Chicagoland’s Rhoni Reuter case

they were football royalty in Deerfield Illinois Sean the much adored Chicago bear anybody who's associated with their team is a local hero and Ronny Ryder the stunning brunette working her way up in the fashion field how did people describe Ronnie Ronnie would light up a room when she walked in people instantly liked her retired detective George valenko says the two met at a Bears training camp near Ronnie's hometown in Wisconsin I believe her and Shaun began engaging in conversation there and now was the beginning of the relationship for nearly two decades Ronnie and Shaun are blissfully inseparable traveling the globe then news that blindsides the couple last 41 Ronnie discovers she's pregnant was Ronnie excited about having this baby yes she was very excited the older mom takes every safety precaution she even wears a pearl MedicAlert bracelet that way if anything ever happens to her doctors will know to save baby Skyler she worried all the time never took it off initially the football star doesn't seem as thrilled about becoming a dad but over time State Attorney re Fitz says Shaun tells friends he's warmed up to the idea that there were books that were actually found at his home regarding being a father in parenthood and that sort of thing on the morning of October 4th with just a little more than a month away from delivering her miracle baby Ronnie heads off to work but when she opens her front door a nightmare is there to greet her with a loaded gun I heard a woman screaming and then a pop pop and they've been totally silent I called my other neighbor upstairs and she's pregnant and she does not answer Ronnie's neighbor tells the operator she heard seven to eight shots followed by a loud thud she described hearing a pop pop and she told detectives the shots sounded strangely muffled she had recently seen a movie where there was a gun that was fired using a silencer and she said that that's what it sounded like police arrive they find the expectant mother dead on the kitchen floor with a sonogram hanging over her head on the refrigerator the doors partially opened they walk in the first thing they see is Ronnie laying on a kitchen floor it was pretty clear that something behind happened the police and paramedics responded right away but it was very obvious there was nothing they could do for Ronnie or her child did this appear to be a random act or was this a targeted hit no this is targeted no way that we ever suspect that this was random Deerfield police assumed Ronny was the target until they get a closer look the first shot appeared to be targeted right at her stomach police say during Ronnie's last breath she cradled her unborn baby girl trying to protect Skylar from the hail of bullets but she couldn't save the baby and the final bullet would make sure Ronny wouldn't survive either the final woman sort of was a coup de Gras very cold-blooded was a shaft in a had to the back of the head almost like an assassination type of thing a final landing so with the shots to the baby did that lead you to believe that this could have been the motive her being pregnant we didn't know what the motive was cops say there was no forced entry into her apartment or fingerprints just some unspent 9-millimeter shell casings scattered haphazardly around Ronnie's body normally in a case like that the guns jamming for some reason so someone the murderers gun jammed mm-hmm and that was the reason for the unspent shell casing well that was a Syrian issue police tracked down a neighbor who reports seeing a dark-skinned male running from the scene did the witnesses seem to suggest that this was a black person leaving the home of Ronnie who killed her one of the witnesses indicated that the person that they saw walking away was a short thin african-american looking person in appearance with dark curly hair another witness tells cops they remember a black car speeding away so that's what you had to go on that was the information from the witnesses yes news of a possible killer on the loose rocks the city of Deerfield nothing bad ever happens in Deerfield so word of the shooting spread quickly across town Shaun gets a call from a local reporter telling him a pregnant lady has just been shot in Ronnie's neighborhood the media this is Shaun Gayle was it Ronnie writers he was very upset on the phone you could barely make out what he was saying while many rushed to console the grieving gridiron great Deerfield police weren't buying his tears was Shaun considered a person of interest initially Shaun was considered a person of interest almost immediately Shaun tells police he had nothing to do with Ronnie's murder did he have an alibi he did he was getting his hair cut in North Chicago was there a possibility that he could have committed the crime and then gotten back to the barber shop in that time frame it was theoretically possible so he wasn't ruled out because of that alibi not because of the albino but what about that eyewitnesses description of the slim African American