SAN DIEGO — A woman suspected of fatally stabbing her fire captain wife at their home in Southern California has been captured in Mexico after more than a month on the run, Mexican officials said Saturday.
Yolanda Marodi was taken into custody after being found at a hotel roughly 2.3 miles south of the U.S. border in the city of Mexicali, the Baja California Citizen Security Secretariat (SSCBC) said in a statement.
The SSCBC said Marodi was transferred to the border with the help of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration. She was turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service after being returned to the United States at a U.S. port of entry, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement about her capture.
She was wanted by U.S. authorities in the Feb. 17 killing of 49-year-old Rebecca “Becky” Marodi, a respected California fire captain, at the couple’s home in San Diego County.
The secretariat said cooperation and an exchange of information with U.S. authorities helped lead to the arrest.
An affidavit in support of an arrest warrant for Yolanda Marodi cites home security video depicting a horrific scene outside the couple’s home in Ramona as she confronted a bloodied Rebecca Marodi with a knife on Feb. 17.
As the pair ran across a patio that night, Rebecca Marodi was heard on the recording saying, “Yolanda! Please … ! don’t want to die,” according to the declaration.
At one point, Yolanda Marodi responded, “You should have thought about that before,” according to the affidavit.
Rebecca Marodi’s mother, who lived with the couple, called authorities to say her daughter had been stabbed, according to the document.
Shortly after, the home’s security camera captured Yolanda Marodi, wearing different clothes, placing belongings, luggage and pets in her silver Chevrolet Equinox SUV and driving away, according to the document.
The same night, the SUV crossed into Mexico, about 45 miles south of Ramona, the affidavit stated, citing Department of Homeland Security records.
Yolanda Marodi was charged with murder on Feb. 21.
The search for her included the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Marshals Service San Diego Fugitive Task Force, authorities said. Carlos Zúñiga, spokesperson for Baja California’s state security agency, said authorities there had been searching for her in coordination with U.S. counterparts, NBC San Diego reported last month.
In 2003, Yolanda Marodi pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the stabbing death of husband Jim Olejniczak in 2000, the station reported. She was released from custody a decade later.
The affidavit states that an unnamed witness received a text from Yolanda Marodi a day after Rebecca Marodi’s killing stating that Rebecca Marodi had told Yolanda Marodi “she met someone else” and was leaving her.
“Becky came home and told me she was leaving, she met someone else, all the messages were lies. We had a big fight and I hurt her…I’m sorry,” the text stated, according to the affidavit.
First responders at the home reported Rebecca Marodi had multiple stab wounds, including lacerations to her neck, chest and abdomen, the document said. She was declared dead at the scene.
According to a joint statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, and the Riverside County Fire Department, Rebecca Marodi worked in firefighting for more than 30 years, starting as a volunteer in Moreno Valley, a city about 85 miles north of Ramona, in Riverside County.
She was a seasonal firefighter, then a full-time one, before she moved up to engineer in 2007 and captain in 2022, working mostly in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the statement.
Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department thanked authorities following Yolanda Marodi’s capture.
“We thank our law enforcement partners in San Diego and Mexico for their hard work,” spokeswoman Maggie Cline De La Rosa said in a statement. “Becky was a beloved member of our community and Department, and we miss her greatly.”
Rebecca Marodi dedicated much of her career to peer support, “always prioritizing the well-being of her colleagues,” according to the statement.
An Instagram post from Cal Fire’s battalion in Temecula, California, a community just north of Riverside County’s border with San Diego County, showed Rebecca Marodi on the front lines of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, the deadliest of the state’s windstorm-driven blazes in January.
A Cal Fire San Diego Benevolent Fund online drive to raise money for Rebecca Marodi’s family described her as a woman who “dedicated more than three decades to serving and protecting our communities with unwavering bravery, leadership, and commitment.”
