- 17 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:02Tonight on Dateline.
00:00:04He told me that she had been murdered.
00:00:07She was one of my best friends.
00:00:10So unnecessary, so senseless, so evil.
00:00:15They found Sue Markham deceased at the bottom of her stairs.
00:00:20Professor Markham was such a big part of the community.
00:00:23Her energy and spirit.
00:00:25I saw the two shot glasses on the counter.
00:00:29We knew this was someone Sue had a relationship with.
00:00:33The first person I'm going to think did this was me.
00:00:36They're going to say you're carrying a torch for her?
00:00:38You had a key to her house?
00:00:40Yeah.
00:00:41I knew my sister was involved with a yoga teacher.
00:00:44He taught Spanish.
00:00:46He had that whole exotic yoga teacher poet thing going for him.
00:00:50Yes.
00:00:51I thought that he was kind of out of the picture.
00:00:54They had discovered some documents.
00:00:57She was sinking.
00:00:58She lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:01:01I'm thinking, what the hell?
00:01:03Is this a scheme?
00:01:04She hadn't told anybody about it.
00:01:06She hadn't told a soul.
00:01:10It rips your heart out.
00:01:11A secret relationship.
00:01:13A stunning crime.
00:01:14And an international manhunt to catch a killer.
00:01:18I'm Lester Holt.
00:01:19And this is Dateline.
00:01:29Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The Professor and the Poet.
00:01:38Sometimes when people find love, they hold on tight.
00:01:43Even when the person they're holding on to is all wrong.
00:01:48Because love has a way of quieting doubts and overshadowing logic.
00:01:57If she had said a single word to anybody, we would have just said, are you out of your mind?
00:02:06Beverly Myers was close friends with the woman at the center of our story, Sue Markham.
00:02:12Sue was smart, poised, and a fantastic friend.
00:02:16When I met her, she was the most successful, accomplished person at that time that I knew.
00:02:26Sue was a professor of accounting at American University in Washington, D.C.
00:02:31And always generous with her time and expertise.
00:02:36Sunday, October 24, 2010.
00:02:40Was no exception.
00:02:42It was a Sunday night, and she was giving an exam on Monday.
00:02:46She told her students that she would be home if they had any questions preparing for their exam.
00:02:55That was Sue.
00:02:56Always ready to help.
00:02:58Always a phone call away.
00:03:00In fact, she called her best friend, Larry March, every single morning.
00:03:06She missed my alarm clock.
00:03:08So she called you every day?
00:03:09She called me every morning to wake me up.
00:03:12That Monday was the day of the exam.
00:03:14And Sue did not call.
00:03:18How unusual was that?
00:03:19That was extremely unusual.
00:03:23Larry was a teacher and headed to work.
00:03:26Then felt so unsettled after not hearing Sue's voice that he left before finishing his second period class.
00:03:34I had somebody cover for me, and I just told them I'm leaving.
00:03:38You knew something was wrong.
00:03:39I knew there's got to be something wrong.
00:03:41So I had a key, and I opened the door, and things were just a mess.
00:03:47In Sue's normally tidy home, Larry saw broken glass on the floor, her belongings strewn about.
00:03:56What are you thinking?
00:03:57I'm thinking somebody's broken in to rob the place or whatever.
00:04:01But where's she?
00:04:02I'm calling for her.
00:04:03I'm saying, where is she?
00:04:05There was no sign of Sue Markham on the first floor.
00:04:09On the stairs leading to the basement, Larry saw an empty vase, dried flowers, and a pair of shoes.
00:04:17As soon as I get to the stairs, I can see her at the bottom of the landing.
00:04:21It is an image burned into his memory.
00:04:24His friend Sue, lying at the bottom of the stairs.
00:04:28So I rushed on to her.
00:04:32Is she warm or cold?
00:04:33She's cold.
00:04:35He called 911.
00:04:37While he waited for police, Larry called a lifelong friend of Sue's, Lisa Colton.
00:04:44And he's like, you need to get over here now.
00:04:46And I was like, what?
00:04:48You couldn't bring yourself to tell Lisa that Sue's dead?
00:04:51No, no.
00:04:53I just told her that she needed to come.
00:04:56Police were outside when Lisa arrived.
00:04:59They told her to wait in her car.
00:05:02Nothing more.
00:05:04And so now I'm pretty much in my mind thinking, okay, something is very wrong.
00:05:10Lisa watched as officers cordoned off the house.
00:05:13Sergeant Larry Haley of the Montgomery County Police Department arrived just before noon.
00:05:19He'd been told it looked as if a homeowner had been killed during a burglary.
00:05:24And that's certainly consistent with what was happening at the time.
00:05:28A lot of break-ins.
00:05:30A lot of break-ins in this area.
00:05:32The houses are worth a lot of money.
00:05:35There's a lot of expensive property in the homes.
00:05:40This is Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.
00:05:43I have probably passed that house a thousand times.
00:05:47That's because starting back in the 1960s, this was my neighborhood.
00:05:51I grew up around here.
00:05:53Now, a lot of things haven't changed that much since my family and I moved here all those years ago.
00:05:58I definitely remember the fire station and the public library.
00:06:02But look, we locked our doors back then.
00:06:05That said, I don't remember anybody with a burglar alarm.
00:06:09And I don't remember anybody worried about a home invasion, let alone murder.
00:06:13By the time Sue Markham moved here, the world had changed.
00:06:18As he surveyed the scene, Sergeant Haley noticed Sue's front door faced a busy avenue
00:06:24with nothing obstructing the view from street traffic.
00:06:29The back of the house was different.
00:06:32This is clearly where you would go if you wanted to break in
00:06:36because Massachusetts Avenue, people are going to see you.
00:06:38You would not go on the front.
00:06:40There's way too much traffic.
00:06:41And back here, as you can tell, there's a lot less.
00:06:44It's a lot quieter.
00:06:45Well, this thing's going to shield you.
00:06:49That's the perfect place.
00:06:50And especially at night, it's very dark back here with the trees.
00:06:53It's a little bit offset of the road.
00:06:55And there's not a lot of vehicle traffic.
00:06:57In the yard, Haley found a broken window screen.
00:07:01The window that was broken was here in the back.
00:07:04It is.
00:07:04It's the one that is right on the side of where the white shutters are.
00:07:09Haley went inside.
00:07:10He saw two shot glasses on the counter and some broken glass on the kitchen floor.
00:07:16Sue's TVs were unplugged and left near the front door.
00:07:21Were things stolen?
00:07:22There were a number of items stolen to include Sue's cell phone, a couple of her laptops, a TV.
00:07:28One of my initial thoughts was that they got some of the property out of the house.
00:07:34And so either something spooked the individual, where they felt like they had to leave and leave the other items
00:07:40behind, or perhaps the sun was starting to come up.
00:07:43There was more broken glass near Sue's body.
00:07:45It looked like blunt force trauma to the head.
00:07:49No question this is a murder.
00:07:51The position that she was pushed into the corner and the broken glass that didn't match anything around where her
00:07:58body was, I didn't have any doubt.
00:08:01Except Sergeant Haley knew murders in the course of a burglary are quite rare.
00:08:08Burglars generally run away.
00:08:10They don't attack you.
00:08:11They're not interested in having contact with the homeowner unless they have ulterior motives.
00:08:15So this was unusual.
00:08:16It definitely stood out from the pattern.
00:08:20Eventually, this case would stand out for a lot of other reasons.
00:08:25And it would require the help of this guy.
00:08:28Very quickly, I knew that we had something big.
00:08:32It would lead investigators on a pursuit through the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. and across international borders.
00:08:42He said to bring my Kevlar.
00:08:44Bring your Kevlar because Mexico's a dangerous place or he's going to shoot you.
00:08:49And it would unravel a relationship filled with secrets.
00:08:54She hadn't told anybody about it.
00:08:56She hadn't told a soul.
00:09:11Sue Markham was dead, and Montgomery County, Maryland police were searching her ransacked home.
00:09:18Her brother, Alan, and his wife, Barbara, live across the country in California.
00:09:24I was at work, and I got a phone call from my mother.
00:09:27And it was the worst phone call of my life.
00:09:32I hung up the phone, put my head down on my desk, and cried.
00:09:37Beverly could hardly comprehend that her close friend had been murdered.
00:09:41I've lost other friends.
00:09:44If they die because of illness, you don't want to accept it, but you have to.
00:09:49This was so unnecessary, so senseless, so evil.
00:09:55Investigators dusted for fingerprints and collected DNA from the crime scene and Sue's body.
00:10:01They talked with those who knew the victim best.
00:10:05You knew her, what, forever?
00:10:08I knew Sue for 48 years.
00:10:10We were four years old when we met.
00:10:12We were members of the same temple, and we were in the same Sunday school class.
00:10:16Sue left her hometown of Syracuse and went to college at American University in Washington, D.C., where she met
00:10:24Larry.
00:10:24She was a fun-loving, willing-to-take-risk kind of person.
00:10:33Sue was a foodie before there was a word for that.
00:10:37She, Larry, and Lisa spent their time eating, going to the theater, and traveling.
00:10:43Mostly Europe, Spain a couple of times, Argentina, Mexico.
00:10:50Sue was single for most of her life, but she was not alone.