man spotted fleeing the scene did Shaun's physical build matched that of the fleeing suspect like he's a former professional football player so he was a bigger guy and the physical bill didn't match at all still cops couldn't rule out the possibility Shaun had an accomplice or hired a hitman unfortunately suspect number one is gonna be the other half the big question cops couldn't answer why would Shawn want to kill Ronnie and his unborn baby girl we still didn't know the whole story so we're still trying to piece things together but Shaun was still a primary person of interest then investigators stumble across a bizarre letter inside Ronnie's purse written in broken English what about this letter that was found in Ronnie's purse it was the letter drafted to a number of women I believe there may have been 15 16 17 women and this letter including Ronnie cops soon discover the women on the just had one thing in common they were all sleeping with Shaun Gayle they knew he was a player players a good word you got something we got something big yes cops in Deerfield Illinois are staring at a possible motive for Ronnie Ryder's murder 17 of them in fact all here in a bizarre letter found near Ronnie's pregnant bullet-riddled body Ronnie had this in her purse she had it in her purse right the letter written in broken English lists the names of 17 women and their phone numbers all of them girlfriends or lovers of the father of Ronnie's baby former Chicago Bear Shaun Gayle it basically was very blunt he's having relationships with all these women he's out there playing all of you so he got around he had several girlfriends he did well Ronnie and Shawna appeared to be the picture-perfect couple entire detective George Fallon go quickly learned their private life was complicated and extremely crowded describe Shaun in Ronnie's relationship I believe the best way to describe it was an open relationship on Shawn's part when cops questioned Shaun about the letter he says Ronnie knew he was seeing other women but detectives were hearing a very different story from the indications we got from summer Ronnie's friends she wasn't exactly 100% bought into that he still kept in contact with these women in solid yeah they were all ongoing so further making the eyeballs go over to Shaun as a person of interest right at first cops wonder if Ronnie confronted Shaun about the other women and he snapped for if one of the 17 players on Shawn's sex team didn't want the baby to take the football grade out of the game everybody was working bits and pieces of this trying to come up with all sorts of theories as cops were zeroing in on Shawn as their prime suspect something unexpected happens Shawn handed the Deerfield police his own number-one suspect how did Shawn think it may have had something to do with this one of the first people that he mentioned to the police as a possible suspect was Monica Carrasco Monica Carrasco a beautiful fitness model and personal trainer who happened to be the first name on the list Shawn had been seeing the Polish bombshell for a few years but their relationship had recently ended badly very badly apparently Monica thought that the relationship was monogamous she turns up at Shawn's house unexpectedly one evening looks through the window and sees Shawn with another woman shawn says Monica became violent busted out a window at his home and then began leaving threatening phone messages he even suspected Monica had somehow hacked into his email account it finally got to the point where he felt that she was stalking him the tough football player was so terrified that just days before Ronnie was murdered he had filed a restraining order against Monica Shawn was afraid of Monica and Shawn thought Monica could have done this correct Shawn tells cops he also believes Monica a Polish immigrant is the one who wrote the letters there was broken English in the way that the letters were written and Monica was from Poland and spoke in broken English but Monica denies sending the letters and tells police she was with a client at the exact time Ronnie and her unborn baby were gunned down she could not have done it she could not have done it so the investigation continued it continued all wise shift back to Shaun Gayle so you did serve a search warrant on Shawn's home absolutely three weeks after Ronnie's vicious murder cops seized Shawn's computer and find something that sets off warning bells Shawn had a cyber stalker someone had ghosted his hard drive had been controlling his computer remotely tracking the former football greats every move and they've been doing it for nearly two years emails names addresses you know personal information like that so he access to everything cops say it certainly wasn't Monica so then who we were certainly get frustrated and you had to find who killed her you know these are the cases that they're tough but you just don't give up detectives go back to that lineup of the 17 women and then a retired cop blows the whistle on one of them they said if anybody's done this