Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Side-chick Murder's Her Man's Girlfriend - The Marni Yang Story

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Marni Yang was a former girlfriend of NFL safety Shaun Gayle who, in July 2007, murdered Gayle’s pregnant girlfriend, Rhoni Reuter, in her Deerfield, Illinois condo.

You remember when that somewhat famous football player had a side chick, and then his side chick murdered his girlfriend? Now, the side chick's name is Marnie, and Marnie is 37 when this story starts, and she's living in Chicago, and it seems like all Marnie really wants to do is find love. And one day in 2005, she feels like she may have finally found it, because one night she goes to work a temporary gig at an event party for the Chicago Bears. and, you know, she's working security. And there, she meets a retired NFL player. And immediately she's like, damn, he's kind of fine.

And so they hit it off and she becomes his real estate agent, because I guess she sells real estate too, and soon enough, they start smashing. Now, the retired NFL player, his name is Sean. And Sean, well, he really likes to smash a lot. Like a lot, a lot. In fact, during this time, he is dating and or hooking up with around 16 to 18 different women. So this dude's a player. And to be fair, while he's hooking up

with Marnie, he is, in fact, honest with her about not being monogamous. So she knows at least some of what is happening. But that doesn't mean she likes it. In fact, she really, really wants Sean all to herself. And as you can imagine, being one of his many side chicks, it makes her insanely jealous. And one night, after they've been dating for a while, she's over at Sean's place, and she decides that she is finally going to do something about it. So, allegedly, while he's sleeping, she gets on his computer and she starts looking through all his personal stuff, like his emails and whatnot. She also allegedly ends up installing software on his computer that would secretly allow her to control it remotely and, you know, basically track his every move. So this ends up giving her access to all his personal information and things like his personal emails. And most importantly, the names and addresses of all the other women that he's been smashing with.

And now that she has all this information, she comes up with a pretty devious plan. She plans to scare away all his other 16 to 18 side chicks by convincing them that he is a bad guy. And once all of those other women are out of his life, she will finally have him all to herself. So she gets to work and she starts writing threatening letters to all of Sean's smash buddies, basically telling them what a garbage human being he is and how he's playing all of them and sleeping with a ton of other women. Then she mails these letters out.

Now, unfortunately for her, this plan doesn't really work. For the most part, Sean, I think he's pretty open with the women he's hooking up with that this is just a casual fling. So it seems like none of them are as upset as Marnie wants them to be. But then she gets some terrible news. As she's using her ghosting software to remotely read Sean's emails, she finds out that he got one of his other women pregnant. But here's the thing, though.

That woman that he got pregnant is this woman, Ronnie. And Ronnie is apparently Sean's actual girlfriend. Like she and Sean have been together for like 18 years or something like that. So that's about as close to having a girlfriend as it's going to get for this guy. And to my understanding, Ronnie kind of knows about Sean and his other side chicks. Apparently they have an open relationship. But it's only open on Sean's part. I don't know, it's weird, but, you know, that's their business.

The important thing is that they are having a baby. And it seems like, from what Marnie can tell, Sean is, he's really into it. Like, he wants to be a dad. And this sucks for her. Because if Sean has this baby, this is going to change everything between them, and she is not about to let that happen. So she comes up with a plan to murder Ronnie so that she can finally have Sean all to herself. Now, here is where the story starts to get dark. So Marnie, she already owns a gun.

In fact, I think she owns more than one. But for her plan, she's going to need a silencer for this gun. So she buys a book on how to make a homemade silencer. And then she heads to Home Depot to buy all the supplies that she'll need to make it. Then she makes it. Now, from here, I don't know if Marnie is superstitious or what, but for whatever reason, she decides to consult with her longtime friend about all this. Her friend is this woman, Christy.

And Christy claims to be psychic. So Marnie goes over to Christie's apartment and she basically tells her all about her plans to murder Sean's baby mama. And of course, Christy's like, uh, yeah, don't do that. But then Marnie asked Christy to do a tarot card reading for her because she wants to know if the cards say that if this murder will be successful. So Christy does her whole hocus pocus tarot card reading thing for her and a sun card comes up, which I guess in tarot card lore means, success in achieving a goal. And they interpret this as, yeah,

Marty is going to be able to pull off this crime successfully. And of course, Marty is psyched about this. And then she leaves. And for whatever reason, Christy, I guess, she just doesn't think Marty is serious about this, so she doesn't call the police or turn her in or anything like that. The next day, Marnie goes and she disguises herself with makeup and an afro wig,

and she drives a rental car over to Ronnie's house and she hides and waits outside her door. And at some point, Ronnie opens her door to leave for work and suddenly, boom, Marnie jumps out of nowhere, and she's got a gun. And she points it at Ronnie and boom, boom, she shoots her. And unfortunately, Ronnie and her unborn daughter, they don't survive. Sometime after murdering Ronnie,

Marnie eventually heads back over to Christy's place and she tells her that she actually did it and she tells her exactly how everything went down. And again, for whatever reason, instead of calling the police, Christy decides to help her friend, and the two of them end up driving around together, looking for somewhere to hide all of the evidence, like, you know, the gun and the clothing she wore and all that.

And they end up stashing it in various different places. Meanwhile, one of Ronnie's neighbors calls 911 after hearing what sounded like a gun go off. And so police come out and they look into it, And this opens up a whole investigation. And so they start investigating Sean. And quickly they learned that he's a player who's been smashing with all of these women on the side. So one by one, they start investigating all of these side chicks.

And one by one, they clear them. But one of these side chicks, they aren't able to clear. Marnie. Police are getting info and tips that she is obsessed with Sean and that she's the kind of person who is capable of committing murder. So they look into her, and they search her place, and they find all kinds of things like a book on how to make a homemade silencer, and mailing labels with all the home addresses of Sean's other side chicks, suggesting that she had mailed those harassing letters. But even with some of this evidence, police still don't have enough against her to fully charge her.

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So they contact Christy, and she very quickly flips on Marnie, and she shows them where some of the buried evidence is, and she agrees to wear a wire to help police get their confession from Marnie. So Christy hits up Marnie, and Marnie agrees to meet her at a local Denny's, and Marnie ends up talking to her about the murder again, and this is all the evidence police need. And so, bam, Marnie is arrested. Here's her mugshot. And ultimately she goes to trial and she's found guilty and she gets sentenced to life in prison.