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A man who has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for over a decade was arrested in Mexico earlier this month after authorities discovered he had created a new life as a yoga instructor.
Jorge Rueda Landeros, who went by the alias Leon Ferrara while living in Mexico, is the primary suspect in the October 2010 slaying of American University accounting professor Sue Ann Marcum at her home in Bethesda, Maryland.
Mr. Landeros was named in a June 2011 arrest warrant and became a fugitive after disappearing into Mexico around that time.
He was booked into a Mexico City jail on Dec. 14, where he awaits extradition to the U.S., according to a lengthy account of the case in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Mr. Landeros had been teaching yoga in Guadalajara, Mexico, since he vanished. He was arrested on or about Dec. 13 when he was taking his dogs for a walk.
Students and friends of “Mr. Ferrara” didn’t learn of his true identity until they filed a missing persons report with police after his arrest, El Pais reported. Authorities later told them that their teacher had an Interpol file and had been taken into custody.
“I’m innocent … not of everything, obviously. But of what I’m being accused of,” Mr. Landeros told El Pais by phone from the Mexico City prison. He also told the newspaper that he didn’t follow the case once he left the country and no longer associates with the name “Jorge.”
Mr. Landeros and Marcum met in 2005 and began a relationship a year later. The two opened and managed an investment fund together, although investigators found that Marcum had issues with the way Mr. Landeros handled the money.
Investigators also found a life insurance policy in Marcum’s name for $500,000. Mr. Landeros was listed as the only beneficiary.
Genetic samples from Mr. Landeros were found at Marcum’s house following the murder, and the FBI said “that Marcum fought and possibly knew her attacker,” according to El Pais.
Mr. Landeros, 52, faces charges of first-degree murder as well as unlawful flight from prosecution.