it's Marni yang turns out Marni yang is number 15 on that list for Ronnie's purse two things drove her getting attention insects one by one police in Deerfield Illinois have been checking off the 70 names on that bizarre letter found at the murder scene near Ronnie Ryder's bullet with a body then detectives hit number 15 it's Marni yang Marni yang was one of several women sleeping with Ronnie's longtime love Shaun Gayle a Chicago football hero and the father of her unborn baby he wasn't exclusive to Ronnie no he thought other women yes I think it was somewhere between somewhere around 17 or 18 other women but Shaun wasn't Marni Yang's only lover either one Chicago cop who had sets with Marni yang told detectives they should pay a lot of attention to her while investigating Ronnie's murder he had had a relationship with her and he had broken it off it didn't go well Marni threatened him threatened his family the officer says she even tried to blackmail him when he threatened to break up with her he was worried enough to he was close enough to retirement to put in his papers in move his entire family out of town and out of sight they actually moved they moved out of state yeah cops were intrigued now they want to know all they can about Marni yang who is Marni yang she was loose a little bit wild for especially for her age two things drove her getting attention insect yang a mother of three dabbled in real estate had a side gig as a fitness model and a secret reputation as a maneater sexually predatorial yes I've seen this kind of behavior before usually in a stripper or some my husband shopping Milan doorman was Marni Ang's photographer and friend so how did she and Sean meet she kind of conned him and to be somebody who was home work real estate free you know I got the idea that you had basically a player meeting a player here not a good combination well if you like the sex it is Flynn says yang bragged about her relationship with Sean but he says Marni was obsessed with dating cops and often showed up at the station to study how they investigated crimes she has had lessons from other Chicago police officer on how to shoot a gun and how to cover up a crime she'd been studying how to get away with murder basically with her sexual partner before the TV show every air searching for clues Deerfield detectives head to Marni Yang's condo man dive headfirst into her garbage this is very very fundamental police work is as dumpster diving once somebody by law pushes their garbage out onto the public ease way it's open open game they would drive over there they would empty her trash cans into a van drive away bring it back to the police department and look through her trash and in the trash they find what they think is a treasure trove of evidence as luck would have it they recovered some receipts that were extremely interesting the first receipt is to a very specific online bookstore we tracked the order and it was for a book on how to build silencers so she purchases a book on how to make a silencer and a silencer was used yes in the murder that's correct then there was another receipt from a local home depot and that receipt actually listed out the items we looked through the books the items and in most of the homemade silencer fit the items on the home depot receipt we verified that it was her making an purchase through video additionally we saw her purchasing a bucket and quick drying cement detectives haul Marni yang in for questioning Marni claims the book was a gag gift for a cop she was dating but how would she explain buying all the materials needed to build a silencer she always had an answer what about that bucket and bag of concrete she's seen buying here on a store surveillance camera you thought she was a whack job yeah we thought there was there was something near it just in click here's the problem yang also has an alibi where did Marni say she was at the time of the murder hope she said her car broke down and she needed help she said that the battery was dead so she had called a friend of hers was a Cook County bailiff a court officer who was constantly there to help her yang claims without a car she was stuck at home at the exact time Ronny was murdered another hurdle for you correct another alibi but before yang leaves she tops this telling detectives she believes someone may actually be stalking her at this point Deerfield police are officially stumped everybody had an alibi and they didn't know who was so yeah that added the mystery as to who did this heinous crime nobody knew and it almost just completely faded from the headlines as an unsolved case then a possible break police locate surveillance images of a dark-colored car leaving the scene of the murder you know the murderer used a dark vehicle a black vehicle right that black Volkswagen leads police to a car rental company he told me they almost fell off his chair when the rental history popped off the field Illinois police believe the person behind the wheel of that black Volkswagen unloaded a 9-millimeter