00:10:55Sue never got married, and I think that it may have been a disappointment for her.
00:11:01She had so much to offer.
00:11:04She put all that love and energy into other people.
00:11:08For example, that daily call to wake him sometimes turned into two or three.
00:11:15She would call me at 6.45, and then at 6.55, and then at 7.15.
00:11:23Well, so she's not just an alarm clock, she's also a snooze alarm.
00:11:25Yes.
00:11:27Then, the third time, it would be, get out of bed.
00:11:30I'm guessing you had enough money to afford a clock radio.
00:11:33Oh, yeah, yeah, and I had one, but that wasn't the point.
00:11:36The point was, it was nice to talk to Sue.
00:11:39Sue had a way of making anything fun, even accounting.
00:11:42Maybe that's why she was hired to do the books for the Ringling Brothers Circus.
00:11:48When she left corporate America to teach accounting at her alma mater, she brought that same sense of joy.
00:11:56Don Williamson was her colleague.
00:11:58She was clearly so compelling a teacher that she made some students want to change their major to accounting.
00:12:05Yes. Oh, yes.
00:12:06There are a number of people that went into accounting because of Sue Markup.
00:12:11There's just no question about it.
00:12:13Emily Stovacek was one of Sue's students.
00:12:16She would start every class with the lights down low.
00:12:21She would sit on her desk, and she would have all the students close their eyes and take five deep
00:12:28breaths.
00:12:28What other professor starts a class like that? I didn't have any others that did.
00:12:34Sue was also devoted to her family.
00:12:38She taught our younger son to tie his shoes. I think she taught them both to tell time.
00:12:43Yeah.
00:12:44So, yeah, she did lots of teaching, but she also played.
00:12:47I put up tire swing for our kids, and we have a picture of her just in full swing on
00:12:53that, absolute enthusiasm, leaning into it with a huge, beautiful smile on her face.
00:12:59That was my sister.
00:13:01In her free time, she took Spanish classes.
00:13:04She even became friends with her Spanish teacher, who also got her into yoga.
00:13:10Sue Markup was the opposite of boring, and her home reflected that.
00:13:15But each room painted a different color.
00:13:18And we're not talking about one room is taupe and one room is gray.
00:13:21No, we're talking, you know, bold, beautiful, big blues and greens and oranges and rusts and, yeah.
00:13:32That bright, happy home was now a crime scene.
00:13:36There, investigators collected evidence and built a timeline of the last night of Sue's life.
00:13:43Sue had sent an email at 10.42 p.m. the night before to a colleague.
00:13:49They were working on a final exam together for American University.
00:13:52The 911 call was at 10.52 the next morning, meaning there was nearly a 12-hour window in which
00:14:00someone got into her home and killed her.
00:14:04Lisa and Larry did whatever they could to help investigators.
00:14:08They wanted us back at the house.
00:14:10They wanted us to get a sense of what was missing.
00:14:12What's it like to go back in that house?
00:14:14It was not pleasant.
00:14:15I think the first time I went, quite frankly, I did not go downstairs.
00:14:20In the beginning, Larry and I made a pact with each other that there could never be one person in
00:14:27the house alone.
00:14:27That there would always be two of us at the house.
00:14:30Because?
00:14:30In the beginning, just from a safety and an emotional perspective, we just wanted to kind of be there for
00:14:36each other.
00:14:37One thing obviously missing was Sue's Jeep.
00:14:41Investigators put out an alert for her 1999 Cherokee like this one.
00:14:47Her car was very unusual looking.
00:14:50And I said, they're going to find that car.
00:14:53Because I never saw another one that looked like that.
00:14:56And just 10 hours after the alert went out, there was a hit.
00:15:01The Jeep's plate was tagged in northeast Washington, D.C., a 30-minute drive from Sue's home.
00:15:09Sergeant Haley asked the D.C. Police Auto Theft Task Force to look for it.
00:15:14And one of those officers had called us back in our office looking for some more information.
00:15:20And he asked us, can you tell me the tag number again?
00:15:23And so we gave him the Virginia tag.
00:15:25And he said, I have to get off the phone.
00:15:27The car's right in front of me.
00:15:29The investigation was only a few hours old.
00:15:32And it was about to really start rolling.
00:15:49It was crazy good luck.
00:15:52Police in Washington, D.C. spotted Sue Markham's stolen Jeep just as they were getting a description of it.
00:16:00That luck did not last.
00:16:03When they tried to pull it over, the driver hit the gas.
00:16:07Officers pursued.
00:16:09With lights and sirens, they raced through the streets of the Capitol.
00:16:13They end up pursuing the car from that area of northeast all the way across Washington, D.C.
00:16:20The driver of the car ultimately tried to make a turn onto New Jersey Avenue, which was a pretty sharp
00:16:25turn at the time.
00:16:26Back end of the Jeep slid out.
00:16:28He hit the curb, hit a pole, and flipped several times in the air and landed on the roof in
00:16:32the middle of the intersection.
00:16:33Driver still alive?
00:16:35Not only was he still alive, but moments later the door kicked open and he was off to the races.
00:16:41This time he was on foot and he made it only a block.
00:16:46Within minutes, cops, EMTs, and reporters from NBC4 Washington were at the scene.
00:16:53The missing Grand Cherokees considered a key piece of evidence.
00:16:57The driver was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a nearby trauma center.
00:17:03His injury is apparently minor.
00:17:05He was arrested for unauthorized use of the Jeep, but he has not been charged with Professor Markham's murder.
00:17:12We were watching the news and they announced that they had recovered the car.
00:17:18They talked about who was driving the car and we thought that this was a person that broke into her
00:17:25home.
00:17:26Killed her.
00:17:27Killed her.
00:17:27Stole the car.
00:17:28Stole the car.
00:17:29And was caught.
00:17:30And was caught.
00:17:31And done.
00:17:33The driver's name was D'Andrew Hamlin, 18 years old, and by his own admission, a car thief.
00:17:41Criminal record plus being in the car plus fleeing law enforcement equals suspects.
00:17:50It does.
00:17:51And so he was a very good suspect right from the beginning.
00:17:56Police suspected he was linked to a burglary ring operating in Sue's neighborhood.
00:18:01More than 50 break-ins in the last four months alone.
00:18:05Do you think multiple crews are the same person?
00:18:07We know for sure that there was more than one crew because there had been arrests in some of the
00:18:13Chevy Chase cases and in the cases in Washington, D.C.
00:18:16And the burglaries continued?
00:18:18And they continued.
00:18:19However, none of those had turned violent.
00:18:23Montgomery County Police thought maybe this was a first.
00:18:27Detective Paula Hamill worked with Sergeant Haley.
00:18:30The easiest thing would have been to say, oh, Mr. Hamlin did it, obviously, because he's driving her car.
00:18:34It's less than 30 hours later.
00:18:36First, they had a lot of questions for their suspect.
00:18:39As they drove D'Andrew Hamlin from D.C. to Maryland, Sergeant Haley and Detective Hamill grilled him.
00:18:47Anything you say can be used against you.
00:18:48He did not ask for an attorney.
00:18:51And then, D'Andrew Hamlin told a fantastic story.
00:18:56One that started not at Sue Markham's home, but on a street in Northeast D.C.
00:19:02If I took you to that spot, would you remember?
00:19:04Yeah.
00:19:05I mean, the exact spot?
00:19:06The exact spot.
00:19:08He told the cops the Jeep was just sitting there at the curb.
00:19:12His brother spotted it first, saw the keys, and called D'Andrew.
00:19:18When you talk to Mr. Hamlin, he doesn't know how the car got here.
00:19:21He does not.
00:19:22But all he knows is that he got a phone call from his brother who alerted him to the fact
00:19:27that there was a car here potentially to steal.
00:19:29He got on the bus and came here and stole the car.
00:19:32And his intention was to what?
00:19:34Just drive it around?
00:19:36That's it.
00:19:36And it's, in fact, what we know he did.
00:19:38He went joyriding.
00:19:41The joyride ended abruptly, with the cops on his tail and the Jeep spinning out into a pole.
00:19:49He told Sergeant Haley and Detective Hamill he barely remembered the wreck.
00:19:54You don't remember?
00:19:55You don't remember?
00:19:55No, I know.
00:19:56I hit my head all up.
00:19:57Real up.
00:19:58You did?
00:19:58Sam Bryant flipped over?
00:19:59You don't remember?
00:20:00If you were upside down or not?
00:20:02I don't know if I was upside down.
00:20:03I don't know.
00:20:04I know I got a land.
00:20:06That's when he tried to get away on foot.
00:20:09When I was running, I'm going to shoot you.
00:20:11I'm like, you can't shoot me.
00:20:12It's just a stolen car, man.
00:20:13I'm in my head like, it's just a stolen car.
00:20:15Whatever.
00:20:15You can't shoot me.
00:20:16You're rolling the dice though, man.
00:20:17You're rolling the dice, brother.
00:20:19That's exactly right, because it really wasn't just a stolen car, was it?
00:20:22No, it wasn't.
00:20:23DeAndre Hamillin insisted.
00:20:25He knew nothing about Sue Markham's murder, had never been to her house, and had no idea
00:20:31how her car got to the street where he found it.
00:20:36That's the part I'm stuck at.
