00:00:00
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences.
00:00:06
Listener discretion is advised. That they had a big fight, and Jen left with a guy.
00:00:20
2026 has been a weird year, hasn't it? And it's barely begun. Man. When everyone looks at something and half the population sees one thing and the other half sees something completely different, we're cooked.
00:00:40
We are done. Stick a fork in it. This is Season 13, Episode 341, by the way, and it's all about trying to figure out what's right when nothing is.
00:01:16
You know, kind of like 2026. Starting a business sounds exciting until you actually do it.
00:01:32
Then suddenly you're the product guy, the website guy, the shipping department, the marketing department, customer service, all of it.
00:01:39
And if you're anything like me when I started, you're thinking, am I doing this right?
00:01:44
Is anyone going to actually care? That's where Shopify makes a lot of sense. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world,
00:01:54
including 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. They give you hundreds of ready-to-use templates
00:01:59
so you can build a clean, professional online store that actually looks like your brand.
00:02:04
And once you're up and running, Shopify has tools for inventory, payments, analytics, returns,
00:02:10
and international shipping all in one place. They even have AI tools to help you write product descriptions, improve page headlines, and enhance product photography.
00:02:21
Plus, easy email and social media campaigns to help customers actually find you.
00:02:26
It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 a month trial today at shopify.com slash swordandscale.
00:02:38
Go to shopify.com slash swordandscale. That's shopify.com slash sword and scale.
00:02:47
Cha-ching. It was March 8th, 2021 in the small community of Mickelton, New Jersey.
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Police cars swarmed the neighborhood. Flashes of blue light started across the living room windows.
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The quiet street was swallowed by chaos. I look out the window and there were a bunch of police officers right out here.
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And we had to come out and see what the commotion was about. And it wasn't good.
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It wasn't good. In a community with crime rates well below the national average,
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no one expected a violent crime, let alone the murder of a senior citizen. This rare crime would go down as the only murder in the community for years.
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Never issues like this, never seen anything like this. Everybody kind of keeps themselves, the neighborhood's really nice people.
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Everybody, it's just, it's a shock when something like this happens. 66-year-old Michael Debkowski was found murdered in his laundry room.
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He was bludgeoned in the head, his face masked in a sweatshirt. The only thing missing from the home was his car.
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I was really shocked. I was really upset to find out who it was. Mike was a real good guy.
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He was the type of guy that would help you out if you need a hand, if you see you out in the yard working.
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Always wee when you go by. Always had a kind thing to say to you. Never seen him mad.
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Just a total shock that it happened to him. Mike never married. Instead, he spent his time away from work as an engineering
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consultant, volunteering in the community. He was active in his church, taught religious education, and was a member of the Catholic fraternal organization
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Knights of Columbus. He was even a big brother of America, mentoring youth. It's a terrible way for anybody to go. You know, you're in your own home and, you know, to be cut
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down like that by yourself alone. I just hope it doesn't happen again around here. That was
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horrible to see. It all started with a call from a woman named Carol. She spoke with Mike multiple
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times a day, every day. That afternoon at about 1 p.m., she was talking to Mike when his demeanor
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suddenly changed. He ended the call saying he would call her back. She was left on the other
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end of the phone, wondering what was going on. When she never heard back from him, and was only
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getting to his voicemail, she called police. The police conducted a welfare check at his residence,
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85 Myrtle Avenue. There was no response when they knocked on the door. They walked around the house
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looking through the windows for any sign of Mike. Finally, they managed to lift the garage door a few
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inches That when they noticed his car was gone They ran the plates through the system and they found out that the license plate was scanned by an automated plate reader in Camden New Jersey Carol told police that Mike would only ever visit his brother but that he would take a train
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As far as she knew, he didn't have any trips planned. The police decided to go into the home.
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They lifted the garage door just enough for an officer to crawl underneath. Once in the garage, he immediately noticed the interior door had signs of forced entry.
