanted to grab him myself
and do what they did to my sister.
- Police, too, were committed to bringing the killer
or killers to justice,
so they started this investigation
by the book.
Look at the people closest to the victim.
That's why they wanted to talk to Shaun Gayle,
and they didn't have to wait long to do it.
- I said, "This is Shaun Gayle," and they're trying to say--
they're naming me as a suspect.
- A sobbing boyfriend under suspicion.
[sobbing over the phone]
**
- Rhoni Reuter, more than six months pregnant,
had been shot to death in her own home.
It would have been a shocking crime anywhere,
but it was especially so in Deerfield,
a tranquil, affluent Chicago suburb,
which had not seen a murder in more than 30 years.
Who could have committed such a crime?
First on the list of people police wanted to talk to
was Shaun Gayle, Rhoni's long time boyfriend.
But before police could call Shaun,
he called them himself a few hours after the murder.
Shaun didn't seem to know yet that Rhoni was dead,
and sounded confused about just what had happened.
[Shaun sobbing]
- Shaun seemed shocked and distressed,
but detectives weren't necessarily buying it.
- As police officers, you're listening to see,
is he acting or is this real grief.
- After playing it several times,
yes, that's what we're listening for.
Appears to be sincere.
- But you're not basing any conclusion on that tape.
- That's correct.
- You want to talk to him. - Oh, absolutely.
- Shaun may be part of football royalty,
a player on a Superbowl winning team,
but now he was a potential suspect
in a high profile murder case.
- Detectives say Shaun was still emotional
as they sat down with him in an interview room
and started with the basics.
Where had Shaun been at the time of the shooting?
- He was en route to see his physical therapist,
but because he was early he decided to go get a haircut.
In North Chicago.
- So he's not far from the murder scene
at the time of the murder? - No, he's not.
- Investigators checked out Shaun's alibi.
The barber shop confirmed he had been there
the morning of the murder.
- We also went as far as pulled a video
from his complex, which captures the alley
where he would drive out and drive through
to leave his house, and sure enough,
he is captured leaving his house.
- In terms of the timeline in the shooting,
does that videotape clear him of being at the murder scene
at the time? - Yes.
- No gunshot residue was found on Shaun,
and he did not match the description
police had from neighbors of a small, young,
dark complected male with black hair
wearing a baggy sweatsuit who was last seen
at Rhoni's condo the morning of the murder,
but that didn't let Shaun off the hook
as far as police were concerned.
They said they had to consider whether someone else
perhaps connected to Shaun had committed the crime.
The victim's family was wondering the same thing.
- At first I thought, well, maybe it was someone hired
as a hitman to do this, and that was them
running away from the scene.
I didn't think the person that was behind this
would be stupid enough to do it themselves
in broad daylight.
- Did you think that person could have been Shaun Gayles?
- Did it ever cross my mind? Certainly.
- That maybe he didn't want the baby in the picture.
- Reeling with questions and anguish,
Rhoni's family made the sad pilgrimage to her condo
to collect her things.
- We walked in, and it was stark quiet
and cold and empty,
and it just-- It felt awful.
All of her stuff, but not her. It was awful.
- She had-- All the baby clothes that people had gotten her
were on a great big table next to the kitchen.
- To see bullet holes
in the floor where my sister was murdered,
it was terrible. - As Rhoni's family grieved,
they hoped the police would find answers,
and one tantalizing lead came
when investigators asked Shaun Gayle,
if not him, who?
Shaun gave them a name, a woman's name.
- Shaun's secrets start to unravel.
There's another woman in his life.
Is she a possible suspect, too?
- Spurned lover? - Yes.
- Jealous? - Yes.
- Motive? - Yes.
**
[cheering and applause]
- Shaun Gayle was a handsome and popular ex-football player
for the Chicago Bears.
Now his girlfriend, Rhoni Reuter, was dead,
and it wasn't long before police learned
Rhoni wasn't the only woman in Shaun's life.