00:20:37If I knew it, I would have said it with no hesitation.
00:20:40To police, the whole story felt a little too convenient.
00:20:43A way to explain getting caught in the driver's seat of a dead woman's car, and still deny
00:20:50ever having met her.
00:20:52But as Sergeant Haley assessed his prime suspect, a cop's instinct gave him pause.
00:20:59I've encountered a lot of people who have killed people, right?
00:21:03And they always have something in their character, something in their demeanor that leads you
00:21:07to believe, yeah, they could have committed murder.
00:21:10He was lacking that.
00:21:12He's just kind of a hapless thief.
00:21:15That was our initial impression.
00:21:17Now, that doesn't mean that he wasn't part of a group that did this, and somebody else in
00:21:21his group, you know, at that point, we don't know.
00:21:23And every murderer at one time was not a murderer.
00:21:26Correct.
00:21:28You never know what takes them from never having done that across the line.
00:21:33Had DeAndrew Hamlin crossed the line that night, or had someone else?
00:21:39They were about to find out.
00:21:42Any trace of Mr. Hamlin in Sue Markham's home or on her body?
00:22:00Hours after Sue Markham's body was discovered, police had a prime suspect in custody.
00:22:06His name was DeAndrew Hamlin, caught driving Sue's car.
00:22:11Now the question was whether he was also the person who had robbed Sue's home and killed
00:22:17her.
00:22:17In the abyss of our despair, let her light shine for us.
00:22:24As police worked, Sue's family, friends, and colleagues gathered at American University
00:22:30to mourn.
00:22:32Her brother, Alan, spoke.
00:22:34And I also smiled when I remember having paid my sister to make my bed every morning.
00:22:40And I liked that they made it in a small way.
00:22:43I helped her get her started in accounting as she was keeping track of what I paid her.
00:22:48I remember thinking about, you know, her and her brother, two siblings, and thinking
00:22:54about how horrible it was that he lost his sister and his only sibling and her parents.
00:23:04Susanita LaGuardita, we will miss you and hope that you are at peace.
00:23:09Her friends thought about the what-ifs.
00:23:12For example, Sue had just moved from Virginia to that home in Maryland the year before.
00:23:19I actually lived very close to where she lived in Virginia before she bought the house in
00:23:24Maryland.
00:23:24And I thought, if only, if only she hadn't moved.
00:23:29As they focused on their suspect, police obtained warrants and searched D'Andrew Hamlin's home.
00:23:35We executed a number of search warrants at any residence associated to him, where he
00:23:41lived, any place he had laid his head.
00:23:43But we never found anything related to Sue Markham in any house.
00:23:47None of her property.
00:23:48Nothing.
00:23:49They interviewed friends, family members, anyone tied to D'Andrew or his brother.
00:23:56Police never found any proof D'Andrew was part of a burglary ring.
00:24:01They did review burglary arrests in the area near Sue's home, looking for possible suspects.
00:24:08We really kind of went around the world and back, investigating them with regards to Sue
00:24:14Markham's death.
00:24:15They looked at D'Andrew's phone data.
00:24:18It put him nowhere near Sue's house on the night of her murder.
00:24:24And in a surprising twist, D'Andrew was doing all he could to help police.
00:24:30And it's a camera.
00:24:31It's a camera right there on the wall, the side of the wall.
00:24:34On the side of the wall.
00:24:35We met him right here.
00:24:36He takes us to the place where he found the car.
00:24:39And at that location, there's surveillance cameras that he can see, that we can see.
00:24:44And he has no idea what's on them.
00:24:45He doesn't know.
00:24:46Because if it's him and somebody else walking up to the car and a guy handing him the keys,
00:24:51right, that's going to disprove his story.
00:24:53He has no way of knowing whether that's on camera or not.
00:24:55He doesn't.
00:24:56And that would seal his fate one way or the other.
00:25:00Police checked those cameras and, unfortunately, they were not working.
00:25:04So investigators pivoted to DNA collection.
00:25:08They asked Sue's friends to provide samples and said it was to eliminate them.
00:25:13You were fingerprinted, swabbed for DNA.
00:25:18Yes.
00:25:18Yes, I was.
00:25:19As was another friend.
00:25:20We spent a lot of time in that house.
00:25:23Police badly wanted a DNA sample from D'Andrew Hamlin.
00:25:27They wrote a warrant for that and got a swab from him.
00:25:32Five weeks later came the results.
00:25:34Any trace of Mr. Hamlin in Sue Markham's home or on her body?
00:25:39There was nothing.
00:25:40We did extensive fingerprinting inside and outside the home.
00:25:46We processed her body for DNA completely.
00:25:51We processed a number of items for DNA in the house.
00:25:54And there was never any trace of him.
00:25:56The DNA on Sue's body was from a man.
00:25:59A man who was not D'Andrew Hamlin.
00:26:02Not his brother, either.
00:26:04And not other known burglars in the area.
00:26:08So whose was it?
00:26:09It was not anybody that we had identified in the investigation to that point.
00:26:13It looked as if D'Andrew Hamlin's unlikely story might be true after all.
00:26:20He insisted time after time that he found the car on the side of the street.
00:26:24He doesn't know how it got there.
00:26:26As if somebody was begging for it to be stolen.
00:26:29It's a great move on the part of the suspect because, as he probably calculated,
00:26:36it took us in a direction completely away from him.
00:26:42Him, whoever he was.
00:26:45Investigators had made a great leap forward.
00:26:49They now knew they were being played by a murderer who was thinking about them and their investigation.
00:26:58Someone who had left his DNA on Sue's body.
00:27:01And then probably left her jeep at the side of the road.
00:27:04Trying to frame D'Andrew Hamlin.
00:27:07Or anyone else foolish enough to get behind the wheel.
00:27:11It was time to come up with a whole new theory of this case.
00:27:15I walked along that outside wall myself.
00:27:18The lights went on and I said, no one's going to break in here.
00:27:36It was December 2010, more than a month after Sue Markham's murder.
00:27:42Investigators had what they thought was the killer's DNA.
00:27:46But his name remained a mystery.
00:27:49It's someone whose DNA isn't in the system.
00:27:52It's not anybody who we might have expected.
00:27:54It's not anybody that's in the system.
00:27:58Even before the DNA results ruled out the Hamlin brothers and other known burglars, investigators had been re-evaluating the
00:28:07crime scene.
00:28:07There, something bizarre from a pair of sunglasses led to a new round of questions.
00:28:16So, you know how on the side of Ray-Ban sunglasses they have the little Ray-Ban signature on the
00:28:21arm?
00:28:22It's one of those pieces and it was placed on the inside of her lip on top of her teeth.
00:28:29And so, you know, while we were searching her body and processing her body, we found that.
00:28:36This was no accident.
00:28:37That little chip of metal had to have been placed there by Sue's killer.
00:28:42So, what did it mean?
00:28:45Cops asked her BFF, Lisa.
00:28:47You'd get this innocuous question, oh, were Sue's glasses Ray-Bans?
00:28:51And I'm like, I don't think so.
00:28:53What do you make of the piece of Ray-Ban sunglasses?
00:28:56I think that's something in this case that we all wanted to know or understand.
00:29:03Part of the misdirection, maybe?
00:29:05Maybe. I mean, I definitely felt like it was something phony.
00:29:09And she didn't own any Ray-Bans and there was no, you know, crushed pair of sunglasses next to her
00:29:15body or anything like that.
00:29:17Correct.
00:29:17The investigators reached out to the FBI, which keeps a database on serial killers.
00:29:23And the Ray-Ban logo or sticker or pieces of sunglasses, that doesn't turn up in any other case.
00:29:31The FBI had no other reports nationwide of that being a thing.
00:29:36Why it was placed there, we don't know.
00:29:38There's no Ray-Ban killer out there.
00:29:40We never got any leads.
00:29:42Another dead end, just like the burglary gone bad theory they had been chasing.
00:29:48From the very beginning, I was suspect about there being a burglary.
00:29:54Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy walked through the scene the day Sue's body was discovered.
00:30:00He noticed an outdoor light right next to the forced window.
00:30:04I walked along that outside wall myself.
00:30:08The lights went on and I said, no one's going to break in here.
00:30:10The people right next door can watch you break in.
00:30:12It's not going to happen.
00:30:13It looked as if that window screen had been cut and pushed out.
00:30:18Maybe that's how the killer escaped.
00:30:20Or maybe it was evidence of something else.
00:30:24You'd have to already be in the house to do that.
00:30:26Exactly.
00:30:28Sue's friend, Lisa, noted that while some things were stolen, a diamond necklace Sue wore was not.
00:30:35If it was a burglary, wouldn't someone take it?
00:30:39Sorry.
00:30:40I'm like, hello.
00:30:41That's why I never, after a certain point, it's like, this was not a burglary.
00:30:46Another clue was discovered when Sue's body was moved.
00:30:49Broken glass lay under and next to her.
00:30:53The blood object used to kill her was a liquor bottle.
00:30:57And there was more.
00:30:59She had a dual cause of death, which was blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.
00:31:05And in this case, asphyxiation means strangling.
00:31:08And that's not something that happens in an instant, is it?
00:31:11No, that is a very up-close and personal way to kill someone.
00:31:17There was something else truly strange.
