Convicted killer faces NM charges

The process to try Sean Lannon on charges that he killed four people in New Mexico in 2021 began last week when New Jersey officials served the convicted killer with an arrest warrant issued by the southwestern state.

Lannon, who is currently in the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County, was served with a warrant related to three of the four New Mexico killings, according to court documents.

Lannon, 48, of Grants, New Mexico, pleaded guilty last year to a first-degree murder charge in the 2021 killing of Michael Dabkowski, his childhood mentor, in New Jersey. Under a plea deal, he was sentenced last month to 35 years in prison.

Now, prosecutors in New Mexico want to bring him back to the state to try him on crimes he allegedly committed there before traveling to New Jersey and killing 66-year-old Dabkowski.

Lannon allegedly shot his estranged wife, Jennifer, to death in their Grants home in January 2021. He is also accused of luring two acquaintances, Jesten Mata and Matthew Miller, to his residence on separate dates and killing them.

Lannon and his wife met in South Jersey and moved to New Mexico with their children several years ago for a job.

New Mexico officials began the process of attempting to bring Lannon to their state for trial by sending a notice to the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

"A wanted persons notice was lodged by New Mexico for Sean Lannon, who is currently in 10-day quarantine at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility," state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Amy Z. Quinn said in a statement Thursday.

Lannon is in quarantine as a COVID-19 precaution, Quinn said.

"Once that quarantine period is complete, he will move to his housing assignment and the extradition process can begin," she said.

No extradition request to move Lannon to New Mexico has been filed yet, Quinn confirmed.

The arrest warrant was issued by New Mexico officials handling the three alleged homicides in Grants.

Lannon allegedly stored the bodies of his estranged wife, Mata and Miller in crates, which he later moved 80 miles away to Albuquerque, where he is accused of killing a fourth victim, Randall Apostalon.

Police allegedly found all four bodies in Apostalon's pickup truck at an Albuquerque airport in March 2021, then learned Lannon had flown out to the East Coast with his three children a day earlier.

He left the kids with family members in New Jersey before heading off on a trip that took him to Dabkowski's doorstep in East Greenwich Township on March 8, authorities said.

Dabkowski met Lannon and his twin brother in the 1980s through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Lannon claimed after his arrest that Dabkowski molested him as a child and he went to the house to retrieve photos of the abuse, authorities said. No evidence was ever presented in court to support Lannon's claims.

Lannon is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and six counts of tampering with evidence in the Grants killings. Charges of kidnapping to commit murder that were originally filed in the Mata and Miller cases in 2021 were not included in an amended complaint filed in November of last year.

A separate district attorney's office is handling the Albuquerque case, where Lannon is charged with first-degree murder and evidence tampering in Apostalon's death.

The process to extradite Lannon from New Jersey to New Mexico could take at least 45 days once the request is filed, Quinn said.

Jessica Martinez, spokeswoman for the New Mexico district attorney's office handling the Grants cases, confirmed Thursday that officials are working with their counterparts in Albuquerque on the next steps in the process to extradite Lannon to New Mexico.

Exactly where Lannon will ultimately end up serving his New Jersey sentence and any sentences he receives if convicted in the New Mexico cases remains unclear.

Lannon admitted to all five killings following his arrest on March 10, 2021, in St. Louis, according to investigators.

He described motives for each killing, though, as with the Dabkowski case, no evidence has been presented publicly to support his allegations related to the victims he allegedly killed in New Mexico.