California woman who admitted to stabbing wife had also killed husband

A California woman this week admitted to killing her wife, a decorated fire captain who fought the deadly 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, by stabbing her – the same fate she previously delivered to her husband and had served a decade in prison for.

Yolanda Olejniczak Marodi, 54, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to second-degree murder after killing her wife, Rebecca “Becky” Marodi, 49, a California fire captain, at their home in February 2025, just a month after Becky, as she was known, battled the Eaton blaze that killed 19.

Rebecca Marodi, who was assigned to the French Valley Cal Fire station in Riverside county was found with multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest and back at the couple’s home in Ramona, near San Diego. She had said she wanted to end the marriage.

A warrant for Olejniczak Marodi’s arrest was issued days later. Detectives said home security footage had shown Rebecca Marodi running from her wife of two years, screaming: “Yolanda! Please! I don’t want to die!”

According to investigators, Olejniczak Marodi, who was seen holding a knife and with blood on her arms in the surveillance film, replied: “You should have thought of that before.”

Olejniczak Marodi was captured on video loading “pets, random items and some luggage” and loading them into an SUV, according to the warrant seen at the time by ABC News. About 75 minutes after the attack, records from homeland security showed Olejniczak Marodi crossing the nearby border into Mexico.

Investigators later found that the then suspect messaged a friend: “Rebecca came home and told me she was leaving me. We had a big fight, and I hurt her. I’m sorry.”

Soon after the murder it emerged that Olejniczak Marodi had been in prison from 2004 to 2013 after being convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2000 stabbing death of her then-husband, Jim Olejniczak. He, too, had recently informed her he was ending the marriage.

After she fled this time, Mexican law enforcement officers arrested her at a hotel in Mexicali in March 2025 and she was later handed over to US marshals in San Diego and booked on suspicion of murder. She initially pleaded not guilty.

Andrea Winter, a friend of Rebecca, told the Los Angeles Times that Olejniczak Marodi was jealous of her wife’s popularity and exhibited “controlling, isolating behavior” before the killing. Winter said Rebecca had not disclosed that her wife had been convicted of stabbing her previous husband to death.

“Yolanda was very insecure,” Winter told the outlet. “Becky has this magnetic personality and everybody liked her. I think Yolanda was very jealous of that and that Becky was this bright light.

“Becky was a kind person and paid the absolute price for that by trusting the wrong person,” Winter added.

Olejniczak Marodi is scheduled to be sentenced on 2 September and faces 36 years to life in a state prison.