Far from it,
and they learned that from Shaun himself.
- It was kind of an open relationship.
He had made it clear to her. - It was not exclusive.
- Correct. - Shaun told police
one of the women he had dated the year before
might be responsible for Rhoni's murder, Monika Kurowska
Originally from Poland, she's a fitness trainer
who met Shaun at a Bear's promotional event in 2005.
She was 27 at the time. He was 43.
- He was a person who I can truly open up.
Gentle outside, and a gentleman manner.
- Monika said Shaun never mentioned other women,
so she assumed she was the only one he was dating.
- Did he tell you that?
- He didn't really have to tell me that,
because we were seeing each other quite often.
- Then late one evening, after nine months of dating,
Monika said she happened to be in Shaun's neighborhood
and decided to stop by his home.
- I came out from the car, and I stopped by the window
where I saw him sitting with another woman.
I never would have suspected there was somebody else.
That was not-- For me, that was a shock.
- She started knocking on Shaun's window.
- And I really got upset, because they went upstairs
instead, you know-- If that would be just a friend
or something, you know, why-- Why wouldn't you open the door?
- Monika admits breaking the window,
although she says she didn't intend to.
- I was very angry.
I don't think I was ever cheated by anybody.
It was shocking for me.
- And Monika remembers confronting the other woman
as she left.
- I asked her, "Are you seeing him?"
And she said, "You don't know that-that--
"that he's seeing other girls?" And I'm like, "No."
- Monika says that night
marked the end of her relationship with Shaun.
Just a few weeks later,
something strange started happening.
Women in Shaun's life began to receive letters.
- Describing the fact that he was not only
seeing this one particular woman,
but seeing many women at the same time,
trying to dissuade these other ladies from seeing him.
- "Dateline" has obtained some of the letters,
which not only contain angry allegations
that Shaun cheated and lied, but also include copies
of what look like very personal emails
between Shaun and the women,
as well as supposed travel itineraries,
indicating Shaun had taken foreign trips
with two different women less than two months apart.
One was written in poor English,
as if by an immigrant, like Monika.
Shaun, who says the letters were full of lies,
immediately accused Monika of sending them.
After all, she'd broken his window
and confronted that woman.
He got an order of protection against Monkia,
but the letters and other harassing behavior
continued for more than a year.
It seemed to Shaun
that Monika was repeatedly violating
that order of protection.
By the fall of 2007,
Shaun was so frustrated with the harassment,
he wanted Monika jailed or fined.
His request was filed in court on October 4, 2007,
the same day Rhoni Reuter was killed.
So Rhoni Reuter didn't have any enemies?
- That's correct. - But you learned
that Shaun Gayle did. - Yes.
- Shaun told police about Monika Kurowska
and those letters. Not only did they think
they might have a direct connection to the murder,
but one of those letters was found in Rhoni's purse
the day she was killed.
- How big a break does that seem at the time?
- Well, this is definitely a suspect.
She knew of Rhoni.
If she mailed this letter, and Rhoni had the letter,
she obviously had to know Rhoni's address.
- Does Monika Kurowska sound like a spurned lover?
- Yes. - Jealous? - Yes.
- Motive? - Yes.
- Monika's alibi for the time of the murder
was that she was training one of her regular clients,
who happened to live in a town right next to Deerfield.
Her alibi seemed to check out.
As soon as you talk to the client
that she says she was with, is she crossed off the list?
- Not immediately.
We don't know what their relationship is,
if he could be lying for her or not.
- Police had their hands full juggling Shaun Gayle
and Monkia Kurowska as potential suspects
when yet another woman in Shaun's circle
popped up on their radar from tipsters.
- Three phone calls from people
who gave the name of Marni Yang.
- Marni Yang? - Yes.
And the information they were leaving
was that she would be an individual
capable of doing something like this
because of the relationship she had with Shaun Gayle.
- Capable of this kind of murder?
- Yes.
