A man convicted of killing his childhood mentor in New Jersey and accused of killing four more people in New Mexico has pleaded guilty in one of his cases out West.
Plea agreements are in the works on the other cases, New Mexico officials confirmed Friday.
Sean M. Lannon, 50, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the 2021 killing of Michael Dabkowski in Gloucester County, was transferred to New Mexico last year to face charges that he killed his wife and three men in that state.
Lannon entered a guilty plea to a second-degree murder count on Thursday in the killing of 60-year-old Albuquerque resident Randall Apostalon.
As a result of that plea, Lannon was automatically sentenced to 15 years in prison on the charge, an official with the district attorney’s office handling the case explained.
Lannon, who moved with his wife, Jennifer, and three kids from New Jersey to New Mexico several years ago for work, was accused of killing the 39-year-old woman in the rented home they shared in the town of Grants in 2021.
He then allegedly lured two acquaintances, Jesten Mata, 40, and Matthew Miller, 21, to the home on separate days and killed them, authorities have said. Lannon stowed all three bodies in plastic totes, which he later moved 80 miles east to Albuquerque, prosecutors said.
Apostalon had agreed to move the totes to a storage facility using his pickup truck, according to court documents, but the pair feuded when they couldn’t find a spot for the containers. Lannon allegedly beat the man to death in late February 2021.
In March of that year, police found Apostalon’s truck parked at the Albuquerque International Sunport airport. Apostalon’s body was in the passenger’s seat covered with a tarp and the remains of the Grants victims were in the back, still in the totes, officials said.
Investigators then learned that Lannon had flown from the airport to Philadelphia a day earlier with his children. He left the kids with family in South Jersey and later stopped at Dabkowski’s home in East Greenwich.
Lannon admitted beating Dabkowski to death, before stealing his vehicle. He was arrested March 10, 2021, in St. Louis.
Lannon allegedly confessed to all five killings.
Dabkowski mentored Lannon and his brother through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program in the 1980s and Lannon claimed the man molested him as a child. He told investigators he had gone to Dabkowski’s home to recover photographs of the abuse, but no evidence of the photos was ever presented in court.
As for his remaining charges in the three Grants killings, an official with the district attorney’s office handling that case said Friday that a plea agreement had been negotiated. Since a hearing has not been held on that plea, the official could not divulge details of the agreement, she said.
The state has filed a request for a hearing, but a date had not been scheduled as of late Friday afternoon, a court official confirmed.
Lannon remained jailed in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque as of Friday.
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Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
