Crime & Safety

Prosecutors Paint Ex-Bear Player's Lover as Cold-Blooded Killer

Lawyer says Super Bowl winner Shaun Gayle could take the stand in Marni Yang's murder trial Monday.

“Cold, calculated and pre-meditated,” is how prosecutors described Marni Yang’s actions in the alleged murder of 42-year-old Deerfield resident Rhoni Reuter during opening statements in court Friday.

Reuter was the longtime girlfriend of former Bears player Shaun Gayle and at the time of the shooting in 2007 was six months pregnant with his child. After months of investigation, police linked Yang to the crime and charged her with first-degree murder and intentional homicide of an unborn child.

Yang first met the Super Bowl winner at the Hilton in Chicago and prosecutor Patricia Fix told jurors Friday it evolved into something more. “Sometime realtor and sometime sexual partner,” she explained. “The defendant became obsessed with Gayle and who he was dating.”

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After realizing Reuter was pregnant with Gayle’s child, Fix said Yang wanted “to eliminate the competition” and on the morning of Oct. 4, 2007, “executed” the pregnant woman at her condo in Deerfield. Fix claimed six shots were fired, the last one into the victim's head as she "lay on the ground, blood pooling around her." It was a graphic explanation that both Reuter and Gayle’s families silently listened to in the courtroom.  

“Evidence will show this [murder] began with a plan,” the prosecutor said, telling jurors about two books Yang had purchased before the shooting on how to build a gun silencer. “This plan was not spontaneous,” she added with details about Yang's visits to a shooting range in Chicago. 

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Although Yang’s lawyers agreed Friday that “this case is truly a tragedy” for the victim’s family, defense attorney Bill Hedrick told jurors, “There’s also a greater tragedy … that is the tragedy that has been visited upon Marni Yang and her family.” He continued, “That tragedy comes at the hands of the investigation of the Lake County Task Force.”

Hedrick explained Yang was a hard-working mother of three who had another boyfriend at the time and while intimate with the former Bears player was never obsessed with him. “She understood that Shaun Gayle had many girlfriends,” he said. He blamed authorities for not looking into other potential leads.

“The real obsession was the Lake County Task Force with Yang as a suspect and defendant,” Hedrick told jurors during his opening statements. “No other person was subjected to that kind of investigation,” including one of Gayle’s other girlfriends whom Hedrick alleged had a violent history.

Two rows in the courtroom were reserved for family members of Rhoni Reuter and Shaun Gayle. Those present sat quietly throughout the lawyer’s opening statements and left before local authorities started giving detailed descriptions of the crime scene.

Among a long list of potential witnesses, the prosecution is relying on the statements of one of Yang’s close friends to help prove its case. They say Yang confessed the crime to this friend while she was wearing a wire.

Fix told jurors Yang did a lot to escape detection from police but made one horrible mistake. “She talked to her best friend about it,” Fix stated. But Yang’s defense dubbed that “best friend” a self-proclaimed “psychic.” They claimed she’s an unreliable source who, among other things, believes she received a “mind swipe” after being rescued from terrorists in the Middle East.

Besides Yang’s best friend, Gayle is expected to take the stand. Fix said that could happen as early as Monday. Court proceedings resume at 9 a.m. in Lake County. 


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