Man Arrested For Murder Of Elderly Hawaiian Man Found In Concrete-Filled Bathtub

A suspect wanted in the murder of an elderly Hawaiian man found encased in concrete in his bathtub this week was captured on a bus bound for Mexico.

Juan Tejedor Baron, 23, was  arrested by Los Angeles police officers and U.S. Marshals on Wednesday afternoon. 

Baron, 23, was found hiding in a crawl space under an enclosed bench at the back of a Greyhound bus in Anaheim, California that was bound for Mexico around 4:15 p.m.

“Baron had pulled back a metal plate near the bus’s rear bathroom and crawled under the enclosed bench seat,” the Honolulu Police Department said in a statement on March 9.

Scott Hannon, 34, was also initially arrested in the case, but was released after authorities determined he wasn't involved in the murder.

Baron was booked into the Los Angeles Police Department’s Metropolitan Detention Center. Officials said charges in the case are currently pending.

Baron was wanted in the slaying of an 73-year-old man, later identified as Gary Ruby, whose body was discovered in a makeshift concrete tomb in his home in the upscale gated community of Hawaii Loa Ridge on March 8. 

Police had responded to Ruby's Honolulu home for a welfare check on the morning of March 7. There, officers were unable to find the man but encountered Baron, who claimed he lived at the house and was in a relationship with the victim. He allowed investigators to look around the home, police said, which is when they noticed "a bathroom tub filled with a concrete-type substance."

Investigators say Baron was seen leaving the property with Hannon.

Homicide investigators who returned to the home on March 8, which is when they began chipping away at the concrete and could smell decomposition, HPD Lt. Deena Thoemmes told reporters according to NBC News.

The man’s own bathtub had allegedly been fashioned into a makeshift concrete tomb containing his remains. 

“A body believed to be that of the victim, was recovered from the bathroom tub,” the police statement added.

Thoemmes told reporters that the person who had requested the welfare check hadn't heard from Ruby since the beginning of February and thought he might be traveling.

Baron managed to briefly elude authorities: Prior to his capture, he had last been spotted near a Hilton hotel in Waikiki’s Hawaiian Village at 1 a.m. on March 8.

An autopsy on Ruby has been completed but results are pending, according to the Honolulu Department of the Medical Examiner, and the elderly man’s cause and manner of death isn’t yet available, a spokesperson for the city agency said on Thursday.

“There is nothing to release at this time,” medicolegal death investigator Charlotte Carter told Oxygen.com.

Carter estimated official autopsy results could take up to four to six months.

Baron is being held at a Los Angeles County detention facility, according to online jail records. It’s unclear when he'll be extradited to Hawaii to face possible charges in the homicide case. Attorney information wasn’t available for him on Thursday afternoon.

The Honolulu Police Department declined Oxygen.com’s request for comment on the open case this week.

Anyone with additional information regarding the ongoing investigation are urged to contact CrimeStoppers Honolulu at 8080-955-8300.