00:31:21Something that did not fit with a break-in.
00:31:24Those two shot glasses in Sue's kitchen.
00:31:27When I looked into the shot glasses, I could see that there was a residual amount of liquor in the
00:31:32bottom of them.
00:31:33So I knew they'd been recently used.
00:31:35And she's killed with a liquor bottle.
00:31:37She is killed with a liquor bottle.
00:31:39Those shot glasses were swabbed and tested.
00:31:42The lab found Sue's DNA and that of an unknown male.
00:31:47That unknown profile also matched DNA on her fingernails.
00:31:51Apparently, from her killer.
00:31:54That DNA tells a story.
00:31:56These two people have a drink.
00:31:58Something goes wrong.
00:31:59There's a fight.
00:32:00He chokes her.
00:32:01She's clawing at him.
00:32:02He hits her with the bottle.
00:32:04That's correct.
00:32:05That's how his DNA gets under her fingernails.
00:32:07Under her fingernails.
00:32:08And then his DNA is also on the neck of the bottle that is used to hit her on the
00:32:11head.
00:32:12Correct.
00:32:12And I think that that explains exactly what happened.
00:32:15It was inconceivable to me that Sue would have had a drink with someone who had broken into her home.
00:32:21And the entire investigation shifted at that point.
00:32:26Now, this investigation was not about a random intruder.
00:32:30It was about the victim and about the secrets she held close.
00:32:35Did she ever tell you she was in love with him?
00:32:38She was over the moon.
00:32:54Sue Markham was working from home on that final Sunday night of her life.
00:32:59As usual, she made herself available to students preparing for an exam the next day.
00:33:04She was all about giving her time, her energy to other people.
00:33:09And it doesn't surprise me at all.
00:33:12The evidence inside her home suggested Sue was not alone as she worked.
00:33:18In her kitchen, those two shot glasses told a story.
00:33:23Had Sue Markham shared a drink with her murderer?
00:33:28You need to put a name and a face to that DNA profile.
00:33:32We do.
00:33:33How do you do that?
00:33:34So, we went back and started trying to look and say, okay, well, who were the romantic interests in her
00:33:40life?
00:33:41Sue never married.
00:33:43And as far as her friends knew, she was not dating anyone special.
00:33:47Of course, love gone bad is always intriguing to police.
00:33:52So, what about her former love interests?
00:33:55Turns out, she and her platonic best friend Larry March, friends since college,
00:34:02had been romantic years earlier.
00:34:04After Larry's divorce.
00:34:06And I knew the first person I'm going to think did this was me.
00:34:11Because, number one, I'm the one that found her.
00:34:15You're the one that found her.
00:34:16They're going to say you're carrying a torch for her.
00:34:18Hmm.
00:34:19You were involved with her.
00:34:21Yeah, so.
00:34:21Right?
00:34:22You had a key to her house.
00:34:23I mean, it would have been police malpractice for them not to be looking at you.
00:34:27Right.
00:34:27Oh, they looked.
00:34:29Larry's the kind of person police look at in that situation.
00:34:32Absolutely.
00:34:33He's a prime suspect.
00:34:34He's, you know, because he's a jilted boyfriend.
00:34:36They asked Larry for an alibi, took pictures of him at the scene, and got swabs of his DNA.
00:34:43Larry was not a match.
00:34:46I think pretty quickly we were able to rule Mr. March out.
00:34:50He had been at school that morning.
00:34:54There was nothing to indicate that he and Sue were still romantically involved.
00:34:59His general demeanor on the scene, his willingness to help, and his willingness to provide his
00:35:05DNA for us to compare are generally not things that suspects do.
00:35:10With Larry ruled out, investigators looked elsewhere.
00:35:14During the search of Sue's home, they had discovered a document with a man's name, Jorge
00:35:21Rueda Landeros.
00:35:23We'd reached out to Lisa Colton, who's Sue's friend, and we made an inquiry as to who he
00:35:28was in her life.
00:35:30When detectives ask you about Jorge Rueda Landeros, what do you say?
00:35:33I say, yes, Jorge was part of Sue's life, and I was a little surprised about why are you
00:35:41asking me about him?
00:35:42I think he's in Mexico.
00:35:44Jorge was Sue's Spanish teacher, the same guy who also taught yoga and got her into that.
00:35:50Lisa remembers when they first met five years earlier.
00:35:54And what'd she say?
00:35:56That she really liked him as a teacher, and they became friends from that.
00:36:02Jorge shared Sue's interests in traveling and finance.
00:36:06He said he'd been a day trader and was now a poet and published author.
00:36:11In addition to him having all these interesting, creative ideas, you know, he spoke, you know,
00:36:19in these very philosophical, esoteric, using big words.
00:36:24And you could tell, though, that she really liked him.
00:36:27Yes.
00:36:28He was quite a bit younger, but she, I don't know what it was, but she just wanted him in
00:36:34her life.
00:36:35Over time, Sue and Jorge developed a close friendship and maybe something more.
00:36:42Did she ever tell you she was in love with him?
00:36:44She was over the moon.
00:36:46I never saw her talk about a man in the way she talked about him.
00:36:52That she just was beside herself.
00:36:55She did put him on a pedestal.
00:36:58Like he was a genius.
00:37:01He was a stockbroker and yoga teacher, poet.
00:37:05Yes, poet and published poet.
00:37:09I get the feeling Sue was more impressed with all of that than you were.
00:37:14Yeah.
00:37:15Yeah.
00:37:15She brought him to a class and in some ways maybe he was her spiritual advisor or something.
00:37:22But I remember him coming to class and sitting cross-legged on the desk.
00:37:28And I remember thinking, wow, this is, this is odd.
00:37:32Jorge told people he was the son of a diplomat, that he'd studied yoga in India, worked on Wall
00:37:39Street.
00:37:40And Sue told her friends, Jorge had his future all mapped out.
00:37:45And she started telling me about him and that he was going to sell all of his worldly possessions
00:37:53and live in a cave with a yogi.
00:37:55When she says to you, you know, Jorge's going to divest himself of all his worldly possessions
00:38:01and live in a cave, were you able to keep a straight face?
00:38:05No.
00:38:05I said, Sue, that's crazy.
00:38:08And she threw her head back and laughed.
00:38:11I know, right?
00:38:12And she's laughing about it.
00:38:14But it's like, no, no, it's crazy.
00:38:17Nobody said this is a guy with some issues, maybe take it easy?
00:38:22Oh, there were more issues.
00:38:23And she knew about them.
00:38:25He, he ran hot and cold.
00:38:27His moods, he went very, very low.
00:38:30And one day for one of her themed birthday parties, I walked in and there was this angry
00:38:35painting on the wall.
00:38:37Blue and red and black, harsh, you know, dark lines.
00:38:42It didn't, it didn't go with anything in her life.
00:38:45It wasn't her.
00:38:46It wasn't her.
00:38:47But it was Jorge, Beverly thought.
00:38:50As he began spending more and more of his time in Mexico, Sue registered for an online
00:38:56PhD program to study Spanish.
00:39:00She was hoping the bilingual Jorge would help her.
00:39:04And I think he basically said, I can't commit to helping you perhaps as much as you want.
00:39:10And so that was very upsetting to her.
00:39:12That's him pulling back.
00:39:14Correct.
00:39:15Time passed.
00:39:16And as it did, Sue rarely brought up the name Jorge Lenderos.
00:39:22You're thinking, she's moved on.
00:39:24Yes, she was.
00:39:25I believe that she was.
00:39:27And we learned that Mr. Lenderos had moved back to Juarez, Mexico, to that area roughly
00:39:34about a year before.
00:39:36And that as far as anyone knew, he and Sue weren't involved anymore.
00:39:41Well, how much can any of us really know about the people we love?
00:39:46She didn't tell you, I'm in a very bad place here.
00:39:49No.
00:39:49Or about a suspect who became a phantom and he vanishes.
00:39:54And he did.
00:39:56Could she be his next victim?
00:39:58Did he ever mention the name Sue Markham to you?
00:40:16Sue Markham's parents asked her good friend Lisa to help organize Sue's estate in order
00:40:23to pay the bills like the mortgage on the house in Bethesda.
00:40:27Lisa needed to log into Sue's email.
00:40:30There was just one problem.
00:40:33No one knew Sue's password.
00:40:36Someone's got a laptop up and we're trying to figure it out.
00:40:39Someone suggested they try her cat's name, Scooter.
00:40:44And lo and behold, we figure some stuff out, put some numbers in there, and we figured out
00:40:49the password.
00:40:50A lucky guess, indeed.
00:40:53Lisa opened Sue's email, took care of the bills, and began sorting Sue's banking information.
00:40:59She went through Sue's contacts and let a number of her friends know that Sue had died.
00:41:06Sue's Spanish and yoga teacher, Jorge, had already heard the news from a friend and reached
00:41:12out to Lisa.
00:41:13Kind of typical Jorge in this philosophical, weird kind of, you know, way, you know.
00:41:18Here's Jorge writing to Lisa about Sue.
00:41:22We told each other the story of our lives, and woven in those stories the little sweet
00:41:27drops of our deepest yearnings, that we both knew we had found something, and something
00:41:32big, and wonderful, and spacious.
