A 23-year-old man killed his 73-year-old lover, tried to make it look like a suicide, poured cement over his body in a bathtub, and planned to fraudulently take ownership of his car and home in one of Hawaii’s most exclusive gated communities, police said in court documents filed on Thursday.
Juan Tejedor Baron is charged with murder, theft and identity theft in the death of Gary Ruby, whose decomposing body was excavated by authorities earlier this week from a standalone soaking tub in Ruby’s Hawaii Loa Ridge home.
US Marshals and Los Angeles police arrested Baron after finding him in a crawl space at the back of a Mexico-bound bus in Anaheim, California. He was being held without bail pending extradition to Honolulu and it was not clear if has an attorney.
According to a Honolulu police affidavit, Baron told a Los Angeles police detective that he became angry with Ruby after sex.
“Baron stated that soon after, he noticed Gary choked on food, and Baron reacted by placing a belt around Gary’s neck and tightening the belt until Gary lost consciousness,” the affidavit said.
He then dragged Ruby to a bathtub and used a kitchen knife to stage a suicide, then filled the tub with concrete he found in the garage, the affidavit said, but that only partially covered the body.
So Baron drove to a home improvement store and purchased four additional bags of concrete to fill the tub, the affidavit said, and “he used coffee grounds to cover the cement in an effort to conceal the smell of decomposition.”
Honolulu police said they got a call on Monday from Ruby’s brother, who had not heard from him in three weeks. Ruby’s last e-mail to his brother mentioned he had “met a new love interest named Juan” who was significantly younger.
Two officers went to the house, where Baron told them he bought the home from Ruby five years ago and then changed his story to say he bought it two years ago after police told him Ruby bought it in 2020, the affidavit said. Baron claimed to have the deed to the house.
The operations manager for the gated community told police that on Monday, Baron arrived at the main office to register as the new owner of Ruby’s house, the affidavit said, and that the manager received an e-mail from Ruby’s documented e-mail address with the deed paperwork, but no notary or signature on it.
On Tuesday, police, a medical examiner investigator and a forensic pathologist entered the home and found the cement-and-coffee-covered tub in the master bathroom with Ruby’s body at the bottom of the tub.
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