- The plot, as they say, was thickened.
- Who is Marni Yang?
- She tells us that Marni has always bragged
about Shaun Gayle being her boyfriend.
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin.
The murder of mother-to-be Rhoni Reuter
left many in Chicago stunned.
It was no secret her boyfriend, Shaun Gayle,
was seeing other women when Rhoni was killed.
Police suspected he could be involved.
But an explosive tip about a girlfriend with a grudge
was about to break their case wide open.
Back to Rob Stafford with "Deadly Liaisons."
**
- Not long after Rhoni Reuter was gunned down
in her own home in suburban Deerfield, Illinois,
her longtime boyfriend, Shaun Gayle,
and a former lover of his, Monika Kurowska,
were being investigated
as possible suspects in Rhoni's murder,
but now the mystery was deepening.
Callers had given police a new name,
yet another woman in Shaun's life, Marni Yang.
Police soon learned she was a divorced mother of three,
a Chicago native who worked multiple jobs,
including as a real estate agent,
to support her family.
She was also an aspiring fitness model.
- Someone that's promoting, um, sales of fitness equipment,
like we see on TV all the time.
- Photographer Jason Stoller first met Marni
during a quick photo shoot in her garage in 2006.
Marni's children were there: Twins, a girl and boy,
15 at the time, and a younger son, age 10.
How was she with her kids?
- I saw a very in-control mom,
uh, protective of her children,
that communicated very well,
and was even really, really liked by her children's friends.
- He took more than 1,000 photos of Marni
during four modeling sessions in 2006 and 2007.
At nearly 40 years old, Marni was in great shape,
and Jason says Marni was incredibly driven.
- She was looking for success in real estate.
She was looking for success as a fitness model.
- Was the modeling about ego, or was it about
trying to make money? - I think both.
I think this woman was trying to make all the money she could
for her and her family.
- Jason's girlfriend, Miranda Bauman, did Marni's makeup.
- She had a lot of interests, athletic, sky diving,
scuba diving, these kinds of things.
- Marni was also fascinated by police work,
even applied twice to be an officer,
but was turned down.
Still, she was very active in
the Chicago Police Department's Neighborhood Watch Program.
- She talked about wanting to make sure
her neighborhood was safe, um,
and being concerned about her children's safety.
- This was hardly the profile of a murder suspect.
Still, police continued to look into her background
and learned about her connection to Shaun Gayle.
Jason says he first heard about what was going on
between the two of them when she brought it up at a shoot.
- She mentioned Shaun Gayle,
that she was involved in real estate transactions with him,
and this is who she was seeing.
She knew Shaun was involved with other people.
It was clear it wasn't something exclusive.
- Marni had shown up at some of the shoots
with a man she described as "a family friend,"
and she was, in fact, seeing a few men,
but it appeared to both investigators
and the photographer
that it was Shaun she was really interested in,
and on her last shoot, in the winter of 2007,
Jason says Marni arrived with an outfit and a request.
- She says, I w-- "I wore this specifically,
"and I would like to get some pictures
"specifically for Shaun."
It said "Chicago Bears" on the front,
and it said "Chicago Bears" on her butt,
and she clearly wanted to take some pictures
in this outfit for Shaun.
- Police were investigating those tips they'd received
from callers pointing them to Marni Yang.
One was from a former friend of hers,
and what she told police
refocused their whole investigation.
- She tells us that Marni Yang has always bragged
about Shaun Gayle being her boyfriend,
but she then starts to tell us stories about these letters
that Monika was being accused of.
Marni has bragged to her
how she hacked into Shaun Gayle's email account
and was able to obtain all these other women's information
and email addresses.
Marni bragged to her
how Monika was the one getting in trouble for all this,
and then how Monika might be deported.
She laughed about it.
- She laughed about Monika being deported possibly?
- Yes. - What did that tell you
about Marni Yang? - Well, that just told us
that, uh, she's very vindictive
and that she would do anything
to get anybody out of the way.