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On the other side of the door was the laundry room, and on the floor was Mike in a pool of blood.
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Mike put up a fight, though. The struggle that ended in his death had started in the kitchen, went through the living room, and ended up in the laundry room.
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When police told Carol about Mike's death, her first question was whether Sean Lannan had murdered him.
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Breaking news, the search for a person of interest in a South Jersey murder. We have a scary situation here in Gloucester County.
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Well, it could be. This guy could be anywhere at this point. Police are looking for.
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Sean Lannan is wanted in connection with yesterday's homicide in East Greenwich Township.
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Investigators say he's considered absolutely armed and dangerous. Yeah, this is a national manhunt right now.
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There's a stolen car from South Jersey that he may be using, a blue Honda CRV with jersey plates.
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Also, they think he was spotted at the Walter Ranch Transportation Center, which will likely send off alarm bells all over the Philly area,
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because that is the bus station right next to the Ben Franklin Bridge. You can take a bus into Philly in five minutes.
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You can take the river line up and down the river, or you can take the Patco High Speed Line to Locust Street if you wanted.
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The manhunt for Sean Lannan was nationwide, but he was from New Jersey. He grew up there.
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He went to high school and ran track. Nobody thought his name would be in the news for anything like this, though.
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But the reason Carol suspected Sean was that Mike had been in Sean's life since he was a child.
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Sean didn't have a father growing up, so his mother, Lynn, enrolled him in the Big Brother program.
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Mike became his big brother and father figure. His father was a career criminal. I married him in 1970.
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I was a couple years in. I knew I didn't wish to be married to him anymore. She explained life was so hard when Sean was young, and over time she came to rely on Mike, too.
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Because I was a single parent, da-da-da-da-da. And I worked. So I counted on Mike to kind of pick up the slack.
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We were poor. We were just poor. Single women are just poor. It's just part of the end.
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So I know Mike was good to him in terms of, you know, possessions. because I couldn't.
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I couldn't. And it was hard. And I was grateful for Mike that the kids could have clothes that, you know,
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otherwise we were chopped in goodwill. Mike became a lifelong fixture in Sean's life,
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following him into adulthood and even marriage. His in-laws even knew the man everyone called Uncle Mike.
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We knew Uncle Mike. Uncle Mike was at plenty of birthday parties and dinners at the house.
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He was a big brother that stayed in his life. He was his father. He was. Family friend. That was like a father figure to him.
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I couldn't remember his name. I was just like, oh, Uncle Mike. Uncle Mike. Everyone who knew Uncle Mike knew him as an upstanding citizen
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and a great man who devoted himself to others rather than selfish pursuits. But years after his big brother mentorship,
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when Sean grew up, he started sharing his childhood trauma with his wife. I knew Jen had said that he was molested when he was a kid.
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They never said Uncle Mike. He never showed any dislike of Uncle Mike. Uncle Mike was always wonderful.
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My sister told me at one point, I didn't know it was him, that Sean had been molested as a kid,
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had a rough childhood, but I did not know it was him. I didn't connect the dots there.
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But everything seemed normal when I met Mike. I didn't see, you know, I knew they were close friends.
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It was a father figure. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary there. While everyone seemed to know about Sean's childhood trauma,
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no one put two and two together. It was too hard to imagine that Mike, the man who gave so much to the Lannan family
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and asked for nothing in return, could be the one who had molested Sean. But there was one person Sean shared more with.
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The longtime nanny to his kids remembers Sean mentioning an old score that needed settling.
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And Mike, I've known for years about Mike. He would never leave his kids alone with Mike.
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So he had mentioned sexual assault that occurred when he was a young boy right before his teens up until,
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I mean, he went off to the army. He had said that was an old story that he needed to settle for life.
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The anger he must have felt. The shame that must have lingered with him for years.
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Two days after the murder on March 10th, the manhunt was over. He was arrested and questioned about his reasons for killing a retired old man.