00:41:35That is what is gone for me, from me.
00:41:38And I don't think I will ever recover it, rediscover it.
00:41:44Jorge also told Lisa he last spoke with Sue in September.
00:41:48That would have been just one month before Sue died.
00:41:52And that was news to Lisa, who thought of Jorge only as part of Sue's past.
00:41:58Hadn't their involvement ended a long time ago?
00:42:01Now, in Sue's inbox, Lisa took a closer look and found a whole folder labeled Jorge.
00:42:10And there's just, you know, hundreds and hundreds of emails, you know, in there.
00:42:15Back and forth?
00:42:16Back and forth.
00:42:17You didn't know they were still in touch like that?
00:42:18Not to the extent, no.
00:42:20When you're reading those emails between Sue and Jorge, what jumps out at you?
00:42:25There's something is, clearly there's something financial that, you know, was going on.
00:42:31It looked as if Sue, the accountant, was somehow mixed up with Jorge's finances.
00:42:37Two years before the murder, Sue brought Jorge to a meeting with her colleague Don Williamson
00:42:43for help with some tax trouble Jorge was having.
00:42:46Don says Jorge had not filed tax returns in years.
00:42:51When you see him, what'd you think?
00:42:53Thug.
00:42:55No question about it.
00:42:56Heavy jacket, hood over it, unshaven.
00:43:00Don, not very well kept at all.
00:43:02I said, why didn't you file tax returns?
00:43:05I was probably too coked up.
00:43:07I will remember that for the rest of my life.
00:43:09Did he have any kind of financial records to show you?
00:43:11No, no.
00:43:12Then I knew, you know, if they don't bring some stuff in for you to look at, then you
00:43:16know that they're not serious about it.
00:43:17Don says he got a very bad feeling.
00:43:21I didn't really interfere in Sue's personal life, but I couldn't help myself at that time.
00:43:25I was chair of the department.
00:43:26She's on my staff.
00:43:28And so I met with her because she's my friend.
00:43:30Without Landeras?
00:43:31Oh, yes.
00:43:31The next week.
00:43:33And I said, you know, this is not the man for you.
00:43:36This isn't the guy.
00:43:37Yeah, this is not the guy.
00:43:39Oh, Don, you don't understand him.
00:43:41You don't understand him.
00:43:43He's so smart.
00:43:44He's so intelligent.
00:43:45And I'm sitting back in my chair.
00:43:46I said, oh, my God, Sue Markham, an intelligent woman, a good business person, knows her way
00:43:52around.
00:43:52It's nobody's fool.
00:43:54It's nobody's fool.
00:43:55And here she is, totally taken in.
00:43:57At the end of the meeting, I said, OK, Sue, I understand.
00:44:00I wish you the best of luck.
00:44:01But do one favor for me.
00:44:03Don't give him any money.
00:44:05As Lisa read through that folder, filled with hundreds of emails between her late friend
00:44:11and Jorge Landeros, one truth stood out.
00:44:15By that point, Sue had already given Jorge money.
00:44:20A lot of it.
00:44:22I'm learning about aspects of their relationship that I wasn't aware of.
00:44:28It looked as if Sue and Jorge had opened an investment account together.
00:44:32Jorge had been managing the account.
00:44:35And he had not done that well.
00:44:37Either he had lost nearly all of Sue's money in the market, or he had spent it.
00:44:44Another thing that emerged from the emails was how anxious that made Sue.
00:44:51Sue writes to Jorge, my body and my mind are at war, and it has made me physically ill.
00:44:57It's heartbreaking.
00:45:00The heart in the head.
00:45:02Lisa thought the emails looked to her as if Sue's heart wanted to believe the best about
00:45:09Jorge, but her head was starting to come to terms with bottom-line reality.
00:45:14It wasn't clear if Jorge was being honest with Sue about the money she had willingly handed
00:45:21over to him.
00:45:22It was obvious how Sue was becoming more and more desperate as she wrote to him looking for
00:45:28answers.
00:45:30If I had any magic powers, I would wish for you to be everything that you have been to
00:45:34me over the past few years and everything that I know you are capable of being, with
00:45:39a sufficient amount of money thrown into the mix so that you could spread your soul and
00:45:42insight with many others.
00:45:44You are an incredible person, Jorge, someone who can enrich many people's lives.
00:45:49I thought the investments would be our vehicle for getting you to that place, but the effect
00:45:54of this interim activity has really taken its toll on me.
00:45:57Wow.
00:45:58He was using her.
00:46:00Sue would get poetry from him.
00:46:01There's a famous poetry book he has around here somewhere.
00:46:04My wife and Sue were pretty friendly.
00:46:07And so she would show my wife the poetry and ask, do you think he cares?
00:46:14Do you think he cares?
00:46:16And that's heartbreaking.
00:46:17We read some of that poetry, Jorge wrote, maybe part of the bad boy alchemy that drew Sue to him.
00:46:26I drink from that cup where your lips have drawn a red moon of gibbous passion, 90 pounds of hope.
00:46:34Sue knew her friends disapproved of Jorge.
00:46:38And while she shared his verses, she learned not to share much else about him.
00:46:43And she apparently made the same decision about her financial issues involving Jorge.
00:46:50Even after she gave him the money, and even after it was clear that that money wasn't coming back and
00:46:55she was in serious financial trouble, she never talked to you about that.
00:47:00She didn't tell anybody about that.
00:47:02None of us knew this.
00:47:03She didn't tell you, I'm in a very bad place here.
00:47:06No.
00:47:06Sue never told anyone, but Lisa sure would.
00:47:11The police.
00:47:26Looking through her murdered friend's inbox, Lisa had just discovered the relationship between Sue and Jorge was more complex
00:47:35and more current than she ever knew.
00:47:40Lisa took the emails she found to police.
00:47:44That's the email of somebody who's having trouble sleeping and who can't think about anything else.
00:47:49I agree.
00:47:50I agree.
00:47:51Financially, her road was falling apart at that point, yet he was still in her life, and I think she
00:47:58still wanted him in her life, sadly.
00:48:01That was in October of 2008, so that's about two years before she was killed.
00:48:05Correct.
00:48:05So this had been going on for a long time.
00:48:08Yeah.
00:48:08And I don't know if she felt that at some point she would maybe be able to recoup some of
00:48:13the money from him,
00:48:14if she stayed somehow connected to him, or if that she was just really still felt like she loved him.
00:48:22Investigators already had an inkling Sue and Jorge had some financial relationship.
00:48:28Because that document with his name on it found in Sue's home on the day she was murdered came from
00:48:35a life insurance policy.
00:48:36Jorge was listed as the beneficiary, and the payout, half a million dollars.
00:48:45Linderos and Sue were not married, never had been.
00:48:48Correct.
00:48:49They're not related in any way.
00:48:51No.
00:48:52Why would she have a life insurance policy in which he's the beneficiary?
00:48:56We learned that the declared purpose of the policy was because Mr. Linderos and Sue Markham were opening up a
00:49:04joint yoga business together.
00:49:06So he had a policy on her and she had a policy on him.
00:49:09Correct.
00:49:10As detectives unraveled the financial entanglements between Sue and Jorge, they learned Sue had recently lost more than $300,000,
00:49:20money that came from Sue's savings.
00:49:24Investigators suspected Sue had been the victim of a swindle.
00:49:28However, it was also clear Sue and Jorge's relationship was more complicated than that.
00:49:36They had spent a lot of time together, doing yoga and traveling to Lake Tahoe and a month in Argentina.
00:49:44It does seem Sue Markham looked at Jorge Linderos and saw love.
00:49:50Her friends looked at the two of them together and saw a bouquet of the reddest of flags.
00:49:59Do you think he ever loved her or was this all about her money?
00:50:04I think he had feelings for her.
00:50:06I don't know if it was love or, you know, a friend love, a kind of love.
00:50:11I would say yes.
00:50:12And again, I don't know when in his mind did it flip to, oh, I can get something out of
00:50:19this.
00:50:21Who knows?
00:50:23Alan's wife, Barbara, says Sue confided in her about the relationship.
00:50:28When I was visiting her one time, she did say that she knew that it was a one-sided relationship
00:50:36in terms of romance.
00:50:38She loved him and she knew he wasn't ever going to return that love.
00:50:46Sergeant Haley thought all of that made Jorge Linderos a person of interest.
00:50:51He started digging around and found no evidence Jorge ever worked on Wall Street or was a child of diplomats.
00:51:00He was a dual citizen of both the U.S. and Mexico, and he crossed the border frequently.
00:51:08When you start looking for Mr. Linderos, you don't know whether he's in this country or not.
00:51:13We didn't know.
00:51:14We knew that his mom had lived or was currently living in northern Virginia.
00:51:19We knew his father lived right outside of El Paso in Texas.
00:51:23We could see that he was regularly in the Juarez area of Mexico.
00:51:29Sometimes once every three or four days, sometimes a little bit less than that.
00:51:34He's crossing into the United States for a period of time.
00:51:38Haley checked to see which country Linderos was in the night Sue was murdered.
00:51:45The border records that they keep and that we obtained only show entries.
00:51:49They don't show exits.
00:51:51And so while we knew that he had entered the country on October 21st of 2010,
00:51:56which is roughly four days before the murder, we don't know when he went back.
