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This is Debra Roberts. We're taking a few weeks off from new podcast programming on Wednesdays while we work on a new interesting series to share with you. So in the meantime, we're bringing back some of our installments from our classic series Bad Romance. Here's this week's episode you are the most important relationship before you swipe, text or worry about being too much, start with you Grow Therapy helps you build self worth, set boundaries and show up as your full self. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your fifth 50th GRO makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US Offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing facing GROW therapy is here to help. GROW accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com booknow to get started. That's growththerapy.com booknow growthherapy.com booknow availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Am I ever gonna. Am I Ever Gonna Love again? Killed while she was opening her own kitchen door. An NFL great's longtime girlfriend is dead, and the suspect list is long and complicated. Could it be a crazed fan? A jealous lover? A robbery gone wrong? Whoever pulled the trigger, it ended with death at the door. Am I ever gonna love, gonna love, gonna love Am I ever gonna love, gonna love, gonna love again 33 take a hometown champion. Take a pro sports celebrity. Take six. Push leads a very public life in front of the cameras. John Gale NFL defensive back Sean Gale is beyond in Chicago. Off the field, he's sharing his life with a woman he loves. Ronnie Reiter has been with him now for almost two decades. For 18 years, it wouldn't have mattered if she'd have been with a guy who was selling peanuts on the corner. As long as she was happy. Was it a true love affair? She loved him with every ounce of her heart. I know that Sean and ronnie back in 2007. They have no idea that ahead of them is a murder story that to this day isn't over. This story really starts in 1985. Mike Ditka and the Chicago Bears ruled the town of Chicago. The 1985 Bears, arguably one of the greatest football teams in NFL history. There's no question dub airs old enough to remember it. That's gonna be intercepted. Sean Gale. John Gayle was a great contributor, a starter, just a rock solid, really well respected player that would knock you out. Sean Gale, number 23, scored the touchdown. He wasn't just celebrated in Chicago. He, he was celebrated across football. We're not gonna, you know, break our arms patting ourselves on the back. By what we've done so far. We know we have a long way to go. Of course he's super attractive and everybody just falls all over him. Sean, of course, you're a bachelor. Still a heartthrob among female Bear fans. What do you do after? And players, you gotta watch him. Usually the single guys, we just get together and maybe go out and get a bite to eat. Everybody assumed they were going to win the super bowl, and they did. Mike Ditka hungry. Chicago finally champions on this January day in New Orleans. They just destroyed the New England Patriots. It was sheer ecstasy, delirium in a city that has waited a long time for a national champion. The thing you need to know about Sean Gale is after football, he was still a success. What do you think about that? When I first he was a commentator, he was doing different things in the community. This was a guy who had a major profile after the game. He always seemed to know what he was doing. Sean was seen as a ladies man, very smooth. He looks like an eligible bachelor, actually. He has that long term relationship with a woman who works at Macy's, Ronnie Ryder. Ronnie was from Wisconsin. She's in the area between Bears fans and packers fans. But obviously she became a Bears fan when she started dating John Gale. I first started digging into the story more than 10 years ago. That's when I met Ronnie's family. She was a big city woman, but she never lost that small town girl quality. I'm gonna zoom in. You're my sister, you know, she just had a big smile and she would always hug you and greet you, and she just made you be comfortable no matter where you were. So here's your sister. She's dating a professional football player. What was your reaction? It was great for me, being a Chicago Bear fan. We were happy for her. I mean, I really just wanted her to be happy. Sean and Ronnie never live together. They never get married. And friends say her family found that a little Awkward. Why do you think they weren't married? I know Ronnie wanted to be married. I'm thinking it was probably because Sean wasn't ready. You know, at a certain point, you just stop asking. But then, at the age of 41, Ronnie got an unexpected gift. Something she'd always dreamed of, actually. She found out she was pregnant. Tonight, ABC's 2020 has an exclusive interview with John Gale. Nine o', clock, right here on ABC 7. I was the only reporter that Sean Gale granted an interview to in 2009. Sean Gale speaks very openly with you, it seems. He said he only ever wanted to be interviewed once, to be broadcast and aired once. In that