Juan Baron, left, pleaded guilty to murdering his boyfriend, Gary Ruby, in March 2022, at Ruby’s home in Honolulu. After killing him, Baron covered Ruby’s body with concrete in a bathtub. (Baron: Honolulu Police; Ruby: Obituary)
A 25-year-old man pleaded guilty to murdering his 73-year-old boyfriend and covering the body in a bathtub with concrete at a multimillion dollar Hawaii home.
Prosecutors are recommending that Juan Tejedor Baron receive a 20-year prison sentence for killing his lover, Gary Ruby, in March 2022. Baron on Monday entered a guilty plea for second-degree murder, first-degree theft and identity theft. Sentencing is scheduled for July 3.
Ruby’s brother called Honolulu police on March 7, 2022, to say he hadn’t heard from Ruby in about three weeks. The brother said Gary Ruby had mentioned he had started dating a man much younger than him. Cops went to the home in the exclusive Hawaii Loa Ridge subdivision and found Baron outside, a probable cause arrest affidavit said. He claimed he had bought the house from Ruby five years ago, but property records said Ruby had actually bought the home in 2020. Cops also saw Baron driving a 2020 Audi, for which records showed Ruby transferred ownership to Baron a month before the murder.
The next day police entered the home and went inside the master bathroom where they saw a concrete-filled bathtub with coffee grounds on top. As investigators began to dig through the coffee grounds, they noticed several insects.
Cops removed the concrete to find Ruby’s body at the bottom of the tub. The manner of death was determined to be homicide. Authorities on March 9, 2022, arrested Baron in Anaheim, California, hiding in a crawl space of a bus heading to Mexico.
In an interview with detectives, Baron allegedly said he became angry with Ruby when he told him he was HIV positive. Soon after, he saw Ruby choking on food and instead of helping him he placed a belt around Ruby’s neck and strangled him, the affidavit said. He then dragged Ruby to the bathroom and slit his wrists in order to make it look like a suicide, according to the affidavit. Baron found two bags of concrete and partially covered Ruby’s body. Then, Baron drove to Lowe’s to buy four more bags of concrete to fully cover the body.
Baron put the coffee grounds on top to conceal the smell of decomposition, according to the affidavit. He later said the true motive for the murder was so he could fraudulently obtain Ruby’s 2020 Audi valued at $63,000 and his home which Ruby bought for $2.2 million.
Despite the confession and the physical evidence the case was not without drama. Baron’s attorney, Myles Breiner, filed a motion to dismiss the case where he accused prosecutors of misconduct after a deputy prosecutor on the case shared crime scene photos during public seminars about elder abuse, according to Hawaii News Now. The deputy prosecutor was fired. As part of the plea agreement, the defense agreed to drop the prosecutorial misconduct motion.
Baron has overstayed his Visa and will be deported to his native Columbia following his release from prison.
Ruby was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, and moved to Hawaii after earning his law degree. He worked as a regulation analyst at Hawaii’s Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, according to his obituary.
At Ruby’s funeral, loved ones remembered him as a man who “cared about the deeper things in life,” his brother Lorne Ruby said, according to local ABC affiliate KITV. He also never forgot the special occasions for those he loved.
“Whether we’re talking birthdays, anniversaries, you name it. Gary remembered, and Gary celebrated it,” his brother said.
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