00:52:02So he could have still been in this country?
00:52:05Absolutely.
00:52:07Until the point, of course, in which he next enters, which was in November.
00:52:11So at some point between October 25th and a month or so later, he could have been anywhere.
00:52:19Investigators had no idea if or when Jorge Linderos would ever return to the United States.
00:52:26Three months after Sue's murder, requests to flag his passport went out to the border
00:52:32and local police in El Paso.
00:52:35Just eight weeks later, they got an alert.
00:52:38He gets stopped at the border crossing.
00:52:41The man police very much wanted to talk with was on American soil.
00:52:47What would he have to say?
00:53:04Jorge Linderos, Spanish tutor, yoga teacher, poet, and self-proclaimed stock market guru,
00:53:14suddenly had a new line on his resume.
00:53:17Prime suspect in Sue Markham's murder.
00:53:21And he had just returned to American soil.
00:53:26Local El Paso police were on their way to speak with him.
00:53:29He gets stopped at the border crossing.
00:53:32Our El Paso contact goes out and meets with him,
00:53:35fights him to come back to their headquarters for an interview.
00:53:38And he does it.
00:53:39And he does it.
00:53:40Jorge went along willingly.
00:53:43All the detective told him was that they needed to talk with him about what had happened to his friend
00:53:47Sue.
00:53:49I'm guessing that neither you nor anybody else associated with this investigation put out a statement saying,
00:53:54we have unknown suspect DNA.
00:53:56That was very close to the vest.
00:53:58Yeah, we did not tell anybody that.
00:53:59Because if he's the guy, you don't want him to know that what you really need is his DNA.
00:54:03You want him to think they're still looking at a burglary.
00:54:06Correct.
00:54:07Because I don't think he would have cooperated had he known that.
00:54:09So he goes back to the El Paso station.
00:54:11He comes back.
00:54:13They talked to him for a little while.
00:54:14One of the things that we had asked them to do was get a DNA swab of the inside of
00:54:18your cheek.
00:54:19Mr. Landero signed a written consent form saying he was agreeing to do it freely and voluntarily.
00:54:24And he provides us with his DNA.
00:54:27It was almost too easy.
00:54:29He just said yes and provided the swab.
00:54:32That said, police did not have enough to hold him.
00:54:35So just as easily as he came, he went.
00:54:40The sample went to a lab.
00:54:42And a week went by.
00:54:43Then five more.
00:54:45And then finally came the moment investigators had waited for.
00:54:50He's identified as the contributor of the DNA under Sue's fingernails on the murder weapon and on the shot glasses.
00:54:57And suddenly your suspect has a name.
00:55:00He does.
00:55:00Because at that point, he's getting charged.
00:55:02For Sue's family and friends, it was a long time coming.
00:55:07The main thing for us was that whoever it was at that point is apprehended so that they can do
00:55:14no more damage to anyone else.
00:55:15The day he got his, the DNA, March 2nd.
00:55:20Do you know what March 2nd is?
00:55:21It's his birthday.
00:55:23A warrant for murder was issued, and it came complete with one more huge problem for investigators.
00:55:31You don't have him.
00:55:32We don't have him.
00:55:33And he vanishes.
00:55:35And he did.
00:55:36His name is Jorge Landeros.
00:55:39Wanted in connection with the killing of Sue Ann Markham.
00:55:42Jorge Landeros, a man with two passports and one murder charge, was in the wind.
00:55:50Before Sue Markham was murdered, Landeros used to regularly travel between the U.S. and Mexico.
00:55:56That ended right after he gave that DNA swab.
00:56:00He keeps going back and forth until he stopped and asked for his DNA, which he freely gives.
00:56:07Correct.
00:56:08And after that?
00:56:09After that, he never came back.
00:56:11He never crossed the border again.
00:56:12You would have known?
00:56:13We would have known.
00:56:16Investigators added Landeros to the FBI Most Wanted website.
00:56:20It included his fugitive poster.
00:56:23They also reached out to him directly via email, posing as American University faculty and working
00:56:30on a story about Sue.
00:56:33Landeros did not take the bait.
00:56:34What did he say in those emails?
00:56:36It was pretty wordy.
00:56:37I think he's a pretty verbose person.
00:56:39You know, he invited me to come to meet him at a cafe in Juarez if I wanted to talk.
00:56:45But he said to bring my Kevlar, which I took as a bulletproof vest.
00:56:49Bring your Kevlar because Mexico's a dangerous place or he's going to shoot you.
00:56:54Right.
00:56:54I'm not sure.
00:56:55I didn't go.
00:56:56American law enforcement has no jurisdiction in Mexico.
00:57:00So while investigators believed Landeros was in the Juarez area, they couldn't just go look for him.
00:57:07He was technically a fugitive, but he wasn't exactly hiding.
00:57:12Someone with his exact name published online writings titled Poemas Profugos, or in English,
00:57:21Fugitive Poems.
00:57:22Now the FBI wants my bones because of domestic matters and corrupt convictions of its great nation.
00:57:30Very well.
00:57:31When they finally find me, they will grasp shadows, a brief obituary, salty and with pieces of coral.
00:57:40There was also this.
00:57:42Sometimes it's your turn to die.
00:57:45Sometimes it's your turn to kill.
00:57:48Karma is like that.
00:57:51And then time started ticking by.
00:57:54A lot of time.
00:57:56Over the years, you got calls about him.
00:57:58We did.
00:57:59Was it him?
00:58:00Or were these tips that were maybe well-meaning, but it wasn't him?
00:58:03None of them turned out to be him.
00:58:06Investigators in Maryland worked with the State Department and Interpol.
00:58:11They also requested help from Mexican authorities.
00:58:14Despite that, Jorge Landeros remained a free man.
00:58:19I knew he was highly intelligent.
00:58:21I knew he spoke multiple languages.
00:58:23I knew kind of some of his previous work experience, like that he was a yoga instructor.
00:58:28This is an FBI agent.
00:58:30We agreed not to show his face because he still works undercover.
00:58:35In 2022, 12 years after Sue Markham's murder, he was assigned to run down tips that still trickled in about
00:58:44Jorge Landeros.
00:58:46We had a potential sighting of Landeros in Brazil, that he was going by the name Guillermo and saying that
00:58:53he was from Venezuela.
00:58:54We tracked that down and found that to be untrue.
00:58:57Somebody else said they saw him in Texas.
00:59:00Correct.
00:59:00That was the second tip I received.
00:59:02And that he was homeless.
00:59:04Yes.
00:59:05That kind of doesn't sound like him.
00:59:07No, no, it did not.
00:59:10Authorities in two countries may have had no idea where he was.
00:59:15But this woman did.
00:59:18Sometimes karma arrives in unexpected ways.
00:59:22I met Leon as my yoga teacher.
00:59:25Leon was his name.
00:59:26A new name, a new city, and a new woman in his life.
00:59:46Investigators didn't know where Jorge Landeros was.
00:59:49This woman knew something they did not.
00:59:53Her name is Rocio.
00:59:55And while investigators were searching for Jorge, he was living with her.
01:00:01I knew him as Leon Ferrara.
01:00:04She was worried about her privacy and her safety.
01:00:07So she asked us not to show her face or use her last name.
01:00:12Charming guy?
01:00:14Charming guy?
01:00:15Attractive?
01:00:15I think he was very attractive.
01:00:18He was very charming.
01:00:20Rocio met him while doing yoga in Guadalajara, Mexico.
01:00:25Tell me what it was like to take a yoga class from him.
01:00:28He seemed like a wise man.
01:00:30Like, he could teach us not just yoga, but he used to give advice about life and philosophy.
01:00:43The man she knew as Leon told her he had lived all over the world and studied at top universities
01:00:49in America.
01:00:50He'd worked as a day trader and was now ready for a more spiritual life.
01:00:56He was going to give up all his material possessions and just teach yoga.
01:01:00Yeah.
01:01:01Sound familiar?
01:01:02It's the same story he told Sue and her friends years earlier.
01:01:08Only the names have changed.
01:01:10Well, only his name.
01:01:12At the beginning, he was just my yoga teacher.
01:01:14And eventually, you get involved.
01:01:17Yeah.
01:01:18Were you in love with him?
01:01:20Yeah.
01:01:22He, at the beginning, he was very sweet with me.
01:01:27And actually, at that moment, I was in a very vulnerable place.
01:01:32I had just lost my mother.
01:01:35I'm a divorced mom of two.
01:01:38I felt lonely.
01:01:40He and his dogs moved in with Rocio and her children.
01:01:45He came along at just the right time.
01:01:48I believe so.
01:01:50Along with the dogs, he brought yoga, meditation, and music.
01:01:57I thought he was what I needed.
01:01:59When did you realize he was not what you needed?
01:02:02A few months later.
01:02:04Rocio says the relationship turned quickly.
01:02:08First, he cheated on her.
01:02:10Then, his moods darkened.
01:02:13I thought he was going through some kind of personal crisis or depression or something like that.
01:02:22And later, the violence started.
01:02:25She says that during sex, he would put his hands around her throat and choke her.
01:02:32If we started having consensual sex, at the end, it was violent.
01:02:41And he ended hurting me.
01:02:45Always.
01:02:46I cried.
