FBI ‘most wanted’ murderer found in Mexico posing as yoga teacher for 12 years: reports – Reuters

The FBI has reportedly captured one of its most wanted fugitives in Mexico after discovering he had been working as a yoga teacher for 12 years under multiple false identities.

Yoga teacher Leon Ferrara’s students in Guadalajara reported him missing the week before Christmas when he went missing while walking his two dogs. His friends filed the missing person report only to find the man they had known simply did not exist according to a report by Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Ferrara was actually an alias for Jorge Rueda Landeros, a man who fled the United States after he allegedly murdered Sue Marcum, an accounting professor at the American University in Washington, DC, at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on 25 October 2010.

Law enforcement found the victim’s body in the basement of his home and initially suspected a break-in and theft, but quickly focused on Landeros as the prime suspect in his murder.

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The FBI determined that Landeros met Marcum during a Spanish class he taught, and that the pair developed close financial ties, including a life insurance policy that officers identified as a possible motive, according to the Washington Post.

Marcus Jones, chief of the Montgomery County Police Department, described Marcum’s murder as a “heinous crime” and accused Landeros of the act “in cold blood”.

Born in Mexico, Landeros apparently returned there to hide out for the next 12 years. He faced charges of first degree murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, which landed him on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list.

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Landeros told El Pais he was “innocent… not of everything, obviously, but of what I’m accused of”, adding that he had never followed his case in the news for the past decade.

“I didn’t follow anything. Once I disappeared off the radar, I completely forgot [the investigation]”, explained Landeros. “I still have a hard time responding to the name ‘Jorge’ – I have almost nothing of him left in me.”

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Landeros told the outlet that he “wasn’t in that place at the time” and was instead in Mexico, explaining that his DNA was at Marcum because he had a “more or less relationship.” less intimate” with her.

Memories and notes of affection and loss are posted on the office door of American University business professor Sue Ann Marcum, who was killed in an apparent home invasion at her Bethesda home, in Maryland on October 26, 2010.
(Photo by Gérald Martineau for the Washington Post via Getty Images)

“It was a long time ago, but the last time I saw her, I don’t know if it was weeks before what happened next,” he added.

Jones speculated that Landeros may have become complacent and “over time he thought he would never be caught.”

One of Landeros’ yoga students told El Pais she was in shock and “mourning” after learning the truth.

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“I feel like I’m in mourning. I know León, but I don’t know who Jorge is,” she said. “If I ever get the chance to sit down with him, I’ll have to ask him a lot of questions.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital at the time of publication.