semi-automatic beretta into Ronnie Ryder killing Ronnie and Chicago Bear great Shaun gales unborn baby girl Skyler I mean you've got a double homicide here it doesn't get any worse than didn't this the car caught on surveillance cameras doesn't match Shaun's vehicle or any of the 17 current or former lovers of the football player but a detective working the case has a hunch he sat down and opened up a beer and just started putting relational names into this database then he checks to see if any of them had rented a car recently he strikes gold he told me that he almost fell off his chair when the rental history popped up and he saw that Marnie and herself rented a vehicle ding-ding-ding-ding-ding all the bells whistles lights go off a local rental company confirms Marni yang rented a black Volkswagen the day before Ronnie was gunned down it was just like the one here in the surveillance images caught leaving the scene of the murder and the rental agent remembers yang was very selective about the car she wanted the first vehicle she got was a very descriptive vehicle and had this really wild blue color to it she brought it right back and said I want a dark-colored vehicle that's very plain looking because the bright blue would be too visible to you to visible and it's not the greatest getaway car but here's the strange part if the rental company says they didn't deliver the car to Yang's address the address that she used was Kristie passions Andrews who is Kristie passion Christi Paschen was Marni Yang's best friend adding to cop suspicions the mileage when yang returned the rental car what was significant about the mileage there were 40 miles that were on the vehicle that Marni had rented and returned when the police measured the distance from the rental car place to Kristie passions home and then from Kristie passions home to the Deerfield home of the victim Ronnie Ryder and then back to Kristie passions home and back to the rental car company it was exactly 40 miles then detectives discover yang had a twisted obsession with Shaun Gayle she was the one who had been cyber stalking the football champ as two years how did Marnie gain access to Shawn's email account our theory is that while she was over at Shawn's house that she ghosted or copied the the hard drive of the computer and the night before Ronnie and her unborn baby were killed yang and Gayle had a wild night of sex was she in love with Sean I don't know if she was in love with Sean or not it certainly seemed like she was obsessed with him yang was so fixated detectives claims she paid for detailed background checks on the other women in Sean's life what did she find out emails names addresses you know personal information like that so she had access to everything and she tracked one woman's home address that woman Ronny Ryder it doesn't take a seasoned detective to figure out that this just isn't fitting you just had to prove it further Brooke now cops have some tough questions for the woman who seems to have an answer for yang a mother of three says she wanted to make sure Shawn wasn't dating anyone also been tipped off by one of Yang's cop boyfriends she's a gun enthusiast yang admits she had a nine-millimeter beretta the same caliber used to kill Ronnie and her unborn baby but yang tells cops it had recently been stolen from her condo what about that black rental car she rented and had delivered to her best friend Christi Paschen simple yang tells cops passion didn't have a credit card and she was just helping around but Christi Paschen doesn't sound very appreciative on this secretly recorded phone call with Marni yang they look at me and they went so why was a rental car delivered to your address and that was seen around the the crime scene cops find out Christi Paschen is a telemarketer and tap into her phone line now their ears are burning I don't remember where the hell I was money wait what are you talking about when the night Oh before that stupid murder what relax will you Maury Yang is trying to calm down her best friend Christi Paschen but cops have called Christi and she's freaked out well guess I'm flipping out I'm whipping out of wait ever since cops first contacted Christie to find out what she knows about the murder of Ronnie Ryder now they want her to come down to the station I mean too much as it stands I've got to go I don't think it's a good idea cops suspect yang is behind the murder of Ronnie Ryder and her unborn baby the motive she wanted Ronnie's longtime love former football great Shaun Gayle for herself now yang is trying to coach Christy to stick to the game plan it's as if she was trying to assure Christi Paschen that she'd done a good job you have nothing to worry about I've got all the ends covered there's no way that these bumbling idiots are gonna find out what actually happened after Kristi's grilled by detectives she calls back this time she's the calm one but they're like telling yang she thinks she actually shook cops off their tail but now Kristi's got a secret she spilled her guts to investigators