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The man that molested me as a child, my big brother. Big brothers, big sisters, whatever.
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Yeah, maybe I'm less than two. At 47 years old, something snapped in Sean Lannan.
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He had three young kids. People who knew him say they were his whole world, but somewhere along the line, something in Sean's world shifted.
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He could no longer live with what he claimed Mike Debkowski did to him as a child He had to take control back I wanted the pictures from Mr Michael
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I wanted the pictures back. He didn't want to give me the pictures until I took beating him.
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On March 8th, when Mike saw Sean Lannan walking up to his driveway, he ended the call with Carol because
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he knew it couldn't be good. Mike had been lending Sean money for years, but he never seemed to get back on his feet.
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This time Sean didn't want money. He wanted the sexually explicit photos he claimed Mike took of him as a kid.
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Sean said Mike denied having those photos. So he punched him in the face a few times.
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Could've just given me the fucking pictures. I'm probably gonna fight about it. Sean said after a few stiff punches
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Mike gave him the pictures. But Sean wasn't done. He escalated the situation and the two started to scuffle.
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At 66 years old, Mike wasn't as strong as he used to be and quickly tried to retreat through the living room.
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But Sean pursued. The laundry room connects the rest of the house to the garage.
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Mike was trying to escape. But Sean found a hammer. He struck Mike on the head and he collapsed to the floor.
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with his mission complete sean locked the house and left planning to steal mike's car but when he
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got outside he realized he didn't have the keys he had to force his way back into the home to get
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the keys off of mike's dead body problem was mike wasn't dead he lay on the floor barely breathing
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sean grabbed a nearby sweatshirt and placed it over his head so he wouldn't get covered in blood
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and swung the hammer a few more times. He expired the moment that I realized I had time to finish it.
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It took his life. I'm not proud of that. I'm not proud of that yet. It's horrible, too.
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No one gave a fuck about me when I was being raped for two and a half years. It doesn't justify it.
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I feel bad. Sean took Mike's life. He called this man uncle since childhood. He expressed remorse, but there was no emotion behind the words.
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What happened to Sean? That after all of these years, he suddenly let all this harbored aggression out?
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He was a nice young man. He ran track. He ran cross-country. He was fun-loving. I didn't know that he had potential sexual molestation in front of his big brother.
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I didn't know that. After his arrest, Sean's mother Lynn said she never knew. She claimed naivety for not seeing it.
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But there was a lot about Sean she didn't know, didn't see, until it was too late.
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Two days earlier, on March 8th, before he was arrested, It wasn't just a national manhunt.
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It was a national concern. Police standing guard tonight at the scene of yesterday's homicide in East Greenwich Township, Gloucester County.
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And at this hour, the search continues for Sean Lannan, not only for this crime, but also in connection with a multiple killing.
00:15:29
Turns out that Lannan is also a person of interest in a quadruple murder in New Mexico.
00:15:39
Starting a business sounds exciting until you actually do it. Then suddenly you're the product guy, the website guy, the shipping department, the marketing department, customer service, all of it.
00:16:15
And if you're anything like me when I started, you're thinking, am I doing this right?
00:16:20
Is anyone going to actually care? That's where Shopify makes a lot of sense. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, including 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S.
00:16:33
They give you hundreds of ready-to-use templates so you can build a clean, professional online store that actually looks like your brand.
00:16:41
And once you're up and running, Shopify has tools for inventory, payments, analytics, returns, and international shipping all in one place.
00:16:49
They even have AI tools to help you write product descriptions, improve page headlines, and enhance product photography.
00:16:57
Plus, easy email and social media campaigns to help customers actually find you.
00:17:02
It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 a month trial today at shopify.com slash sword and scale.
00:17:15
Go to shopify.com slash sword and scale. That's shopify.com slash sword and scale.
