Professor Entrusted Her Yoga Teacher with Her Money. Then He Killed Her and Fled to Mexico By KC Baker

An accounting professor at American University was found dead in her Maryland home in 2010 and now the yoga teacher she came to trust has been found guilty of murdering her.

On Thursday, Oct. 30, a jury found Jorge Rueda Landeros, 55, guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Sue Ann Marcum, 52, of Bethesda, according to a news advisory from the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Landeros was Marcum’s yoga instructor who also taught her Spanish, prosecutors said.

Over time, they developed “a personal and financial relationship,” according to the arrest warrant obtained by PEOPLE.

She came to trust him so much that the two made joint investments with her money — to his advantage, prosecutors alleged.

“Over the course of approximately two years, Marcum lost $312,000 while Rueda Landeros gained a total of $252,000 from her,” the state’s attorney’s office said in the advisory.

He ended up being named the sole beneficiary of a $500,000 life insurance policy in the event of Marcum’s death, prosecutors said.

As time went on, however, Marcum grew “increasingly concerned and uneasy about the way Landeros was handling and spending the monies that had been in the brokerage account,” according to the warrant.

Marcum spoke about “not being able to sleep” because she was so troubled by what was going on, investigators wrote in the warrant.

“Making myself sick trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage,” she wrote in one email in which she asked Landeros to return the money, prosecutors told jurors.

“I don’t know how I allowed myself to get into this mess I’m in,” she wrote in another email. “I just want out of the whole situation.”

Shortly after, on Oct. 25, 2010, Marcum was found dead in her home on Massachusetts Ave. in Bethesda. Her cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma and asphyxiation, the medical examiner found.

It didn’t take long for investigators to zero in on Landeros as a suspect.

Detectives learned that Landeros “had a personal and financial relationship with Marcum and determined that following the homicide, he fled to Mexico, or Central America,” per the state’s attorney’s office.

On April 15, 2011, evidence collected from the crime scene identified Landeros as a suspect. Detectives obtained an arrest warrant and charged him with first-degree murder, though he remained on the run.

Landeros was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list until December 2022, when the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office received information that Landeros was likely living in Guadalajara, Jalisco, where he worked as a yoga instructor under the name Leon Ferrara, the state’s attorney’s office said.

On Dec. 13, 2022, Landeros was taken into custody.

In July 2023, he was extradited to Montgomery County, Md., where he was held without bond. He was charged with first-degree murder and unlawful flight.

During the trial, prosecutors told jurors that Marcum had become “enamored” with Landeros, according to Bethesda Magazine.

“Jorge Landeros is a master manipulator,” Assistant State’s Attorney Debbie Feinstein said in her closing statement to the jury Wednesday, the Washington Post reports. “He preyed upon Sue Marcum’s caring nature, and he used her for his own gain. And when she had nothing left to give her, he killed her.”

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Landeros attacked Marcum after a confrontation then staged the scene to look like a burglary, prosecutors said, WTOP reports. His attorneys told jurors the murder was the result of a burglary gone wrong, per the outlet.

Landeros faces up to 30 years in prison for the second-degree murder charge. He’s scheduled to return to court for sentencing on Feb. 6, 2026.