interview, I asked him how he and Ronnie were feeling about the pregnancy. Sean told me we were both excited about it. There was some disappointment between the two of us because our relationship wasn't at a point where we hoped it would be in having a child. We were so looking forward to her having a kid because she never had one and always told us how to raise our kids. I mean, that was what she wanted to be, was a mother. Ronnie's pregnant with a girl who's going to be named Skylar. And then one normal morning, Ronnie Ryder opens her kitchen door to go to work. Deerfield Police Department. I'm calling about that shooting in Deerfield. Yes. Was it Ronnie Wright or is she okay? Yes, it was Ronnie, and no, she's not. She's. She's dead. She's. So almost like beach weather here. Instead of Oktoberfest, we're calling it Summerfest. That morning, it's strangely warm in Ronnie's Chicago neighborhood. Ronnie lived in Deerfield, Illinois, which is a quiet, affluent, beautiful little suburb of Chicago. It's a very relatively safe place to be. Ronnie was in her kitchen on her way out to work. Grabbed her stuff, opened her door in the shadows. Gets hit with seven bullets. Forced back into her apartment from. From the blast. Two shots were directly to the fetus. It's just. She's executed. Deerfield Police. I heard a woman screaming and then a pop, pop. And it went totally silent. I called and she does not answer. The phones are ringing off the hook at the Deerfield Police Department. I heard about a shooting because the town is in the panic. Can you tell me what's going on? Why is this helicopter house? We have some police activ. When officers enter her apartment, they see pictures of Shaun Gale throughout the condominium. The officers knew those were pictures of Ronnie and Sean Gale because Sean Gale is a celebrity. He's in the Chicagoland area. Shawn Got a phone call by a sports reporter who had heard that a pregnant woman in Deerfield had been murdered. So Sean calls the Deerfield Police Station. Deerfield Police Department. I'm calling about that shooting in Deerfield. Yes, listen, I've been getting calls from the. The media. This is Sean Gale, and they're trying to say. They're naming me as a suspect. Hold on, please. Was it Ronnie Ryder? Is she okay? Yes, it was Ronnie. And no, she's not. She. She's dead. She's dead. Come to the police department. Do you know where it is? Okay. I gotta call her parents. The minute I picked up the phone and heard my mom crying, I knew that something had happened. Dad said, you need to come down immediately. Your sister has been taken. And I dropped my phone and headed out to her. I still think I'm gonna wake up and it's gonna be just a dream. We just knew she was gone, and we didn't understand why. A woman was shot to death in Deerfield this morning. Police say the victim was the girlfriend of former Bears player Sean Gale and that she was pregnant with his child. No suspect information is available at this time. It seemed obvious from the beginning it wasn't a random crime. Whoever did this was after not only Ronnie, but after the unborn child. Investigators say that someone reported seeing a teenager running across the street shortly after she was shot. Another witness said this person was wearing a disguise and that it was a very petite person. Was it a robbery? Was it a contract killing? It just didn't add up. It didn't make sense. The Lake County Major Crimes Task Force headed up this murder investigation. Detective Scott Frost is soon on the case. When we got to the station over in Deerfield, you know, the media was already there and reporters wanting to get something in. We had to look at Sean. Shaun Gale was the first guy. Remember, Sean already talked to the police. I can't believe this. So Sean hangs up the phone with Deerfield police and he voluntarily goes down to the station. Okay, bye. Bye. The police are going to look at Sean. Calling them from sort of two different directions. It's a logical thing to do. A loved one's been harmed or killed. Shawn Gale calling us right away within hours of this murder was a little suspicious. But when he arrives at the station, the police notice that he is distraught. He was visibly upset. He was shaken. But by the time he sat down for questioning, Detective Scott Frost said that Sean Gale had become strangely composed. You know, I figured I would see more of us having Shawn. He was very reserved. Very calm. We're having issues with his timeline from what he did the night before. What time did he go to bed? What time did he leave? And it's just like, well, you know, I'm not asking you what you did two weeks ago. Okay? I'm asking you in the last 24 hours. On the morning of the murder, Shawn says he slept in, worked out with a trainer, and then went and got a haircut at a barbershop about 10 minutes from Ronnie's house. The problem is it's not airtight exactly where he was when she was killed. During the questioning of Shawn, police learned that Ronnie wasn't the only woman in his life. He was playing the field, so to speak. Here he kindly enough gives us a list of almost 18 or 16 different women that he