00:17:23
Cha-ching. By the time the sun set on March 8th, Michael Debkowski was dead, and the search for Sean Lannan had crossed state lines.
00:17:48
News reports painted a picture of a violent attack, a desperate escape and a suspect now tied to four more murders in New Mexico But the headlines didn explain how Sean got there And when he graduated high school he went into the Army for five years
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He went to Kosovo, which if you know the history of Kosovo, it was a violent mass grave,
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a little village ethnic cleansing. I mean, it was just like a nightmare. But he didn't come back the same young man
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he went over with. I'm sure a lot of soldiers are the same way when they see atrocities.
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They just don't. And I said, Sean, you need some PTSD help. You need some help with this.
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This is too much. Sean was never the same after his tour in Kosovo. Lingering mental scars added to his already damaged mental health.
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It seemed his whole perspective on life had shifted. He divorced his first wife when he came home.
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He told me there could be no God because of what he saw. What he saw in combat took a toll on Sean.
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But it wasn't long before the old Sean started to shine through. It was in McDonald's one day and he met a girl named Liz.
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They were a whole other seven years together. For a short time, Sean seemed content.
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But it wouldn't last. It was while he was with Liz that he met Jennifer Whitman.
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And he met probably about nine years ago. She had been married at that point from her first husband.
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She was an in-home nurse. That's how they met. She was in there working, and that's how they met.
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It wasn't long after Jen started working as an in-home nurse for Sean and Liz that a relationship developed.
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And they were having a secret affair at that point, which eventually came out. She was married to somebody else.
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They had an affair. And then they were just like, you know, star-crossed lovers,
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and everything was like wonderful and everything like that. At that point, she left her first husband.
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They got together. Both Sean and Jen were already married, but that didn't seem to matter.
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Their affair turned into a full-fledged relationship, and then they got married.
00:20:06
She went off for Sean. Did what they did. They got married in March of 2013. None of us were there.
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We found out through Facebook. Their relationship blossomed, and it wasn't long before they welcomed their first child into the world.
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a little girl. About a year later, they had a second little girl. Not long after that, Jen was pregnant
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again, this time with a boy. From the outside, everything was perfect. He had a decent job. He was good at his job.
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He enjoyed his job. He enjoyed being able to provide. He liked that. Sean was a hard worker.
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He was an excellent dad. He loved Jen, and he did anything for Jen. I mean, through the years, they seemed
00:20:52
to be okay. But behind the scenes, the couple was struggling. On some level, she wanted that picture of them
00:21:00
because they grew up in church and everybody wants to be married and have that happy little house
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with the white-picking fence and kids running around. She wanted to put on a facade
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that she was all together and she could maintain that for a while until the need for, you know, drugs took over. Jen started to slip into drug
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addiction. Jen was having some troubles with prescription drugs. She hurt her back before
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she left her first husband and she was on some pain pills for her back. It started slowly at
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first, but then escalated quickly. She lost her nursing license because of her addiction
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and sank deeper into it. Soon there were issues that couldn't be missed, even through the
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facade of the perfect life. And the first time Dyfus was called in New Jersey was because she was violent.
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She was on the drug. She was violent. And she threw like bar chairs at him and the babysitter got mad.
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The babysitter called him. Dyfus, as it's referred to, or DYFS, stands for the Division of Youth and Family Services
00:22:13
in New Jersey. Then we had to have protection plans in place. So was me and Sean on the protection plan.
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And she couldn't be left alone with the kids on Superfest. Jen's addiction only got worse.
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In 2016, she had a heroin overdose. Dyfus took the kids in 2017. I got the call that night.
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Sean says, come home, Mom. You're taking the kids. I got home. There was dyphus in my house.
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And so we had the kids for the next 49 days while she was supposed to be getting herself together.
00:22:54
Sean was getting therapy. And that was their life. A cycle of Jen strung out on opiates, going to rehab, getting out, and eventually relapsing again.
