Jorge Rueda Landeros and Sue Ann Marcum

By Zak Failla From Daily Voice

After 15 years, a man once trusted as a yoga and Spanish teacher has been convicted of murdering an American University professor in her Maryland home — a killing that stunned the academic community and led to an international manhunt that stretched for more than a decade.

A Montgomery County jury on Thursday, Oct. 30, found Jorge Rueda Landeros, 55, guilty of second-degree murder in the 2010 death of 52-year-old Sue Ann Marcum, according to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Landeros was Marcum’s yoga and Spanish instructor. 

The two developed both a personal and financial relationship before she was found dead inside her home on Massachusetts Avenue in Bethesda on Oct. 25, 2010.

An autopsy found her cause of death to be blunt force trauma and asphyxiation, and her death was ruled a homicide.

According to investigators, Marcum and Landeros had made joint investments using her money, and between 2008 and 2010, she lost more than $300,000 while he gained more than $250,000 from her.

Detectives later learned that Landeros was the sole beneficiary of a $500,000 life insurance policy in the event of Marcum’s death.

Evidence collected from the crime scene — including DNA found on items inside the house and under Marcum’s fingernails — later identified Landeros as the suspect, according to the Montgomery County Police Department.

By the time police obtained a warrant for his arrest in April 2011, Landeros had already fled the country. Investigators determined he had crossed the border into Mexico days after the murder.

In December 2022, after years of coordination between federal and Mexican authorities, Landeros was taken into custody in Mexico through a joint operation involving the Department of Justice, the FBI Baltimore Field Office, the Criminal Investigative Agency (AIC), and Jalisco State Police.

He was extradited to Maryland to face charges in 2023.

“This was a horrific crime — a betrayal that spanned continents,” said State’s Attorney John McCarthy. “The victim, her family, and this community have waited 15 years for justice, and today, a jury delivered it.”

The trial lasted eight days before Judge Rachel McGuckian in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Landeros now faces a maximum of 30 years in prison when he’s sentenced in February 2026.