either went on a date with, you know, got a phone number from, or had something romantically involved. He's given us. Here you go. Talk. Talk to everyone. You know, these were 18 women over a three year period. Granted, it's still. It's still a lot. I wouldn't think that my sister would have put up with that sort of relationship. No. She loved Shawn with her whole heart, and I think she expected the same back. But Shawn has said that as close as they were in their relationship, for him, it wasn't exclusive. To be thorough, you're going to have to look at each one of these women that he dated or has had a relationship with. You have several women that could have been jealous of Ronnie. Sean staunchly maintains his innocence with police, so they ask him who he thinks might be responsible, and he says it might be a woman he had a relationship with the year before. She's beautiful. She's a trainer. A relationship he says ended badly. So police have to ask the question, could a bad breakup possibly be a reason to kill? If you still haven't ordered her Valentine's gift, don't panic. Just hurry and go to 1-800flowers.com to save up to 50% on beautiful premium roses. What sets 1-800-flowers apart from the rest are their premium first cut flowers backed by their seven day freshness guarantee plus same day delivery when you need them right on time for Valentine's. This deal ends February 10th, so don't wait, beat the clock and save up to 50% at 1-800-flowers.com podcast. That's 1-800-flowers.Com podcast. If you still haven't ordered her Valentine's gift, don't panic. Just hurry and go to 1-800-flowers.com to save up to 50% on beautiful premium roses. What sets 1-800-flowers apart from the rest are their premium first cut flowers backed by their seven day freshness guarantee plus same day delivery when you need them right on time for Valentine's. This deal ends February 10th, so don't wait, beat the clock and save up to 50% at 1-800-FLowers.com podcast. That's 1-800-FLowers.COM podcast. Chicago has a world of charity events and fancy restaurants to offer a sports celebrity like Shaun Gale. And he's a popular man. Sean and Ronnie had been together for 18 years, but there were a lot of other women he was seeing. Now he's sitting in the Deerfield police station and his whole life is about to become an open book. During Sean's marathon 10 hour questioning with police, they eventually ask him who he thinks could have killed Ronnie. And he gave them the name of Monica Korozka, who was a woman that he had had a relationship with in the months prior to that. Monica Carrasca was from Poland. She was beautiful. She was very, very fit. She was a personal trainer and a model. Sean says he dated Monica for about six or seven months. But here's the thing, it didn't end well. He said that she was sort of harassing him. In fact, Sean Gale got an order of protection against Monica and in court papers makes a number of allegations. One of them, he says that she had punched through a window at his home in 2020. Monica told ABC in a statement that she was upset when she got to Sean's house and saw him with another woman. She said she wanted to speak to him, but he wouldn't open the door. She knocked on his window and in the heat of her frustration, she said she accidentally broke it. She says she decided to end the relationship and she never saw Shawn again. Shawn also told police that he believed that for months Monica had been sending a number of harassing letters to a variety of his life. These letters were intended to tell all of these women that, oh, by the way, you're not the only one dating Sean. In fact, there's this whole list of other women. One of the reasons that he thought these letters were written by her was because they were kind of written the way she spoke, which was in broken English. One of the letters reads, I think maybe you would like to know what your boyfriend Sean is doing with a lot of other women. He knows some of these women and been sleeping with them for many years. Those letters, as you can imagine, wreaked havoc in Shawn's personal life. Ronnie gets one her mother gets one and calls Sean about it. She wanted to know if Ronnie was safe. That's what she said. Because if there's some woman out there sending letters, you know, she may want to get rid of the women, other women in his life. And so what did Sean say when she asked the question? Don't worry about Ronnie. This is a Craze fan that has made up these letters. And Ronnie's very safe. Ronnie had one of those letters in her purse at the time she was killed. I mean, one of the first things that you're doing when you're investigating a murder is seeing if somebody has an alibi, a legitimate alibi. And it turned out that Monica at the time had been training an older gentleman. Police clear Monica Carrasco, who denies ever sending those letters. But that raises an interesting question. If she didn't write them, who did? While the family is grieving Ronnie's death, police are still looking for leads. They note that the bullet casings on the floor are 9 millimeters. And there's also that neighbor describing the gunfire as a popping