00:23:05
All the while, they were trying to convince DYFS that the kids weren't in danger.
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Sean worked at an oil refinery. putting in a lot of hours. Sometimes he would be gone for weeks at a time,
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leaving the kids with Jen. This led to a lot of calls to DYFS. Needless to say, they weren't convinced.
00:23:28
But in late 2017, Sean got an opportunity within his company. He was offered another job in New Mexico.
00:23:37
They were getting ready to move into New Mexico about three or four years ago, I think it was.
00:23:40
I'm sure they both looked at it as a fresh start in a new state. Shawn moved to New Mexico with the kids and Jen returned to rehab.
00:23:48
You know, she got out of rehab, she came back. He divorces her, he takes her to, you know,
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gyphus and gets her parental rights baby. In a way, she didn't really deserve any parental rights.
00:24:02
They were divorced just by paper. They were still together as a husband and wife.
00:24:08
They never left each other, only the time that Jen was in rehab for three or four months.
00:24:15
So I knew about it. I didn't know why. I think from what I understood, it was that they were going to lose custody of the kids if they stayed married.
00:24:28
So they got a divorce so Sean could hold full custody of the kids and the kids would be safe.
00:24:34
So they wouldn't lose it because Jen was going through her drug problem. Of course, Jen was still there.
00:24:40
She lived in the house with Sean and the kids. She had no rights on paper, but in reality, when Sean wasn't home, she had full responsibility for their three small children.
00:24:51
Taking care of her kids was difficult for Jen. She often chose her addiction over her children.
00:24:58
Then, Sean got sick. stay there a lot of times. I would stay there. Sean was so sick that
00:25:32
he was physically wrecked. Jen wasn't any help. So they had to hire a nanny to help take
00:25:40
care of the kids. Then Sean lost his job because of all the time off. The little money they had started to dwindle
00:25:48
fast. And the problems with Jen got worse. Jen had run off with somebody after he had
00:25:56
an argument that she hit him with a frying pan. and he was bruised up and marked up from that,
00:26:02
and then she ran off with some guy that went to Arizona. That they had a big fight, and Jen left with a guy.
00:26:12
According to Sean, Jen abandoned her family at their lowest point. It's unlike my daughter to go two weeks without calling us.
00:26:20
Then it went up three weeks. It's unlike my daughter not calling us or texting us three weeks.
00:26:26
January, February, we moved forward talking to my parents about finding a missing person report
00:26:31
because Sean wasn't really communicating to my parents as much. He gave us a little information, and all of a sudden, once we started pushing the police,
00:26:40
it seemed like that's where he started talking. Oh, you know, I saw her two weeks ago, or she only comes around for money.
00:26:47
You know, I'll see her soon, and he even said that he saw her in town. And I just kept saying, this guy, something doesn't seem right.
00:26:55
On March 5th, 2021, three days before the murder of Mike Dubkowski and the National Manhunt, in the concrete shadows of an Albuquerque Airport parking garage, a worn down pickup truck waited for someone to find what was inside.
00:27:13
Albuquerque International Sunport, this is James. James, this is Aerospace Defense Officer Martinez with SCIS.
00:27:20
I'm on patrol in the garage. I have a vehicle here on the fourth floor, and within five feet of the vehicle, you could smell some sort of rotten, pungent odor.
00:27:39
On the fourth floor of the airport parking garage was a maroon Ford Ranger, backed into a spot far from all the other cars.
00:27:47
While the truck was suspicious with all the storage bins loaded inside and out, it was the wafts of rot that got the security guard's attention.
00:27:58
The vehicle is filled with multiple tubs, storage containers, plastic storage containers throughout the bed of the vehicle as well as the cab.
00:28:11
All right, well just keep an eye on it and if anything changes, let us know. If anything... Okay, are you going to...
00:28:20
No, I'm not sending an officer because the vehicle stinks. Okay. All right, well, thank you very much.