- Just hours after speaking with Marni's former friend,
police went to the alley behind Marni's Chicago home
and seized her garbage, no search warrant needed.
They simply scooped up all her trash
and took it with them.
In it, they found a bank statement, and on that,
they discovered she'd been paying for background checks
on other women Shaun was seeing.
Police also learned about the time Marni planned a trip
to the same resort in Mexico
at the same time he was going there with Rhoni.
- She tells him she's just there to do scuba diving.
- Aside from that incident, Shaun said Marni never suggested
she wanted more from the relationship
than what they already had--
basically, some real estate dealings and sex.
Yes, sex, and police found it very interesting
that Marni had gone to Shaun's house
to bring him dinner and have sex
the very evening before the murder.
When it came to women, Shaun's life seemed complex,
but as police became more interested in one woman,
Marni Yang, they were crossing another
off their list of suspects.
They determined Monika Kurowska had nothing to do
with sending those nasty letters to women in Shaun's life,
and she had nothing to do with Rhoni Reuter's murder.
The ordeal was a nightmare for her.
- It was just so mysterious.
Everything sounded crazy, and here, in the middle,
it's me, my name.
I did nothing besides just going out
and dating the wrong person
in the wrong-- at the wrong time.
- Shaun Gayle was also fully cleared of the murder
within a few weeks of the shooting.
The investigation was soon focused on Marni Yang,
and Shaun then went from possible suspect
to unofficial police agent.
He allowed police to wire his home,
and then he invited Marni over
to see what she might say about the murder.
Investigators, who hovered nearby and listened in,
later said Marni sounded more like a concerned friend
than a killer
as she asked questions about the investigation.
- "Did you talk to the police today? What do they think?"
- Police then got a warrant to search her computer at work.
- We find that she had Googled Rhoni Reuter's address,
a Google map from her workplace to Rhoni's residence.
- Marni had also checked online for photos and videos of Rhoni.
Police felt it was time to bring Marni in for questioning.
- She tells us about the relationship
and how she met Shaun Gayle,
and it was at a Bear's convention,
and how they talked about real estate.
- Investigators were particularly interested
in her whereabouts the night before the murder,
which, as they already knew from Shaun,
included a couple hours at his home.
She was honest about that.
- She was there on October the 3rd,
uh, between 7:30 and 9:30 P.M.,
at his residence. - And Marni told them
something else about that night,
something that would become central to their investigation.
- She then, um, tells us that on that evening,
she was supposed to meet her friend, Christi Paschen,
for a real estate deal at Christi's place,
but had to cancel because her vehicle broke down.
She had to stop at home to check on the kids,
and then her vehicle broke down.
- Christi Paschen. That name comes up.
How important would that name prove to be?
- It would be the most important piece of this whole puzzle.
- In early January 2008,
three months after the murder,
police stepped up their investigation of Marni Yang
and brought her, her children,
and her friend, Christi Paschen, in for questioning.
What they learned was surprising,
especially from Marni's older son.
- Police drop a bombshell on Marni Yang.
When "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered" continues.
**
- Three months after Rhoni Reuter was gunned down
in her own home with a 9mm Beretta,
police were zeroing in on Marni Yang,
a woman also involved
with Rhoni's longtime boyfriend, Shaun Gayle.
Police had been told Marni was obsessed with Shaun,
was a woman who loved guns
and hated people who got in her way.
- She's conniving. She's manipulative.
Very arrogant.
- They searched her home, as well as her mother's,
where Marni had stashed some of her firearms.
They were hoping to find the murder weapon,
a 9mm Beretta.
- We find a few weapons, but nothing of a 9mm.
- But they did find evidence
of Marni's true feelings about Shaun,
a revealing photo of Shaun and two Bears mementos
she kept in her top dresser drawer,
and they came across a letter she wrote to Shaun
but never sent. In it, she complained,
"You go on these romantic trips everywhere
"with all these other women,
"but you bring back a $2 key chain,
"and I'm supposed to feel special about that?