sound. That means a silencer may have been involved. Suddenly, there are three hot tips that come into the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. They're all urging police to look at the same woman, another woman that Sean Gale had a relationship with. Her name Marnie Yang. They've been seeing each other a while, and she's someone Shawn told police he'd met the night before the murder. Marnie was a single mother who was very devoted to her children. She was a hard working woman. She was an intelligent woman. My mom had three jobs at one time. She was a real estate agent. She was an aspiring fitness model. She worked as a cocktail waitress. My mother has always tried her best for us. I wanted to provide my children as much as I possibly could. I didn't ever want them to feel a lack of anything. Marnie met Sean at a Bears convention. She was working as a security person at that event and would have had access to, to some of the celebrities. And I just remember him approaching me, introducing himself just by his first name. I didn't know who he was. I remember him mentioning that he was looking for some investment property because it had come out that I was a real estate broker. And I just remember giving him my business card. About two hours after the event was over, my phone rang and it was him. So they meet, they start talking, and they start doing real estate deals together. She was spending a lot of time with Shawn because they had this real estate transaction that she was Basically brokering. Two months after Ronnie was shot, Marnie's in the police station. How you doing? I'm Marnie. Yes. I'm Detective Chuck Schuletz. Chuck's gonna ask you some basic questions about who you are, where you live, stuff like that. I didn't feel like I needed an attorney. It was pretty much just anything I can do to help. They ask about how she knows Sean, where they met. If anything else comes up or we have any information that we get, you know, you don't mind coming back in or talking to us. Okay. The police said they started talking to everyone and they kept hearing a similar story. People who knew knew Marnie said that she was telling everyone that she was Sean's girlfriend. She bragged about it all the time. She was very proud of it. And she made a lot more out of the relationship than it actually was. I don't think the word boyfriend was ever used, really. I asked sean back in 2009 if Marnie had been his girlfriend and he emphatically said no, she was not. He said not even the craziest stretch of the imagination. But he did admit to me that their professional relationship did get friendly. In the investigation, Sean is cooperative as detectives execute a search warrant of his home and take his computer. Now they're about to drop a bombshell on him. Unbeknownst to Sean, Marnie seems to have access to his emails, to his computer, and that all this time for years, she might have been stalking him online. Investigators believe that Marnie had been tracking Sean and Ronnie and those letters that Sean thought came from Monica. Police believe he was wrong and that it was Marnie who sent them. Marnie Yang discovered through her penetration of his email account this Polish woman Z mails. She would then study them, master the broken English with which the police Polish woman spoke, and write the letters in that broken English in an effort to frame her. He knows some of these women and been sleeping with them. I already talked to some of them. Marnie has denied the claim of online stalking and tracking. She also denied sending those letters. But when it comes to Marnie Yang, investigators say it's just the tip of the iceberg. When you hit done, did you hide it real well? I put it into a bucket of cement. I threw it in a dumpster. ABC Wednesday, February 25 the Emmy winning comedy Scrubs returns. This is a whole new chapter for me. No more sad stuff. That's what I'm talking about. I want both of our sacks to be fair, fun. You two idiots are perfect for each Other from executive producers of Ted Lasso and shrinking. We were all a part of this victory. Now get those nachos out of the premium warmer. Nachos. Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech. The new season of scrubs. Wednesday, February 25, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. Police are searching for a suspect in the murder of a pregnant girlfriend of former Chicago Bear Sean Gale. Sean Gale has been subject to rumors and watched his reputation become blemished. Sean has always maintained his innocence and finally, after weeks of investigating him, police clear him. But what people didn't know was that behind the scenes he was working with law enforcement because they believed Marnie Yang was obsessed with him. But here's the thing. There's no physical evidence tying Marnie to the crime. So one of the things the police do is they start pulling her trash, looking for incriminating information. They find a bank statement that they read and it says purchase on her debit card, Ray Ryling's arms. So they call Ray Rylene's arms and that's when they find out about the book how to make a disposable silencer