Ex-Bears Player's Pregnant Girlfriend Killed in Home

Rhoni Reuter, the pregnant girlfriend of former Chicago Bears player Shaun Gayle, was found dead due to multiple gunshot wounds Thursday at her Deerfield, Ill. home.

Deerfield investigators are searching for clues that can help find Reuter’s killers. Officials, along with members of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, were meeting early Friday and were unavailable for comment.

Police had removed barricades surrounding the condominium where the body of Rhoni Reuter was found Thursday morning with multiple gunshot wounds. Authorities found Reuter, 42, in her third-floor residence of the Deerfield Crossing complex in the 400 block of Elm Street after receiving a report of a woman screaming about 7:55 a.m. Thursday.

Gayle, a former defensive back who played on the 1985 Bears team that won the Super Bowl, voluntarily met with investigators later to inform them that he was Reuter's boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, authorities said. Reuter was due to deliver in December, relatives said.

Investigators were seen entering Gayle's residence in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood earlier Thursday. Police also appeared to leave Gayle's residence with containers, but authorities refused to discuss their actions.

Hours after his initial arrival, Gayle left the Deerfield police station Thursday evening, as did his attorney, officers said. Efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful.

Court records show that Gayle had complained that Reuter was the victim of alleged harassment by one of Gayle's former girlfriends last year. In an order of protection he sought against the former girlfriend, identified in the court records as Monika Kurowska of Park Ridge, Gayle said Reuter had received a "harassing anonymous letter" from the woman in May 2006.

Gayle complained in November that the harassment of Reuter and several other female friends had resumed after the order of protection had expired in August 2006, court documents show. Gayle was granted a new order of protection through 2009.

Tracy Rizzo, Gayle's attorney in the harassment case, said she filed a new complaint Thursday—before she knew of Reuter's killing—claiming that Kurowska had violated the order of protection last month when she allegedly sent an e-mail to all of the members of a charity organization for which Gayle is a celebrity ambassador.

Gayle had briefly dated the woman before beginning a relationship with Reuter—a relationship that Rizzo said began the alleged harassment.

Reached Thursday, Kurowska denied that she had sent any threatening notes or e-mails to Gayle's former girlfriends or him, alleging that it must have been someone else who did it. She said she was unaware of Thursday's court filing and that she has not harassed Gayle or his friends.

After finding Reuter's body in her residence, police ordered a nearby middle school to be placed on temporary lockdown while police searched for the killer.

Word of the shooting spread quickly through the normally peaceful community. Helicopters flew overhead as armed officers scoured the neighborhood. Members of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force assisted Deerfield police in the search.

Police assured residents a random gunman was not loose in their community. They said there was no sign of a forced entry and it appeared that nothing had been stolen.

Contacted by telephone Thursday night, Reuter's parents, Douglas and Landa, were too distraught to talk about their daughter.

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