01:02:48I was very upset.
01:02:50Did he apologize?
01:02:52Did he say he was sorry?
01:02:53He never said, I'm sorry.
01:02:57But he tried to make me believe that that wasn't going to happen again.
01:03:04Or later, when the violence went stronger, he said that I was overreacting.
01:03:12How many times did that happen?
01:03:15Countless.
01:03:16I couldn't say a number.
01:03:18Rocio says Leon isolated her from her friends.
01:03:22He also talked her into letting him open an investment account using her savings.
01:03:28He was persuasive.
01:03:30Yeah, very.
01:03:31Would he have access to that account?
01:03:33Total access.
01:03:34He managed that account.
01:03:35I didn't know how to manage that account.
01:03:38But it was in my name.
01:03:41Just as he did with Sue Markham, Jorge either mismanaged or just spent Rocio's money.
01:03:48She says she lost a total of $20,000.
01:03:51After three years, Rocio knew she needed to get away.
01:03:56She threw Leon out of her house and eventually obtained an order of protection.
01:04:02I hope not see him again.
01:04:04You think you'll ever see your money again?
01:04:06No, but that's a loss.
01:04:09Just the important thing is that me and my children, we are alive.
01:04:14Did he ever mention the name Sue Markham to you?
01:04:17Never.
01:04:19No.
01:04:20What about the name Jorge Landeros?
01:04:23Never.
01:04:24That was in 2022.
01:04:27Rocio had no idea the man she knew in Mexico was wanted for murder in the United States.
01:04:33Or that friends and family of a woman named Sue Markham were holding on to hope he would be caught.
01:04:39I sent Detective Haley an email and I included a picture of her and I was like, I hope you're
01:04:46not forgetting her.
01:04:47I said, I don't know how long it's going to take, but it's going to happen.
01:04:52I was sure that, you know, that God would take care of it and there would be justice.
01:04:58Beverly wasn't so sure.
01:05:00We never thought the person would be caught.
01:05:02You never expected this to go to trial?
01:05:04No.
01:05:05All of it added up to years of frustration for Sue's loved ones and freedom for a man who police
01:05:12believed was literally getting away with murder.
01:05:16Until one day, an anonymous tip came in to the FBI.
01:05:21He had a new name.
01:05:23Correct.
01:05:23But he was still teaching yoga.
01:05:25Yes.
01:05:25Yeah.
01:05:26I said the life of a yoga instructor on the run must be a good one because he looked exactly
01:05:31the same.
01:05:45A decade had gone by since Jorge Landeros had waxed poetic about running from the FBI.
01:05:52All that time, prosecutor John McCarthy kept a box of documents under his desk.
01:05:57A quiet promise that if and when Jorge returned to the U.S., he would be ready.
01:06:04Never left underneath my desk.
01:06:06It was at my feet for 10 years.
01:06:09Because you thought one day we're going to get this guy and we'll try him.
01:06:11I was hoping at some point we would get him back here.
01:06:15And then came a tip.
01:06:17The tip.
01:06:18The one that changed everything.
01:06:20I remember it very vividly.
01:06:23I came in like any other day to the office and logged into my computer.
01:06:26And very quickly, I knew that we had something big.
01:06:30What made this lead so plausible?
01:06:32So the information was specific.
01:06:34And then it also provided a Facebook profile with some pictures, of course.
01:06:39And it was very easy to tell that the person in the pictures was visually consistent with what I knew
01:06:46Landeros to look like.
01:06:47He was still teaching yoga.
01:06:49Yes.
01:06:50The agent called Detective Hamill back in Maryland.
01:06:53They said, we, you know, we got a tip and we think this is your guy.
01:06:58And they gave us his Facebook page.
01:07:00Of course, I'm scrolling down and I look and it says, that's 100% him.
01:07:03There's no doubt that that's him.
01:07:05I said, the life of a yoga instructor on the run, it must be a good one.
01:07:08Because he looked exactly the same over like all those years.
01:07:14Investigators were able to figure out where Jorge was living and surveilled his residence.
01:07:19Photographing him as he came and went.
01:07:22FBI Special Agent Marco Acevedo was assigned to Guadalajara, Mexico and oversaw the operation.
01:07:29It was one of those deals that we had to make sure that it was him.
01:07:33It looked like it was him.
01:07:35By now, the FBI had cooperation from Mexican authorities who positioned themselves on the street and waited.
01:07:44There was kind of a small market or kind of like a corner store down the street from where he
01:07:48was residing.
01:07:49He was on his way there.
01:07:50And that's ultimately where the surveillance team moved in and took him into custody.
01:07:54And during the arrest, somebody says to him, are you Jorge Landeros?
01:08:00He's, he self-admitted that he was indeed Jorge Landeros.
01:08:04He's not denying it anymore.
01:08:05No.
01:08:05Tell me, when you heard Jorge had been arrested.
01:08:08That was a Tuesday night.
01:08:10Larry Haley calls me and says, he's been arrested.
01:08:14I was like, wow.
01:08:15It was pretty amazing.
01:08:16I was very excited and relieved.
01:08:19I almost fainted.
01:08:21It was so many years later.
01:08:22We thought it was never going to happen.
01:08:25I couldn't believe it.
01:08:29Jorge Landeros spent the next several months in a Mexican prison waiting to be extradited to the U.S.
01:08:36I think relationships between the Mexican government and the United States had improved in terms of extraditions.
01:08:44And it was in relatively short order that we got him back after that.
01:08:48Must have felt pretty good to take that box off of one of your desk and give it to your
01:08:51prosecutors and say like, yeah.
01:08:52Yes.
01:08:54FBI agents brought Jorge Landeros back to the United States in July 2023 and handed him over to Montgomery County
01:09:03Police.
01:09:04We're going to leave these on.
01:09:05We're going to take that off.
01:09:06We're just going to wait for some other detectives.
01:09:08Okay.
01:09:09So we're going to get you some water.
01:09:11That's nice.
01:09:12As Jorge Landeros waited to be questioned, he had some questions for them.
01:09:17Where's the camera?
01:09:19I think it is.
01:09:20Because I've seen any movies and there's no cameras, people get tortured by federal agents.
01:09:25No, nobody's got tortured.
01:09:26You never know?
01:09:28It's audio and video.
01:09:29There's no...
01:09:29Where is it?
01:09:31It's in one of these things.
01:09:33Wow.
01:09:34Yeah, there's no secrets.
01:09:35It's pretty well hidden.
01:09:36Yeah.
01:09:37The agents left him alone for nearly an hour.
01:09:40It turned out this was where interrogation met introspection.
01:09:46Ever the yogi, he meditated silently.
01:09:49Did some stretching.
01:09:51And some strengthening poses.
01:09:54Then in walked the detectives who had been looking for him for so long.
01:10:00Hey, I'm Sergeant Haley.
01:10:02Mr. Haley.
01:10:03Yep, nice to meet you.
01:10:04Nice to meet you, too.
01:10:04This is Detective Haley.
01:10:06Hello, sir.
01:10:07How are you?
01:10:08Fine, are you?
01:10:08What's it like to finally see Jorge Landeros in person after all those years?
01:10:13We've been waiting a long time.
01:10:14How are you?
01:10:15Good, thank you.
01:10:16Good, I'm sorry to meet you under the circumstances.
01:10:18Whatever it could be.
01:10:20Nothing else.
01:10:20Well, we've, uh...
01:10:23It's been a long time.
01:10:24They were off to a friendly start.
01:10:27So, I'm going to read you in advice of rights form, okay?
01:10:30Most definitely.
01:10:31How would you describe your physical condition right now?
01:10:34It's perfect.
01:10:35Perfect.
01:10:35I saw you doing some yoga in here when I came in.
01:10:37You were doing stuff I don't think I could do, so...
01:10:39Uh, okay, so you have the right now and at any time to remain silent.
01:10:43Do you understand that?
01:10:44Yes, I do.
01:10:45Okay.
01:10:46Anything you say may be used against you.
01:10:49Ah, yeah.
01:10:49Do you understand that?
01:10:50May and will be used.
01:10:52I really didn't expect him to talk to me, you know, about the case, but we, of course,
01:10:56have to give it a try.
01:10:57So, now would be the time I'd like to talk to you.
01:11:00Um, so...
01:11:02So, to give me my rights?
01:11:03Yes.
01:11:03Which means that I can affirm them right now.
01:11:06Right?
01:11:07Sure.
01:11:07So, I affirm my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
01:11:12Okay.
01:11:13And my Sixth Amendment right to have counseled president.
01:11:16Okay.
01:11:17Jorge wouldn't answer their questions without a lawyer, but that did not stop him from offering
01:11:22his own observations about how the detectives were doing their job.
01:11:27Well, you guys seem so polite that it is disarming.
01:11:30It is really beautiful.
01:11:32So, I want to protect myself against your, uh, your charm.
01:11:35My charms.
01:11:36Yes.
01:11:36Interesting that in that interview, Mr. Landeros, a man who charmed a woman out of essentially
01:11:42her life savings, accuses you of trying to charm him.
01:11:46It was interesting because I had been waiting a long time to talk to him.
01:11:50I said, I'm really not trying to do that.
01:11:53I was like, no, no.
01:11:54You're the charming one here, not us.
