Crime & Safety

Yang Talks Murder Details with Best Friend on Wiretap

Prosecutors play recordings in court of Marni Yang discussing shooting with long-time friend, Christi Paschen.

More then a year after 42-year-old Rhoni Reuter was shot and killed in her Deerfield condo authorities got a major break in the murder investigation. After strapping a body wire on Marni Yang’s best friend, police recorded the murder suspect allegedly discussing the shooting on tape.

“She opened up the door and saw a dark skinned person and she started screaming and I took the first shot,” officials recorded Marni Yang telling Christi Paschen over soup at Denny’s in Arlington Heights on March 2, 2009.

That’s about 17-months after Yang’s accused of gunning Reuter down. Reuter was the girlfriend of former Bears player Shaun Gayle and was six months pregnant at the time.

Paschen told jurors Thursday Yang discussed her plans to kill Reuter before the shooting but never thought she’d actually do it. Paschen also said Yang admitted the murder to her afterwards while they were throwing out evidence together.    

“I was afraid I’d be charged with the murder when I really didn’t want any part of it,” Paschen claimed is why she didn’t go straight to police but decided to tell the truth later, “So I could stop being afraid,” she added.

Police took advantage of Paschen’s close ties to Yang and instructed Paschen to get her close friend to open up about the murder on tape. Those recordings were played in court Thursday.

“I took one or two steps into the kitchen to finish the job,” jurors listened to Yang allegedly tell Paschen in one of the recordings. “I just took one last shot in the head to finish the job … All she was doing was screaming when she went down.”

While wearing a wire Paschen told Yang police had questioned her about the murder and said she was afraid. “There’s nothing that ties you or I to the scene,” Yang responded to Paschen in the recording.

“If they had their ducks in a row, they’d be at my doorstep,” she said. “They can’t put the pieces of the puzzle together.”

On Friday the defense tried to devalue the recordings by taking blows at Paschen’s character and focused on her work as a psychic. “It’s an ability that was always there for me,” she said and told jurors she was previously recruited by the Army for a special intelligence program that used psychics.

Paschen claimed that on her final mission with the Army her entire unit was killed abroad except for her. Afterwards she said, “Some of my memories of the time were erased.”

The defense also highlighted the fact Paschen lied to authorities on several occasions about what she knew. “Just about everything you told us under oath yesterday [Thursday], you didn’t tell Detective Frost on Jan. 17,” Yang’s attorney Ben Hedrick stated. A contradiction Hedrick emphasized since Paschen originally told authorities honesty was extremely important to her. “You are big into integrity and do not tolerate people who lie,” police recorded Paschen saying  to them during one of their initial conversations.

It’s the defense’s turn to capitalize on some of those arguments this week. Court proceedings resume at 9 a.m. on Monday.


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