how did you get Kristi to break I think even Kristi began to understand that she was either going to be a great witness or possibly a co-conspirator so what did Christie confess to Christie said that Marni had been talking about getting rid of Ronnie for quite some time she told the police that she tried to talk Marni out of doing it and Marni told her if she did commit the murder she would call Christie at work the next morning and ask her to dinner and that was the code that they use the next morning Christi Paschen got this call Christi Paschen how can I help you okay during the interrogation Christi tells detectives the yang was obsessed with the football star and when she found out Shawn's girlfriend Ronnie was pregnant yang spiraled into a jealous rage fearing the baby would sideline her relationship we believe that that was the moment that she decided to kill Ronnie and she put a very carefully executed plan in place yang put her evil plan in motion on the morning of October 4th she covered her face with dark makeup and her long hair with an afro wig ving Yang attached her homemade silencer to her nine millimeter beretta drove over to Ronnies condo in the black rental car and opened fire this was the most premeditated and carefully executed crime I've ever seen Kristie confesses after the murder she drove Yang all over town to dump the evidence at one point yang told Kristi to pull over and stop behind a banquet hall Marni got out of the car open the trunk took out a little handheld shovel had something in her other hand walked away from the vehicle and buried something in the ground now more than a year after Ronnie's murder Kristi leads police back to that spot our evidence technicians came out with a metal detector I think we were expecting to find a gun they dig this up and they find his bracelet it's that MedicAlert pregnancy bracelet Ronnie never took off that was a huge discovery because now we've got physical evidence linking Marni to the crime scene we had paid her when it comes to solving this we're still out there you didn't have the murder weapon we didn't have the weapon we didn't have a confession everything we had was circumstantial no we needed the one thing that was gonna be a slam dunk how did you get that slam dunk needed to prove that morning killed Ronnie what else Kris to save her own skin Christie agrees to go undercover for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Christie agreed to wear a body wire and have a conversation with Marni and record the conversation they set up a meeting at a Denny's and cops are listening in as Marni yang dishes her own dirt but as Christie is walking in disaster Christie's wire comes undone Kristy tucks in the wire but she knows Yang savvy and if she's suspicious she won't talk so of course I'm going to finally ask the question I told you I never ever wanted to know when you hit them Marnie tells Cristy she buried the gun in a bucket of cement then threw it in a dumpster Chrissy's in the clear Marnie never suspects her best friend just served her up to the cops but without the gun cops still don't have what they need to nail Marni yang for first-degree murder two circumstantial evidence we needed more yes detectives asked Kristy to meet yang one more time at that Denny's and this time Marni yang cooks her own goose I really did not believe you would do it it's very sad I mean she talks about how she waited outside of Ronnie's apartment and she hid behind at the alcove waiting to hear the sound of the door opening and Ronnie leaving what did you see I was making straight shots she started screening me too I did the % [Music] if she starts describing they emptied a clip into her she lays it all on the wire yes Marnie's girlfriend talked got her convicted correct Marni yang is sentenced to life she will never step foot out of prison the healing process for us unfortunately it will not protect onion Schuyler they'll always be missed we reached out to Shaun Gayle for comment he didn't want to talk but just after yang sentencing the football hero said he is now forever haunted by guilt if I had given her the dating relationship that she wanted this tragedy may not have happened instead of celebrating the birth of little Skylar Ronnie Ryder's family buried them in a single casket Ronnie eternally cradling her unborn baby in her arms Yang's attorneys asked for a new trial saying the confession she gave at that restaurant was taped illegally they also argued that yang was denied the opportunity to get a haircut or wear makeup during the trial which made her appear guilty in the eyes of the jurors that appeal has been denied she'll spend the rest of her life locked up without the possibility of parole

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 2,442,703

Rating: 4.6761923 out of 5

Keywords: Rhoni Reuter, Shaun Gayle, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily, Deerfield Illinois, Marni Yang

Id: cNaCIhaoQS0

Length: 34min 10sec (2050 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2019