California
Woman accused of killing her California fire captain wife captured in Mexico
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. Marshal’s 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.”
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana join Trace Gallagher to discuss multiple issues impacting California.
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana dissect the state’s pressing issues with Trace Gallagher. They criticize the SF Giants’ ‘Pride Night’ controversy and players’ right to religious expression. The delegates also discuss Los Angeles’s economic decline and Sacramento’s expensive homeless campsite, highlighting concerns about over-regulation and social issues. They conclude by addressing California’s large-scale Medicaid fraud, suggesting a lack of accountability.
Oakdale’s first Pride event is moving forward this weekend after organizers changed venues following pushback over its original location and a planned drag performance.
Some residents pushed back over the event’s original location at Dorada Park and a planned drag performance.
“I also understand staff has issued a permit for a so-called Pride event,” one speaker said during the latest City Council meeting.
Another speaker raised concerns about the event being advertised as open to all ages, including children, and having a drag queen host.
After the public pushback, organizers moved the event indoors to the Bianchi Center.
“It was a huge upgrade to be able to provide a more accessible space in the heart of Oakdale,” said Ryan Hall, president of CalPride.
Hall said the idea to bring Pride to the city did not come from outside Oakdale, it came from people living there.
“That’s my place as a mom of rainbow kids, absolutely,” said Elizabeth May, owner of Sisters Coffee.
May’s coffee shop hosts a monthly LGBTQ+ social.
“I had a young man walk in here and say, ‘We don’t have anywhere to have a social here for LGBTQ.’ I said, ‘Heck yes,’” May said.
Still, the backlash has left parents like May concerned.
“How does it feel? Scary. I’m excited, but as a mom of a kid in the community, I’m nervous for them,” May said.
May said the venue change helped ease some of the tension.
“The different venue made a win-win situation for everyone. I was very proud of the kids for making that hard decision,” May said.
For organizers, the drag performance is part of the celebration.
“Enjoy some line dancing, enjoy some live music, enjoy the drag show, and then also enjoy community members and our local businesses, our local artists and partner organizations,” Hall said.
Oakdale Pride is scheduled for Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Entry is free.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is considering a run for president as he approaches the end of his term, called for a national “billionaires’ tax” on Friday even as he fights another proposal targeting the wealthy in his home state.
Newsom also said the U.S. government should own a stake in artificial intelligence companies. His proposals, outlined in a Substack post, aligns him with the Democratic Party’s populist left, and he argued that urgent changes are needed to prevent the elite concentration of wealth and power from undermining democracy.
“It’s time for an economic reset for America,” Newsom wrote.
The governor announced his agenda a day after an influential health care union in California pledged to go forward with a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.
Newsom opposes that measure, as do many of the liberal interest groups that typically favor higher taxes. They fear it would drive billionaires out of California, eroding the state’s tax base over the long term for a one-time influx of cash. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other state — a few hundred, by some estimates.
“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
A minimum tax on large net worths
Newsom said the solution is a new national tax policy, rather than a state-by-state system. He proposed a minimum tax on anyone with a net worth above $100 million. He also wants to make it illegal for the wealthy to borrow against their stock portfolios to fund their luxury lifestyles tax free.
Newsom said there should be new rules for inheritance taxes, warning that “the transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth.” And he wants to raise corporate tax rates to where they were before President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cut.
READ MORE: Sanders and Newsom clash over proposed tax on California’s billionaires
The need is especially urgent as artificial intelligence threatens to displace workers and further concentrate wealth, he wrote.
“We need to ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund that takes a major stake in the new economy,” he wrote. “Simply, as artificial intelligence reshapes the country, every American should own a piece of the future it builds.”
Revenue generated by his proposals could be used to retrain workers, fund universal child care, make college free and increase funding for health care.
‘Money buys influence’
Newsom, who has drawn attention as one of Trump’s most high-profile political antagonists, is getting an early start on laying out a policy framework for his potential White House bid months before the midterm elections, which have typically marked the informal start of overt presidential campaigning.
WATCH: News Wrap: Newsom says Trump ordering DOJ to investigate him and wife
The embrace of a wealth tax by Newsom, a moderate on tax policy despite his liberal reputation, signals a notable shift in the political landscape since Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren struggled to get traction in her 2020 campaign, which she largely centered around a 2% levy wealth tax.
Newsom portrayed the nation’s tax code as a corrupt system built to help an elite few.
“Money buys influence, and influence rewrites the rules,” he wrote. “Those rewritten rules funnel even more wealth to the few. Under this weight, democracy itself starts to buckle.”
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