and the fact that she ordered volume one and volume two. She actually went to Home Depot and purchased the items to build a silencer. She's got, you know, the drill, a circular clamp, a 1 1/4 inch metal pipe, some PVC piping and the duct tape and a hacksaw. That's evidence. Incriminating evidence. Certainly enough to get Marnie back in for questioning. On the morning of the murder, Marnie says she and her son Andrew stayed home. What happened when you got up? I looked at my phone and there was a message there. Andrew was calling me from the basement to let me know that he wasn't. I remember checking to see if he had a fever or not and he felt warm, so he stayed home from school that day. Marnie says that after checking on her son, she went to the garage to try to get her truck to work and it wouldn't start. That's her alibi. She was stuck at home. Police spoke with 16 year old Andrew. Marnie Yang said that she was home during the murder and Interviews with her son revealed that she was not home. Police then introduce the information they have about that she had ordered this book about how to make a silencer. Now, why would you purchase a book on how they dispose of the silencers? It was a joke, a gag gift. She says if it was a joke, her friend didn't get it. She gave it to him, and his reaction was, what is this? And ended up just leaving it at her house. He said he had no idea why she would have given that to him. As the interrogation progresses, police ask her about owning guns. I have owned four of them, actually. My thing is a.40 caliber. My rumor is a.40 caliber, and my mint is a.38. Police already know that Marnie owned another gun, a 9 millimeter Beretta, which happens to match the. The caliber of the gun that killed Ronnie. You know, she leaves out the 9 millimeter, and all of a sudden it was, you sure that there's no more guns? Oh, you know what? I think there was another one. It was black. It was on the automatic. I don't know what it was. Where is that one at? That one? I do not know. I want to say about a year and a half ago, something disappeared out of my house. Police had conducted a search warrant in Marnie's house. So they say to her, in your home, we found mailing labels with the names of the women in Sean's life who received those harassing letters. You don't have any idea why these labels or packets of letters would be in your house? You know, you had said that if there was a question that I didn't feel up to answer that I could. Okay, that's fine. They held me for what I now know to be three days. We had the evidence of the silencer. We had the evidence of her having had a 9 millimeter. Still wasn't enough. She still was able to walk out the door. After. We have to let Marnie Ann go. We spent a good year and two months revisiting everything. And they talk with one of Marnie's friends, Christy. Now we're looking really hard at Christy Passion. Christy was just part of my mom's life. You know, I just knew that was a friend of my mother's. And that was pretty much it. I wouldn't refer to her as a friend at all. She was an acquaintance. An acquaintance. But clearly there seems to be a long record of pretty intense friendship. Well, I mean, I was looking at real estate for her as well. Kristi tells police that Marnie had come to visit Christy at her house the night before the murder. She was going to go ahead and kill Ronnie. I was like, don't do this. You know, what are you gonna do? Go kill all the women? And she said, but she's the one that he spends all of the time with, so she's got to go. That's when they ask Kristi if she'll work with them, if she'll set up a meeting with Marnie. The two ladies meet at Denny's. But unbeknownst to Marnie, there's a full sting operation that's about to take place. Do you give your permission for the following conversations to be overheard and recorded? Yes. This overheard will now commence and what follows the story of a cold blooded murder. She started screaming. I took the first shot. It was a black point. I realized we are not recording the week out. Today's date is March 1, 2009. For voice identification, please state your name. Christy Passion. Marnie Yang is on her way to a local Denny's to meet her friend Christy. Christy is wearing a wire. The investigators goal to see if Marnie has anything to say about the murder of Ronnie Ryder. They're about to get an earful. Christy Passion's there. There's two police officers undercover at another booth somewhere. When you hit done, did you hide it real well? I put it into a bucket of cement. I threw it in a dumpster. It has gone under A year and a half's worth of Chicago garbage at the city dump. This is good chocolate. They're sipping tea and eating ice cream and talking about a murder like it was going grocery shopping. It was surreal. Detectives are eager to keep her talking to gather more intel. So they repeat the sting operation the following night. Back at Denny's, Barney starts sharing the details about how she says she killed Ronnie. Ronnie was leaving for work and she was met at the door by Marnie Yang. Hoodie on. Okay. Dark makeup on my face. Okay. Marnie is describing