American University Professor Sue Marcum was infatuated with her Spanish teacher and paid for her feelings with her money and her life, Assistant State’s Attorney Debbie Feinstein told a jury Wednesday afternoon.
Jorge Rueda Landeros’ defense attorney, Meghan Brennan, said her client is no murderer. She said Marcum was killed in a botched burglary.
“This case is nothing other than a tragedy,” Brennan said. “You know what would be equally tragic? … Convicting an innocent man of a crime he did not commit.”
The lawyers made their closing arguments in the first-degree murder trial of Rueda Landeros, 55, in Montgomery County Circuit Court after an eight-day trial. Marcum, 52, was an accounting professor at American University when she was bludgeoned with a tequila bottle and asphyxiated in her Bethesda home in October 2010.
The case now goes to a jury.
The prosecution described an intense relationship between Marcum and Rueda Landeros.
“They developed a close and, at times, a romantic relationship. He was her confidant,” Feinstein said. “In her own words, Ms. Marcum was enamored by the defendant.”
Police investigators found Rueda Landeros’ DNA on her fingernails and the bottle. He was extradited from Mexico in 2023. Prosecutors argued that, before Rueda Landeros allegedly killed Marcum, he bilked her out of more than $300,000.
In closing arguments, Feinstein said that in the final moments of Marcum’s life Rueda Landeros came to her home and the two drank together.
“At some point, we know that the night took a turn. Maybe he realized that his money train had stopped for good. Or maybe Sue Marcum stood up for herself for the first time,” the prosecutor said.
‘This mess I’m in’
Feinstein said, a few years into their friendship, Rueda Landeros sold Marcum on a scheme he promised would yield hundreds of thousands of dollars for her.
Rueda Landeros’ plan, Feinstein said, was that Marcum would invest $300,000 in brokerage accounts and she would get a 35% annual return rate. Half of the investment would be in his name.
Marcum took out a second mortgage on her home for nearly $300,000 in January 2008 so she and Rueda Landeros could make the investment, the prosecutor said.
In 2009, Rueda Landeros’ account had less than $100 in it and Marcum was going broke. Feinstein said Marcum lost $312,000 in the scheme and that Rueda Landeros had taken more than $252,000 of her money.
In an April 2009 email, Marcum expressed frustration over her finances: “I don’t know how I allowed myself to get in this mess I’m in. I just want out of this whole situation.”
Rueda Landeros faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. The jury also has the option of finding him guilty or innocent of second-degree murder.
Rueda Landeros eluded authorities for more than a decade following the death of Marcum, a popular professor on the Washington campus. In Mexico he worked as a yoga instructor and lived under the alias Leon Ferrara, according to Montgomery County Police.
The defense closes
Brennan, Rueda Landeros’ defense attorney, in closing arguments said Marcum died in a burglary gone awry.
She talked about multiple items that were stolen from Marcum’s home, including her gold Jeep Cherokee. A teen driver was found behind the wheel of the Jeep the day after Marcum’s body was discovered. The teen was never charged in Marcum’s death.
Brennan also reminded the jury that Rueda Landeros is not charged with any financial crimes.
And police, she said, failed to collect any evidence that Rueda Landeros was in Maryland when Marcum was killed — and no witnesses placed him near her home at the time.
Brennan also told the jury he moved to Mexico in the years before Marcum’s death and traveled between there and the U.S.
“Where is the evidence that puts this man in Maryland?” she asked, noting there were no records from Customs and Border Protection or street cameras showing Rueda Landeros in the U.S. at the time of the killing.
Brennan rebutted the prosecutor’s contention that the theft of Marcum’s Jeep was coincidental to her murder. That would have made Marcum among the most unlucky people on Earth, the defense attorney said.
“She gets murdered and then her car gets taken the same day,” she told the jury. “What kind of coincidence is that?”
Brennan also criticized Montgomery County Police Sgt. Lawrence Haley, who was a homicide detective who led the investigation in Marcum’s death and a witness for the prosecution.
A tiny “Ray-Ban logo” was found in Marcum’s mouth, on her teeth. Feinstein, in her closing argument, called the logo a possible “weird calling card” for Rueda Landeros.
A photo of the logo shown to the jury also showed what appeared to be a strand of hair in Marcum’s mouth and another strand on her face. Brennan said those hairs were never tested and a Montgomery County police officer acknowledged as much on the witness stand.
“Sitting here today, I wish I had,” Brennan said, reminding the jury of Haley’s testimony. “We can’t go back. We can’t go backwards. This is 15 years later. You collect the Ray-Ban … but you can’t collect the hair?”
Rueda Landeros did not take the witness stand in his own defense.
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