00:28:28
The truck didn't have any signs of a break-in, and no one was inside. It was just very smelly.
00:28:35
But the guard couldn't let it go. He finished checking the rest of the garage and then took his suspicion to his boss.
00:28:43
His boss couldn't let it go either. calm through this Josh. Hey Josh this is Mark 9-1 down at Landside how are you?
00:28:50
Good how you doing? Good good hey I went up to level four it just looks weird man it is it is
00:28:57
packed full of stuff like tarp down in the back and every seat in the cab is fully loaded including
00:29:04
the pass the driver's seat with like Rubbermaid toads and stuff and there is an odor there and
00:29:11
He said he'd talk to you guys, and I understand that the truck is registered, and, you know, there's really not a whole lot to go on,
00:29:18
but, I mean, it might not be a bad idea to maybe have an officer look at it. It just looks weird, dude.
00:29:23
Eventually, patrol officers were dispatched to the fourth level of the Sunport parking garage.
00:29:29
The bed of the little pickup truck was filled with storage totes, covered with a deflated air mattress.
00:29:36
A broken headboard from a twin bed weighed it all down. The cab of the truck was filled with miscellaneous items. Every surface, even
00:29:45
the driver's seat, was packed with stuff. Boxes of loose clothing were scattered
00:29:50
in the back seat A Thomas the Tank engine toy box was rammed behind the driver seat The passenger seat was piled with stuff and covered by a tarp It was more than just a little strange that someone would park a truck
00:30:06
loaded with personal items at the airport and leave it there. It's not like people usually need to catch a flight in the middle of moving.
00:30:14
And I'm pretty sure that people that live out of their car aren't world travelers.
00:30:19
Yeah, like behind the seat right there, look how there's blood on her shirt. Like those loppers right there.
00:30:26
I can't tell if it's rust on it or, I don't know, like around the blade part. It kind of looks reddish.
00:30:33
Could be rust, but based on what we're looking at, I mean. The patrol officers immediately understood what the security guards were talking about.
00:30:42
This truck reeked of decay. They called a forensic investigator to determine if they were justified in their concerns.
00:30:51
Hi there. Hi there. We have a suspicious situation here. There's a bunch of big cupple workups in the back.
00:30:59
It smells off your dad. I don't know. We kind of pulled one over and it looks like there might be a major body part.
00:31:10
I don't know. Okay, well then, I'm out of here. Just kidding. It was such an outlandish idea that the officer giggled.
00:31:20
Body parts, you say? Don't be silly. Oh, look, it looks like there's a... Oh, there's two right there.
00:31:30
Oh, shit. When officers peeled back one of the tote's lids, they were smacked in the face with the thick stench of decomposition.
00:31:40
Patrol officers led the forensic investigator around the truck, pointing out what looked like blood, hair, and human skin.
00:31:47
The police weren't sure what was going on with that little red truck, but they were going to find out.
00:31:54
The truck was registered to 60-year-old Randall Apostolon, an Albuquerque local.
00:32:01
He had no criminal record. How his truck ended up at the airport was a mystery. The major crime scene team and the office of the medical investigator
00:32:12
methodically documented the contents of each tote. The first tote contained a bloody deflated swimming pool,
00:32:19
but underneath was a male torso. The torso was missing a head, a left arm, and the legs below the knees.
00:32:28
It was covered in tattoos and clothed from the waist down. Whoever dismembered his body was in such a hurry that they cut through the clothes.
00:32:39
In the second tote, they found another torso, covered by a red and white blanket.
00:32:44
It was missing the head, both legs, and a right hand. The blade from a reciprocating saw was lodged into the ribcage.
00:32:53
It had a tattoo on the right shoulder and was clothed from the waist up. In the third tote, they found a single human thigh.
00:33:04
In the fourth tote, they found a fully clothed and fully intact body of a female under a blanket.
00:33:11
Her hair was dyed blonde with streaks of red. She was curled in a fetal position and crammed into a 50-gallon bin.