her elaborate disguise which seems to match witnesses description of the suspect on the day of the murder. I started screaming. I took the first shot. It was at that point of my eyes. We are recording the weekend and I just started emptying. The matter of fact tone with which she described it is terrifying. Then when she went down, she took her foot and she took one good kick at me. Got me in the shin. It was like weak by that time. It was like. Like that. That was it. I just. I took one last shot. The final wound, the kill shot to Ronnie itself was right at the head. With Marnie's confession securely on tape. They decide they now have enough evidence to move in and arrest her. When they told us that they had made an arrest, it was. It was just like, thank you. Thank you. She eluded police for nearly a year and a half. Marnie Yang, the 41 year old has been charged with the murder of Ronnie Ryder. Marnie, I need you to have a seat over here, please. Thank you. We brought her into the station. We provide her a segment of the Wire with her and Christy. All she was doing was screaming until she went down. She basically lawyers up and is done with us. And she's seen on tape after we leave the room, curling up in the corner of the room, practically in the fetus position. I think she realized she lost, was like, gotcha. Finally, Nearly three and a half years after the murder, Marnie Yang is going to trial. She is charged with killing the girlfriend of former Chicago. When I really sit down and just think that this all happened because someone had a crush, it makes no sense to me. Yang has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder. If convicted, Marnie Yang faces life in prison. Marnie Yang's main goal was to eliminate the competition. And the evidence showed that she was obsessed with Mr. Gayle and her obsession was mainly directed at the other women. A big part of the prosecution's case was that Marnie sent these letters to other women that Sean was seeing. And as part of that, they put Marnie's daughter Emily on the stand. And she says exactly that. Emily says that her mom had told her that she had sent those letters so that the women could find out about each other. I was really hesitant. That said, testifying could not have been easy for either mother or daughter. It hurt to see her there. The court heard testimony today from Kristi Pashtian who says that she's a friend of Yang's. She was on the stand for a day and she said a lot. And much of it was damning evidence against Marni. Marni's defense at the trial was that she had no idea she was being recorded, but. But that she was just spinning a tail for her friend Christy Pashen. She started screaming and I just started emptying. The prosecution showed the medical examiner's report. Two of the bullets fired were aimed at Ronnie's pregnant belly. I'm the mother of three girls seeing baby Skylar with a bullet that ran through her. Just have chills. I will never get that picture out of my head, ever. A jury finds Marnie Yang guilty of first degree murder and intentional homicide of an unborn child. I can't even begin to tell you how difficult this has been for me and of course, Ronnie's family. At least I feel that, you know, Ronnie and baby there at peace. Marty Yang now has been sentenced to natural life in prison with no chance for parole. So Marnie is sent to prison. But this story isn't over yet. Eight years later, she files a petition claiming she was wrongfully convicted. The only evidence that convicted Marnie is the Denny's tape. On that tape, it sounds very much to me like someone's confessing to a motor. Do you have $10,000 or more in credit card debt? Maybe you're even barely getting by making minimum payments? With credit card debt hitting record highs, National Debt Relief offers real debt relief solutions for people struggling to keep up. These options may reduce a large portion of credit card debt for those who qualify. You don't need to declare bankruptcy, and you may be able to pay back less than you owe regardless of your credit. National Debt Relief has already reduced the credit card debt for more than 550,000 consumers. So don't wait. If you owe 10, 20, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, you can now take advantage of this financial debt relief as the cost of living increases. To find out how much you could save, visit nationaldebtrelief.com that's nationaldebtrelief.com Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with Monday.com Relax as AI does the manual work. While your teams are aligned on a single source of truth, feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive it feels like it was built just for you. Notice. You're limitless now. Open your eyes. Go to Monday.com, start for free. And finally breathe. Marnie Yang has been in prison more than eight years, just a fraction of her life sentence. When her case is in the news again, Marnie Yang is breaking her silence from prison. So now we're in. In 2020, we spoke with Marnie at an Illinois women's prison. She had already sent the call a petition seeking to overturn her conviction. But the court hadn't yet