A California woman who admitted last month that she had killed her wife was sentenced on Wednesday to 36 years to life in prison. More than two decades ago, the woman, Yolanda Olejniczak Marodi, was convicted of killing her husband.
Ms. Olejniczak Marodi, 54, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Aug. 5 in San Diego County Superior Court in the stabbing death of her wife, Rebecca Marodi, who was found dead in February 2025.
“The devastating grief of losing your only child to a violent murder is hard to explain,” said Lorena Marodi, the victim’s mother, who added that her devastation ripples into every part of her life. She spoke at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
The couple, whose two-year marriage was deteriorating, were in an argument on the evening of Feb. 17, 2025, according to the authorities. Officials said Ms. Olejniczak Marodi stabbed her wife, who was 49 years old and a firefighter for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, repeatedly with a knife.
Lorena Marodi discovered her daughter’s body at their home in Ramona, Calif. She said the image still haunts her.
Ms. Olejniczak Marodi fled to Mexico but was arrested last year, according to the authorities. The U.S. Marshals Service took her into custody at the United States border.
The woman she killed, known as Becky to her friends, always lent a hand to animals, loved ones and strangers, said Jennifer Parnes, who befriended the victim more than 10 years ago. One friend recalled how she had revived a hummingbird. Lorena Marodi said her daughter, as a young child, gave away a new white cardigan to a girl who needed it.
“In the darkest moments, it’s been the memories of Becky that kept me moving,” Lorena Marodi said at the sentencing. “It was the privilege of a lifetime to be her mother.”
It was Rebecca Marodi who offered Ms. Parnes a place to sleep for more than a year when Ms. Parnes was separating from her husband, she said. And it was Ms. Marodi who jumped into action if Ms. Parnes’s horses had an emergency late at night, she said.
“The world really lost a good soul on that day,” she said. Ms. Parnes added, “No matter how heavy things were in her world, she always had a way of making people smile and lighting up the room.”
Ms. Olejniczak Marodi had also previously spent time in a prison in California for stabbing another spouse to death.
She pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the 2000 death of her then-husband, James Joseph Olejniczak. They had one child together.
A roommate found Mr. Olejniczak, then 26, stabbed to death in Fontana, Calif., in October 2000, according to coverage at the time from The North County Times, a local newspaper.
Ms. Olejniczak Marodi was sentenced in 2004 to 11 years in prison, according to court records. She served her time at the Central California Women’s Facility and she was released to parole supervision on Nov. 20, 2013, said Kyle Buis, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
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