Leslie Ruby was 64 years old and was riding his lawn mower home. He had just mowed the lawn at his daughter and granddaughter’s home on the east side of Des Moines, Iowa. It was September 29, 1997. As he crossed the street, a car hit him and kept going.
Ruby was a retiree, grandfather, and Korean War veteran. Police recovered the vehicle and identified the suspect: 28-year-old Gerardo Garcia-Michel. But he had already fled the state. On January 26, 1998, a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of vehicular homicide. That same year, the program ‘America’s Most Wanted’ devoted an episode to the case. The leads dried up, and the case file sat dormant for decades.
Then, nearly 29 years later, a rerun of that episode reached someone’s screen in New Jersey. That person sent a tip to Crime Stoppers: the man on the show was their neighbor. Detectives tracked him down, and the U.S. Marshals arrested him. Des Moines is now working on his extradition to Iowa.
Ruby’s widow, Patricia, and his daughter Shirley died without learning how the story ended. His granddaughter Shonna, whom he raised as a father figure, says they both would have wanted justice. Garcia-Michel is in custody, but he has not yet been convicted.