"What message does that send about how you view me?"
Police also found mailing labels for those letters
sent to women in Shaun's life.
The noose was tightening. Now, as a camera rolled,
police questioned Marni on and off for three days.
Marni was very talkative.
In fact, she had answers for everything,
and seemed confident, even cocky.
When asked what her reaction was when Shaun told her
about Rhoni's pregnancy, Marni responded...
Marni's attitude was interesting to investigators,
but more important to them were the specifics of the case.
They asked her about the murder weapon.
Marni told police she had had a 9mm gun that had gone missing,
along with other things in her home,
but she never reported it.
They asked her about a receipt they'd obtained
showing she'd purchased two books online
in early August 2007, two months before the murder,
about how to make a homemade silencer.
She said she had brought the silencer books
for a child's school project.
- There was no such project.
In fact, when she bought the books,
school hadn't even started.
- She then changed her story,
and said she actually bought the books for a friend
as a gag birthday gift.
Police asked Marni about the information she collected
on women in Shaun's life.
She said she did that
because Shaun had started to get closer to her children.
She portrayed herself as a vigilant mother,
wary of the people around her friends.
Most important, police asked Marni where she was
at the time of the murder.
She said she was home,
because she was having car trouble, and, indeed,
her cell phone had bounced off cell towers
near her home that morning,
but there were witnesses she wanted to talk to
who could shed light on her alibi:
Marni's own children.
- Her older son first said Mom was home,
that he had stayed home from school because he was sick.
- But then they spoke with his sister
who said Marni had asked her older brother to lie for her,
so police confronted him with what his sister said.
- And that's when he said, "Yes. I'm done lying for her."
He then admitted his mother, Marni, had told him
to tell police she was home with him
the morning of the murder
when, in fact, she had not been.
Then he startled police by what he said next.
- He told the investigators that after hearing
and seeing the story on TV,
some of his friends brought it to their attention,
that one of his gut's reactions
is that she somehow might be involved.
- His own mother might be involved
in the murder of Rhoni Reuter. - Correct.
Very unusual response,
and for a son to do that, I think every investigator
was thinking that that's an honest response.
The son would have no other reason to answer that way.
- Police confronted Marni
with what her own children said about her.
- Investigators also questioned
Marni's best friend, Christi Paschen.
The women had known each other for 15 years,
ever since Christi, a psychic, read Marni's tarot cards
at a psychic fair.
- She denied having any knowledge
of Marni planning or committing the murder.
- Believe her? - Um, no.
- Investigators were convinced
both Christi and Marni were lying,
but they didn't have anything close to a confession.
True, police did have circumstantial evidence,
proof she'd had a gun like the murder weapon,
that she bought those silencer books
and purchased parts to make one,
even proof she purchased a bucket of cement
they day after the murder,
and investigators believe she lied about most of that on tape,
but the Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller
said it was not enough to make an arrest.
- We don't have any physical evidence tying her to the scene.
- Blood, hair, anything like that?
- No. There's no physical evidence.
- And that wasn't all police were missing.
- One of the questions I asked was,
"Can we put Marni Yang anywhere near Deerfield
"on the October morning of the murder?"
And they said, "No."
I said, "Okay, well, that's a problem."
- Police had checked security tape from a gas station
near the murder scene for Marni's Infiniti SUV
but found nothing. - And when we discussed it,
we said, "You know, have you checked
"all potential avenues, um, you know, rental cars,
"uh, disposable cell phones?" Which is what they did.
- That turned out to be fruitful.
- We find that Marti Yang rented a car on October the 3rd 2007,
and returned it on October the 4th,
the day of the homicide.
- The rental was from Enterprise,
and the pickup address on the form led directly
to the home of Marni's best friend, Christi Paschen,
but more interesting was the odometer reading.
