The suspect, Sean Lannon, is charged with beating Michael Dabkowski to death with a hammer at the victim’s home in East Greenwich Township, New Jersey, along with robbery and burglary. Lannon was arrested as a fugitive in Missouri earlier this month.
Gloucester County district attorney Alec Gutierrez told the court during a probable hearing that during questioning by police, after reading his rights, Lannon admitted to murdering Dabkowski, as well as 15 people in New Mexico, including his estranged wife Jennifer.
“In this Mirandized statement, the defendant admitted that there would be cases of murder in New Mexico in New Mexico,” Gutierrez said. He admitted that some of the people involved in those murders had been hacked to pieces. He admitted that he had tried to hide evidence, I’ll say it, in those murders.
Albuquerque police previously acknowledged that it would interrogate Lannon in connection with four dismembered bodies found in the airport’s grounds on March 5 – one of them was Jennifer Lannon – but no charges have been filed in that case.
On Friday night, police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told CNN, “The Albuquerque police are focused on their investigation into the death of Randal Apostalon, who is believed to have been murdered in Albuquerque. Conducting additional interviews and warrants.”
Police in Lannon’s hometown of Grants, New Mexico, are investigating the deaths of the three other known victims, but have not filed a report.
Lannon attended Friday’s hearing remotely but did not testify and was not asked to file a plea.
His public defender, Frank Unger, objected to the inclusion of information about the New Mexico confessions in the hearing, but did not dispute that Lannon made the statements. Unger argued there could be a self-defense claim in Dabowski’s murder in New Jersey, as Lannon told police he had been a victim of Dabkowski’s sexual abuse for years. Lannon said the hammer used to kill Dabkowski belonged to the victim, and Dabkowski was the first to attack.
Judge Mary Beth Kramer said the nature of Lannon’s charges and the fact that he was detained as a fugitive posed a serious flight risk. “I sense that he is a danger to the community,” said Kramer, ordering Lannon to be held without bail.