ruled. Every prison has a different look. She sat down with us to speak on camera for the first time. Hello, Marnie. This will be an interesting conversation. You haven't spoken about any of this for more than a decade. That is correct. Why speak now? I feel like prior to this, I don't think it would have mattered. I feel like there is a time that time is now. I have to ask you, did you kill Roni Ryder. I did not. And I am not capable of doing anything. Like I'm a mother myself. Like that's unconscionable to me. Absolutely not. It took a jury only 44 hours to convict Marnie Yang today. She continues to maintain her innocence. Now she has a high profile lawyer and a team of experts committed to proving the state got it wrong. We filed a petition for post conviction relief alleging Marnie's actual innocence. An attorney says he has numerous pieces of evidence that jurors never heard when they came convicted Marnie Yang for the murder in 2007. It's everyone's right to appeal a verdict and there's a reason for that. If we're going to send someone away for life, to prison for life, take away their liberty, remove them from their children, we need to be absolutely sure we're right now in 2024, after five years of legal arguments, the court has ruled that it will hold a hearing to review some of the defense's claims. Marnie's attorneys argue for one thing, that her Denny's confession isn't what it seems. She started screaming. I took the first shot. My mother was forced to confess to something she didn't do. Things just need to be set right. At trial, Marni's defense argued that she was just spinning a tail for Kristi. But her new attorney claims that she knew she was being recorded alone. You met up with Christine McDenny's. You basically described the perfect crime. I knew perfectly well that I was being recorded. I saw the wire. We may have trouble, folks. The piece came out and was hanging down. I don't know if she saw it or not. Hopefully she didn't see the piece. You're a very convincing actress because on that tape it sounds very much to me like someone's confessing to a murder. I wasn't confessing to her. I was confessing directly to law enforcement. And why? Her lawyer now claims in the petition that Marnie was making a false confession because she thought investigators were targeting her son. What made you think that the police were going to be able to pin it on your son? That's what they told my children. When it came to the interrogation, one of the task force investigators came into the room. It was like a movie almost. He slammed his hands onto the desk and told me, it's either going to be you or your mother that's going to go down for this. And that's when I really started getting scared. The state's attorney's office denies Andrew's Claim and says they never treated him as a suspect and that they repeatedly told Marnie during her interrogation and that he wasn't a suspect. They maintain that Marnie's recorded conversation was a true confession. They also point out that Marnie's trial lawyer never raised this claim in her trial. If you're facing life in jail, wouldn't you say, you know, guys, I was kidding. I was confessing on behalf of my son, but that was never brought up at trial. I can't account for the trial lawyer's strategy at that trial. You're telling me now that you lied when you confessed to all those things that led up to the murder of Ronni Reuter and the COVID up? I did. I lied. So you're saying you lied then, but how do I know you're not lying now? I have nothing to lose at this point. But you have everything to gain by lying. Prosecutors talk about how this is all coming forward now after Marnie Yang has exhausted every other type of appeal that she can. The court will also review new claims in the defense's petition, including some about forensic evidence. It will be my job with every breath that I take to get a judge to understand that this woman is innocent, and we will get her a new trial. The prosecution says they firmly believe that Marnie is the one who met Ronnie at the door that morning and ended her life. It's been almost 17 years since Ronnie Ryder died. During our interview, one of the most poignant answers Sean gave me was to the question of whether he blamed himself. And he told me the issue was not so much blame. It's the fact that I have to live with knowing that Ronnie and the baby died because I knew this Marnie Yang. Marnie Yang, who sits in prison convicted of murder. She took a piece of all of our lives. She took a piece of all of our heart. Ronnie was kind of the hub of the family. She brought us all together. We were so happy for Ronnie, and we were preparing to bring a new life into this world. We were preparing a celebration, and we ended up preparing a funeral. A double funeral. The NBA is happening now on ABC and the ESPN app. And right now, this season is unpredictable. We know this rookie class is special. This MVP race is tight, and this crew is the best. So for inside primetime, showcase, finals, and everywhere in between, there's one place to call home. The NBA. On espn, presented by State Farm. All season long on ESPN and abc.