Ami Mahler Salinas Davis first met Yolanda Marodi while playing on the same kicking team a few years ago.
One day in 2022, they started talking and Yolanda learned that Ami was riding a motorcycle and told her that she had to meet her wife, Rebecca Marodi.
Yolanda Marodi, also known as Yolanda Olejniczak, is the suspect in the death of her wife.
(San Diego County Sheriff's Office)
“After we met, we were locked up,” Amy said of Rebecca, 49, known as Beck or Becky. “We're very similar. We both love helping people, we both love riding motorcycles. We're kind-hearted.”
Ami, 37, and her wife, Aisha, 33, quickly met Marodis, who had just gotten married. Sometimes, when Ami and Rebecca ride motorcycles together, Aisha and Yolanda, 53, stay and the garden.
For some time, the couple did everything together. They went to movies, camped, and even had group chats.
“In the first and a half years, nothing happened [suspicious],” Ami said. “It’s nice to be with another couple who seem to be like me and my wife. ”
Then, some changes occurred in the middle of last year. Yolanda was diagnosed with lupus and the couple began to split. Ami and Aisha believe Yolanda is extremely ill and unable to socialize, while Rebecca, who once captained the California Forestry and Fire Department, was exhausted.
When Aisha spends time with Yolanda, she complains about Rebecca’s intimacy with her mother, who lives in Ramona with the couple. Sometimes, when Ami asks Rebecca if she wants to ride a bike together, she says she needs to get permission from Yolanda first because she often controls the couple’s time.
“Because… Baker is the only caretaker for her mom, Yolanda tries to isolate Beck, which is hard to do,” Amy said.
Another time, Ami and Rebecca came up with the idea of running a small business together. Elsa recalls that when she was with Yolanda, Yolanda told her: “There is no way to get Becky to do this in hell.”
“Why not?” Elsa asked. “There are cool things they can do together and get out of the house.”
“Becky is so flirting,” Yolanda said. “I don't believe her, nor do I believe it.”
Ultimately, Ami had to Rebecca about Yolanda's “control, isolated behavior”. She told her friends that she wasn't as bubbled or extroverted as she used to be. After the conversation, Rebecca stopped talking to Yolanda.
Elsa said she thought Yolanda had to be held responsible when she learned that Rebecca was stabbed to death at the couple's home on February 17. Authorities say Yolanda fled to Mexico on the night of killings.
“I thought I could see her out of passion,” said Elsa. “The more I find out, the more I understand what I know about her as her friend. I don't know that person.”
According to the arrest warrant, Rebecca's mother, Lorena Marodi, told detective Rebecca that she had informed Yolanda a week before killing her to end her marriage. Rebecca has blood from the back of a woman believed to be Yolanda in a family security video reviewed by detectives.
“Yolanda! Please…! I don't want to die!” Rebecca screamed according to the arrest warrant. Another woman also had blood on her arms.
“You should have thought about this before,” the arrest warrant said.
According to the detective, this is the second time that Yolanda Marodi has killed her spouse.
In 2004, she was convicted of killing her then-husband, according to court records. She pleaded guilty to voluntary homicide and was imprisoned from 2004 to 2013.
Yolanda did not reveal any of this to Ami and Aisha and always portrayed herself as victims in the story. She mentioned her former girlfriend and her children, but never gave details on the fact that her ex-husband or his lateness.
“We talk a lot about trauma, but it always forms the framework, as if she was a survivor of a terrible relationship or experience,” Ami said.
Andrea Winter, 48, was a close friend of Rebecca for nearly a decade and did not know Yolanda's history. Rebecca never mentioned it to her because she knew that winter would face red flags from Yolanda, especially before the couple got married.
“I’m a very straight shooter,” Winter said. “For this, I'll call her out so quickly. I'll ask, 'What are you doing? What are you thinking?''
Winter said Yolanda and Rebecca’s relationship grew rapidly from the beginning, which is not uncommon for Rebecca. Yolanda seemed quiet at first, booked, but eventually began to believe in Winter, who eventually signed the couple's marriage certificate.
“If Yolanda doesn't like you, you won't be dating her or Becky,” Winter said. “She will cut their lives quickly.”
Winter suspects that she is one of the few Yolanda has entered the inner circle because Yolanda doesn't see her as a romantic threat. Winter is straight and married to your husband.
Rebecca also has other friends who are gay women and meet her through her previous relationship. Winter said Yolanda didn't want to be with these friends anymore after she and Yolanda started dating.
“Yolanda is very unsafe,” Winter said. “Becky has this magnetic personality and everyone likes her. I think Yolanda is very jealous of it, and Becky is such a bright light.”
Winter said Rebecca tends to promote relationships with “injured birds”, adding that Yolanda’s troubled history may have attracted her more.
“Some of Becky’s careers have been trapped in her personal life,” Winter said. “At work, she literally saved lives and I think it’s hard for her to differentiate between the two because she attracts partners who need repairs and a lot of help.”
Yolanda's whereabouts are not yet known.
Former FBI probe Greg McCrary said people often under a lot of pressure to familiar places, and authorities will focus on people Yolanda knows in Mexico and where she may be hiding.
McClary said officials should also consider it because it could be Yolanda's second crime, so she may have a higher risk of suicide because she does not want to end up being held for the rest of her life.
“It makes it even more dangerous because she now knows whether she is back and convicted, which will be based on her previous conviction for life in prison,” he said. “She has a lot of losses. It exacerbates the danger.”
Wenter said Yolanda and the couple's two dogs fled to Mexico. Yolanda also has some friends and family in southern Mexico. In recent years, Yolanda and Rebecca went to Tequila in Mexico with Yolanda's daughter for their first marriage. They brought back Amy and Aisha as a souvenir.
Winter regrets that when Rebecca started to change last year, she didn’t speak out. Winter said when she invites the couple over, they will drop or cancel at the last minute. Rebecca once talked about issues in marriage in winter and she stopped communicating. Her phone calls and text messages gradually decreased, and the depth of their conversation changed.
Winter thinks it's not where she questioned Rebecca about marriage, but looking forward, she says she'll do different things if she notices changes in her friends' social habits, or if their partner is controlling and jealous.
“Becky is a kind person and pays an absolute price for it by trusting the wrong person,” she said.
