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1 killing shatters many other lives

Mary Schmich

March 6, 2009

It's a tragedy for all involved.

She nearly committed the perfect crime then she had to blab about it.

She must be mentally ill.

I don't get these football player groupies.

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On Thursday, I asked various people I know for their first impressions of the awful story of Marni Yang, the woman charged with killing Rhoni Reuter, the pregnant girlfriend of Shaun Gayle, an ex-Chicago Bear. What struck me most about the answers is that no two were the same.

Have you noticed how sexualized the photos with the stories are?

Her poor kids.

A lot of what we think about this we can't say.

How each of us responds to the story of Marni, Rhoni and Shaun says something not only about the crime but about our own preoccupations. One of my first thoughts was that "girlfriend" is a demeaning word for a 42-year-old woman.

What Marni Yang is charged with doing is so terrible that it seems wrong to call it a "story." For Reuter's family, for Yang's children, for Shaun Gayle, this isn't a story. It's life, as brutal and irreparable as it gets.

But out in our shared public realm, where lives inevitably get packaged and headlined, it is a story. It's a mystery about the human psyche, one that involves celebrity, race, sexual rivalry.

We're coded as humans to play psychoanalyst and detective.

Marni and Rhoni kind of look alike. What's that about?

What's with the so-called "friend"? Marni tells her she killed Rhon—and she doesn't go to the cops?

Rhoni Reuter had been involved off and on with Shaun Gayle for 17 years. In October 2007, she was 42 and pregnant when Yang, now 41, allegedly shot her seven times. Yang, the theory goes, was jealous.

This wasn't jealousy. It was obsession.

How can anyone call this a "crime of passion?" Passion's hot. This was in cold blood.

Before the murder, the prosecutors say, Marni Yang prepared with the diligence of an A+ student. She practiced at a shooting range. Bought a book, "How to Make a Disposable Silencer," on the Internet. Put on a wig and installed stolen plates on the rental car she drove to Reuter's Deerfield condo.

After she shot Reuter, the prosecutors say, she put the rental plates back on. Went to a forest preserve to bury the bracelet she'd stolen from Reuter, the one that said "pregnant." Plunged the gun into a bucket of cement and threw the bucket in a trash bin.

And, according to the prosecutors, she got away with it until her friend wore a wire that trapped her.

As unsavory as it is, most of us are compelled to look at the cruelty people inflict on one another. We may not be able to look for long, but we look.

At our worst, we look out of prurience. At our best, we look because we want to understand why people do such terrible things, as if by understanding we can protect and prevent. And then we distance ourselves from the terror by making it a story, by entertaining ourselves with speculation.

What kind of a mother posts sexy photos of herself on the Internet?

When the case plays out in court, we may learn something more, something useful, about Marni Yang's mind. Until then, we can speculate all we want on whether she was evil or ill, but one thing is sure. It is terrible for everyone involved.

mschmich@tribune.com