- It was a black Volkswagen Rabbit,
and it was returned with 40 miles on it.
- Forty miles.
Detective Mazariegos had a hunch,
and drove between Enterprise, Christi's home,
and the murder scene.
Round trip, it added up to 40 miles.
- I know the route. I know she did it.
- Then he checked that gas station security video again,
this time looking for a black VW.
He watched the video more than 50 times
and finally located what looked like the VW
passing by less than an hour before the murder
and speeding through just minutes after.
What's more, there was a phone number on the rental form
that was new to investigators.
Turns out, Marni had bought a disposable phone with cash
a week before the murder.
She made only a few calls on it, but that was enough.
And there was at least one call
that placed her in the vacinity of-of Deerfield
on the day of the murder.
- More strong circumstantial evidence,
but still not enough, the prosecutor said.
- It was aggrivating.
They kept on pushing, one more thing, one more thing.
- It was maddening for police.
They worried their prime suspect
would never be brought to justice,
but they had a plan, an undercover sting,
and they thought they could convince someone in particular
to try to get Marni Yang to confess on tape.
Police were about to get her own best friend,
Christi Paschen, to turn against her.
- Marni Yang is about to chat up a storm
when "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered" continues.
- Seventeen months had gone by since Rhoni Reuter's murder,
and yet, there had been no arrests,
not even a publically named suspect.
To the community, it seemed the case had gone cold,
but the Deerfield Police
and Lake County Major Crimes Task Force
had been working hard since day one,
including months preparing for a wire tap operation.
They wanted to try to catch Marni Yang
talking about the murder on the phone.
As they geared up for that,
police brought in Marni's close friend, Christi Paschen,
a second time for questioning.
- If Marni told anybody, this was gonna be the individual.
She knew more than she was letting on.
- Police figured from a car rental form they'd seized
with Christ's address on it
that Marni actually had gone from Shaun's place to Christi's
and stayed there the night before the murder,
and they discovered
Christi's employer routinely records all phone calls.
They found one Marni placed to Christi
at 9:11 the morning of the murder.
It seemed to include some kind of code,
but they didn't know what it meant.
- It seems like Christi's bothered by something
with that call,
and she's hesitating, she's thinking,
which is suspcicious nature.
First thing at 9:00 in the morning,
you're asking, you wanna go to dinner?
- At first, Christi wasn't giving the police much,
but eventually, under pressure, she relented.
Police say no deals were made,
but once it was clear they had a lot of evidence,
she opened up. - We knew she knew,
but not as much as she knew. It was a big wow.
It was surprising.
- Christi told them Marni had nicknames
for Shaun's various girlfriends.
Her name for Rhoni was "Miss Macy's,"
a little dig at Rhoni,
because she worked at the department store.
- Marni thinks retail's beneath her.
- Right. Exactly. - Because she's a realtor?
- Right.
- Christi said the night before the murder,
Marni asked her to bring out her tarot cards.
She then posed a most unusual question:
"Will I be successful in killing Miss Macy's?"
And Christi pulled out the sun card.
- That indicates that Marti was gonna have success
in whatever she was planning on doing.
- Did Christi try to talk her out of it?
- She did try talking her out of it.
She really didn't believe she was gonna go through with it.
- Because of the past couple of times
that she had talked about it with Christi,
about killing Rhoni and-and she didn't follow through with it.
- Christi told police
that before she went to sleep that night,
Marti told her that if she were indeed successful
in killing Miss Macy's, Rhoni Reuter,
she would call Christi that morning with a code.
Police had been right about that phone call.
- And that code was gonna be, "Do you wanna go to dinner?"
- Then police struck pure gold.
Christi told them that the evening after the murder,
Marni went to Christi's home and confessed.
- She told her that she murdered Rhoni Reuter.
She shot her to death.
- Christi told police she and her friend got in Marni's car
and began stopping at dumpsters.
Marni threw out a dark wig
and was about to toss in a sweat suit
when Christi stopped her.