01:11:55You guys don't look or talk like, uh, heart-nosed detectives, you know, Philip Marlowe types.
01:12:01Well, I'll be honest with you.
01:12:02What good does it do to me to sit and yell and scream at you?
01:12:05It just puts you on the defensive.
01:12:06You know what I mean?
01:12:07And...
01:12:07Yeah, but this is actually, uh, more insidious.
01:12:10Your method?
01:12:11Um, I'm not trying to be insidious.
01:12:12Oh, nice.
01:12:13No.
01:12:13I've just been waiting to talk to you for a long time.
01:12:15That's all.
01:12:16Oh, that's nuts.
01:12:16To be honest.
01:12:18Okay.
01:12:18Um, um, not black boys.
01:12:23And with that, the interview was over.
01:12:26Take care.
01:12:27Welcome back.
01:12:28Thank you very much.
01:12:30Jorge Landeros would tell his side of the story through his lawyers and in a courtroom.
01:12:37As to count one murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant.
01:12:41I was sick.
01:12:42I just felt he's going to walk.
01:12:46Couldn't breathe.
01:12:48Couldn't even breathe.
01:13:03Jorge Landeros was charged with first degree murder, which means premeditation.
01:13:08It carries a life sentence.
01:13:12It was October, 2025, 15 years after Sue Markham was killed, when the trial began in Maryland.
01:13:20You went every single day?
01:13:21I went every single day.
01:13:23Because of her?
01:13:24Because of her.
01:13:26And you just wanted, you wanted to stare him down.
01:13:29Sue's brother, Alan, came from California.
01:13:32I remember each day as he walked into court, and I did not want to look him in the eye
01:13:39because I didn't want him to see what I had in my head and in my heart.
01:13:46The state said Jorge Landeros was a master manipulator who exploited Sue's affection to the tune of $300,000.
01:13:56Those emails were evidence of Sue's stress as her savings evaporated.
01:14:03Prosecutors Debbie Feinstein and Ryan Wexler.
01:14:06He would minimize her anxiety around the financials, and we see in her email saying, you know, you aren't answering
01:14:13me.
01:14:13You aren't responding to this.
01:14:15And he made it seem like a game in some ways, and this was her life.
01:14:21But she's only expressing those worries to him as far as we can tell.
01:14:25No one else knew.
01:14:27And he would push back and tell her to be freer and knew kind of the buzzwords and what to
01:14:32say that would keep her entangled.
01:14:35Was the motive ultimately that life insurance policy?
01:14:38It's hard to say.
01:14:40The state's theory of Sue's final night was that Jorge came over, was somehow triggered, and exploded into violence.
01:14:49Did he go there to kill Sue Markham that night?
01:14:52We don't have any evidence that tells us that he did.
01:14:54We also don't have any evidence that tells us that he didn't.
01:14:58But the fact that they were having a drink together suggests that there was some sort of friendly something happening
01:15:06at some point during that night.
01:15:07And she either, what, wants her money back or says, I'm not giving you any more money.
01:15:12So what, she snaps at him.
01:15:14She yells at him.
01:15:15She says, I'm going to tell someone in authority about you.
01:15:19Maybe.
01:15:19Part of our theory was, when this argument started, at some point, he touched her physically.
01:15:27Either he hit her or he threatened her or something and then went too far to come back from.
01:15:34And he finished the job.
01:15:36They argued Jorge then staged the break-in and dropped Sue's jeep in downtown D.C., hoping a car thief
01:15:44would steal it.
01:15:46Was that little piece of metal from the Ray-Ban sunglasses part of that misdirection?
01:15:51Maybe.
01:15:52It does fit the theory that Landeros was trying to throw police off his scent.
01:15:58I think he believed that he had staged a perfect burglary.
01:16:02I don't think that he thought that his DNA was going to be found on anything.
01:16:06And he just thought he was smarter.
01:16:11Now the defense stepped up with a completely different narrative.
01:16:15Mr. Landeros is an innocent man who's been accused of a crime that he just did not commit.
01:16:21Jorge Landeros was represented by public defenders Megan Brennan and Tatiana David.
01:16:27They insisted their client was no manipulator and that he did not swindle Sue.
01:16:33They said she was too smart for that and that she and Jorge lost money in the market at a
01:16:40time when a lot of investments went bad.
01:16:42The evidence does not support the notion that Mr. Landeros ever stole Ms. Markham's money.
01:16:48They lost money during the second greatest financial crisis that this country has experienced, like so many other Americans.
01:16:56They reminded the jury Landeros was never charged with any financial crime.
01:17:02And they said this was not about Sue's life insurance policy, the one listing Jorge as the beneficiary.
01:17:09His attorneys say he never even attempted to claim it.
01:17:14And Jorge's DNA?
01:17:16No surprise to them that it was in Sue's home and even on Sue's body.
01:17:22These two were friends.
01:17:23They had been romantic at times.
01:17:26They had a longstanding friendship.
01:17:27So we embrace the notion that Mr. Landeros' DNA would be in this home.
01:17:34And while prosecutors argued Jorge's DNA on Sue's fingernails was evidence of a struggle, the defense disagreed.
01:17:43If you scratch yourself and there's DNA from a hug, a kiss, it transfers.
01:17:49DNA is incredibly transferable.
01:17:51The defense also asked why no trace of their client's DNA was ever found in Sue Markham's Jeep.
01:17:58Mr. Landeros' fingerprints were nowhere in that Jeep.
01:18:03Mr. Landeros' DNA is nowhere in that Jeep.
01:18:06The only person's DNA that they could identify or the profile that they could identify belonged to D'Andrew Hamlin.
01:18:13D'Andrew Hamlin, the man found driving Sue's Jeep hours after her body was discovered.
01:18:19The defense offered him as an alternate suspect.
01:18:23They also wanted to talk about the burglars menacing Sue's neighborhood.
01:18:27Within the three months of the burglary of Ms. Markham's home, there were approximately 60 burglaries within a five-mile
01:18:36radius of her home.
01:18:38Except the judge ruled those burglaries could not be mentioned to the jury.
01:18:44Which inhibited us from putting on a very viable defense.
01:18:52The jury took only about five hours to reach a verdict.
01:18:55The audio recorded in court.
01:18:58As to count one murder in the first degree, we, the jury, find the defendant.
01:19:03Not guilty.
01:19:04Not guilty of first-degree murder.
01:19:08And you thought...
01:19:09I was sick.
01:19:10I just felt he's going to walk.
01:19:14Couldn't breathe.
01:19:16Couldn't even breathe.
01:19:18However, the jury had the option to consider a lesser charge of second-degree murder.
01:19:24Intentional, but not planned.
01:19:26As to murder in the second degree, we, the jury, find the defendant.
01:19:29Guilty.
01:19:31Guilty of second-degree murder.
01:19:35I started to cry.
01:19:36Oh, thank goodness.
01:19:37Just the relief that they would hold this person accountable.
01:19:41I believe he committed first-degree murder.
01:19:44And I fully understand why the jury found not guilty for first-degree murder and guilty
01:19:50for second-degree murder.
01:19:52And I'm at peace with that.
01:19:53It was done.
01:19:55I've watched Dateline.
01:19:57People say, when the right verdict comes in, it was a good day.
01:20:01And I would sit there watching the show and I'd say, how is it a good day?
01:20:04They're still gone.
01:20:06But that day, I said, it's a good day.
01:20:09We will maintain, we do maintain, we have always maintained, that Mr. Landeros is wrongfully convicted.
01:20:16At sentencing, the judge said Jorge Landeros was Sue's Achilles' heel and called her murder a heinous act.
01:20:24Then the judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
01:20:29Landeros is now 56 years old.
01:20:31He'll be almost 70 before he is eligible for parole.
01:20:37Rocio, who once saw a future with Jorge, only found out about Sue Markham's murder after he was arrested.
01:20:44She reached out to investigators and shared her story.
01:20:49What's the message here to other women, do you think?
01:20:52I think it's important to know that this can happen to anyone.
01:20:59And I think we have to be careful.
01:21:03Anyone could be manipulated.
01:21:07And so I think the lesson is, if somebody shows you who they are, and it's not a good thing,
01:21:16walk away.
01:21:16If somebody shows you who they are, believe them.
01:21:21Absolutely.
01:21:23Sue Markham, a woman with a huge heart, who cared about everyone.
01:21:28Maybe too much.
01:21:30Maybe too easily.
01:21:32You hate that she's going to be remembered this way.
01:21:35Absolutely.
01:21:35I want people to know that she was funny, that she was smart, she was spontaneous in a good kind
01:21:41of way.
01:21:42It was just a, it was a great friendship to have.
01:21:44And it's horrible that she's not here anymore for other people to experience.
01:21:49I want her to be remembered as someone who loved life and loved family, who gave a lot of herself
01:21:56to the world.
01:21:59You think about her a lot?
01:22:00Yes.
01:22:02All the time.
01:22:03We live Sue, you know, because we don't want to forget her.
01:22:12That's all for this edition of Dateline.
01:22:15And don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast, which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode.
01:22:21Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
01:22:26We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central.
01:22:30I'm Lester Holt.
01:22:31For all of us at NBC News, good night.
01:22:38I'm Lester Holt.
Comments