A crime in the US, a double life in Mexico and a verdict: The epilogue to the murder of Sue Ann Marcum is written 15 years after her death

Police arrived at the crime scene after receiving a 911 call on the morning of October 25, 2010. Sue Ann Marcum, a 52-year-old accounting professor at American University, was found dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the basement of her home in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. This marked the beginning of a case that took 15 years to resolve, until last October 30, when a jury in the United States found Jorge Rueda Landeros, a 56-year-old yoga instructor with whom the victim had a romantic and business relationship, guilty of Marcum’s second-degree murder.

At first, everything pointed to a robbery gone wrong. The victim appeared to have struggled with her attacker, and her body showed severe head trauma and strangulation marks, according to the police report. But investigators had doubts because almost all of Marcum’s valuables were still in the house, including a diamond necklace she was wearing when she was found. The only thing missing was Marcum’s old Jeep Cherokee, which was no longer parked outside the residence when officers arrived.

The vehicle was recovered about 12 hours later. Andrew Hamlin, then 18, had stolen it, lost control, and crashed it during a police chase. Hamlin’s DNA was found in the Jeep, but police found no trace of him having been inside the house. On April 12, 2011, the young man admitted to stealing the Jeep but said he knew nothing about the murder. The investigation appeared to have stalled six months after the crime.

The case took a turn that same month when authorities declared that the alleged home invasion at Marcum’s house appeared to be a setup. Although they hadn’t made it public, agents had already uncovered a trail of documents pointing to Landeros as the prime suspect. Records showed that the two had opened an investment fund together with the victim’s money and a $500,000 life insurance policy, in which Landeros was listed as the sole beneficiary. Investigators also identified traces of the yoga instructor’s DNA on the murder weapon, a bottle of tequila, at the crime scene, and on the victim’s body. An arrest warrant for Landeros was issued in June 2011.

By then, the defendant had crossed the border and was living in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he hid for over a decade under a false identity. Landeros presented himself as León Ferrara, a former stockbroker who had given it all up to dedicate himself fully to yoga and poetry. He claimed to have no living relatives, spoke little about his past, and subsisted on the bare minimum. According to acquaintances, he never seemed interested in money. In the United States, however, he was one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, a fact that was not revealed to the jury to avoid influencing the verdict.

Two versions of events clashed during the eight-day trial. The prosecution argued that the suspect abused Marcum’s trust for years to steal her money and that he killed her when he could no longer exploit their relationship for his own gain. Authorities presented several possible motives for the crime: that he murdered her when he realized he could no longer extract money from her, that it stemmed from a fight over money, or that he wanted to collect on her life insurance policy.

“The defendant and Sue struggled. The fight began upstairs, on the main level of the house,” prosecutor Debbie Feinstein told the jury. The sequence of events presented by the authorities is that Marcum tried to escape and ran down the stairs, but tripped. According to this version, Landeros cornered her, hit her with a bottle, and then strangled her. To cover up the murder, the defendant staged a robbery. Finally, the prosecution stated, the defendant took the Jeep to flee and abandoned it in Washington, where it was found by Hamlin, the teenager who later admitted to stealing the vehicle.

In contrast, Meghan Brennan, Landeros’s lawyer, argued that the authorities’ actions were deficient and that they deliberately omitted evidence that did not fit their theory of what had happened. In her arguments, she asserted that her client was blamed because he was the “easiest” target and that Hamlin’s possible role in the crime should have been more thoroughly investigated.

“I’m innocent. I suppose not of everything, but certainly of what they are accusing me of,” Landeros asserted in a phone call with this newspaper a few days after his arrest in Mexico in December 2022. In that interview, he said that the last time he saw Marcum was weeks before the murder and that the authorities took “everyday” problems he had with the victim out of context to frame him. During the trial, Landeros chose not to testify and delegated his defense to his legal team.

The victim and Landeros met in 2005 and became friends a year later, after he, a Mexican-American citizen, gave her Spanish and yoga lessons. During the trial, it was described in detail how they grew closer over time, to the point that he became Marcum’s confidant and romantic partner, and even moved into her home and gave classes there.

“She would have done anything for him,” Feinstein said at a press conference. The prosecutor said that Marcum mortgaged her house and entrusted all her savings to Landeros, while he didn’t contribute a single dollar and used the money as he pleased to cover his own expenses. Authorities stated in a press release that Marcum lost $312,000 during the two years they invested together, while Landeros earned more than $250,000 at her expense.

Marcum taught at the business school for 11 years. Her students, friends, and family remember her as a talented, approachable person who was deeply devoted to others. “She was probably the best professor we had,” says Don Williamson, a former colleague of the victim at American University, in a video call.

A tax expert, Williamson says he met with both of them in early 2008 after Marcum asked for his help because they were having problems with the tax authorities due to a series of transactions that Landeros hadn’t declared. “Whatever you do, don’t give this man any money,” he advised his friend when they were alone.

The prosecution presented several emails in which the victim confessed to her distress and had disagreements with Landeros regarding the management of her assets. A letter from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service was also presented, notifying Marcum that she owed $15 million in taxes and penalties. “The person who appears most successful to others may be the same one who, behind closed doors, is suffering financial exploitation and physical abuse,” Feinstein told the press.

Jorge Bátiz, a friend of the accused, recounts over the phone that the last time he spoke with Landeros was when he called him before he was extradited to the United States in 2023. “He told me, ‘I made a mistake, but I didn’t commit murder.’” He also recalls that Landeros never mentioned Marcum to him during the five years they were friends. Bátiz confesses that he feels disappointed, but also that he still can’t believe that the person he thought he knew was capable of such a crime. “I know León Ferrara, but I have no idea who Jorge Rueda Landeros is,” he states.

“At one point I thought they were never going to catch this guy, so I was so surprised when they arrested him in 2022,” Williamson admits. Landeros was arrested in a joint operation between Mexico and the U.S., without resistance, at 52, the same age Marcum was when she was murdered. Prosecutors in Montgomery County, Maryland, benefited from the extensive media coverage the case received, especially in the United States. Someone who saw a documentary on television recognized the fugitive and alerted the authorities. On the other side of the border, however, the arrest went virtually unnoticed.

After deliberating for eight hours, the jury unanimously found Landeros guilty of the crime, but did not convict him of first-degree murder, finding insufficient evidence to prove premeditation. The defendant remained unmoved when the verdict was read, according to journalists present in the courtroom. Sentencing is scheduled for February 6, and he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years.

“It’s been a long 15 years,” said an emotional Alan Marcum, Sue Ann’s brother, at the press conference following the trial. Despite the feeling that justice had finally been served, several people in Marcum’s circle still feel that the damage is irreparable. “Sue Marcum is gone forever, and that can’t be undone,” Williamson lamented.

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