- Christi tells Marni, "Well, don't dispose of it.
"Why don't you just donate it?" - Donate it?
- Donate it. You know, like to a Salvation Army box,
that kind of thing. - Which is what they did.
As investigators drove Christi around,
she showed them which dumpsters they had visited that night.
- So we're driving. She tells them
it came to her mind that she had buried something.
- Marni had buried something small the night of the murder.
Christi had no idea what it was
or how important, how damning it would be.
Investigators needed a metal detector to find it,
but once they pulled it out of the earth,
they knew it was big for them and special to Rhoni.
- It was a bracelet. It said "pregnant" on it.
- A friend later identified that bracelet as belonging to Rhoni.
- Case closed? - It was probably
the definitive piece of evidence
that the investigators had been looking for
for 16, 17 months.
- It tied Marni Yang directly to the crime scene,
but the case was still not closed.
Yet again, prosecutors wanted more.
They wanted to get Marni talking about the murder on tape.
Because she was being so guarded on the phone,
Christi agreed to wear a wire
and meet Marni at their usual dining spot.
Christi, like Shaun, became an unofficial police agent.
She even had her own ideas on how to trap her best friend.
- She knew how Marni's mind works.
- What was her approach? - That we had information
that would link both of them to the scene,
and that's how she got Marni to talk.
- On the audio tape,
as Marni thought she was confiding in her close friend,
she was actually giving police an astounding confession.
She told Christi how she put the 9mm Beretta
in a bucket of cement and threw it in a dumpster
and explained what she wore the morning of the murder.
Just like the mysterious figure
neighbors described seeing near Rhoni's condo
the morning of the murder.
Then she whispered details
it seemed only the killer would know
about the shooting itself.
- She described how
Rhoni started walking backwards in the kitchen,
fell against the counter,
and then fell onto the kitchen floor.
- The next morning,
after 17 months of painstaking investigation,
police headed to Marni's home
and put one of her garbage cans in front of her garage door
to block her in. - We started with the garbage,
and we'll end it with the garbage.
- The detective who logged more hours on the case
than anyone else
then wrapped handcuffs around Marni's wrists.
- Then she asked, "What's this all about?"
Even though she knew. - Marni Yang pleaded not guilty,
so she went on trial on multiple counts of first degree murder
for killing Rhoni Reuter and her unborn child.
The State called the shooting "an execution,"
cold, calculated, premeditated.
Prosecutors provided a parade of evidence and witnesses,
including Christi Paschen,
who testified against her once best friend,
and the pathologist, who concluded
Rhoni died while trying to shield her unborn child
from the fatal shots. Marni's defense attorneys,
who declined our requests for an interview,
argued she was the victim of an investigation
that unfairly targeted her
and never found any physical evidence
tying her to the crime, but in the end,
Marni's own words seemed hard to ignore.
Shaun Gayle, the person at the center of the tragedy,
declined as well to speak with "Dateline,"
but after the verdict,
he talked about how difficult life has been for him
since Rhoni's murder,
and about his regret about ever knowing Marni Yang
and where that relationship led.
- The fact that Rhoni's not here,
and we don't have a three-year-old--
three-year-old daughter, um,
that's gonna be something that I live with.
- For the investigators
who worked tirelessly on the case,
witnessing the conviction of Marni Yang
was supremely satisfying.
- Did you see any signs of remorse?
- No. At the beginning of the trial, she seemed confident.
I believe she believed she could beat this.
But after Christi Paschen testified,
and after the audios, that look on her face
wasn't there anymore.
Now she looks scared.
- And how did you feel about that?
- Pretty good. She knew that it was over.
- As for Rhoni's family,
they say a weight has now been lifted,
but their sorrow remains.
- It's something you can't ever get out of your head.
- It's never gonna be over in our lives.
We've lost a dear member of our family.
This is never gonna go away for us.
- That's all for this edition of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin. Thank you for watching.