00:33:20
Each tote added a piece to the story. They found human remains, but also the tools used to dismember them.
00:33:28
They found black gloves and multiple knives covered in blood. In the Thomas the Tank engine-themed toy box,
00:33:36
they found a head, two legs, and strands of hair clinging to a bloody hacksaw. I don't think I have to stress how unsettling it is to find this gruesome scene inside a children's toy chest.
00:33:50
It's downright nightmare-inducing. It was already one of the most disturbing crime scenes in Albuquerque's history.
00:33:58
And then they pulled back the tarp in the front seat. Underneath was the complete body of a man.
00:34:08
he was curled in a fetal position with his knees on the floorboard his arms were pinned under his
00:34:16
body and his head was forced into the seat back there was evidence of severe trauma to the head
00:34:22
and face when they pulled the crumpled body out of the truck they understood why
00:34:27
underneath the body was a blood-covered short-handled sledgehammer it was clear that
00:34:34
the body in the passenger seat was the owner of the truck, Randall. From what officers could tell, he looked like his license photo.
00:34:44
Detectives now had to find out why Randall was dead in his own truck with the dismembered bodies of three others.
00:34:51
They also needed to identify the man caught on airport surveillance cameras parking the truck.
00:34:57
But they started their investigation with the address associated with Randall's license.
00:35:04
What can I help you gentlemen with? He's my brother. Right. You're looking for him?
00:35:10
Yeah. I really don't know where he is, to be honest with you. Okay. All he does is receive his mail here.
00:35:16
Oh, okay. Okay. Where do you think he's living? I truly think he's living out of his vehicle.
00:35:23
I truly believe him. Tell me why you think that. Because he's destitute. He's broke.
00:35:31
Okay. he's scraping for gas to put it in the truck. Randall's brother Mark didn't seem surprised
00:35:38
when police showed up asking about him. Randall was homeless, living out of his truck.
00:35:43
He did random tree trimming to make money. But Mark was adamant that Randall couldn't be responsible
00:35:49
for anything that required a police investigation. What I will do gentlemen is I will give Can I get your name too Sure absolutely I going to write it down because that way and if you want to put your number too I tell you to call these guys You a person of interest in a murder
00:36:07
No, I'm kidding about that. You know, being a police officer is hard. Can you imagine having a conversation with someone all the while knowing that their brother is dead?
00:36:19
but you can't tell them because they haven't been positively identified yet. Just imagine how painful
00:36:27
that would be. But I'll just tell them you're a person of interest and to talk to him.
00:36:33
So I don't know what's going on. And even if you don't hear from him but hear from somebody else
00:36:37
that might know where he is, please call us. Yeah. The police still couldn't divulge that information.
00:36:44
Not until they knew the connection to the other murders. Thankfully, they didn't have to wait long. The Sheriff's Office from Cebola County, New Mexico called
00:36:53
to explain that the descriptions of the dismembered body parts match the descriptions of three missing
00:37:00
persons in their jurisdiction. Police have identified four bodies that were found in a
00:37:05
vehicle at the Sunport on Friday. Three of the victims, 21-year-old Matthew Miller, 40-year-old
00:37:11
Justin Mata, and 39-year-old Jennifer Lannan, had been reported missing out of grants back in
00:37:17
January. Officials are investigating how the fourth victim, 61-year-old Randall Apostolon,
00:37:23
is connected to the other. The heavily tattooed torso was identified as 40-year-old
00:37:28
Justin Mata, last seen by his girlfriend on January 17th. The torso with a single shoulder
00:37:37
tattoo was identified as 21-year-old Matthew Miller, last seen by his grandmother on January
00:37:43
24th. The intact female body was identified as none other than 39-year-old Jennifer
00:37:49
Lannan, Sean's ex-wife. The Cibola Sheriff's Office also told Albuquerque detectives that all
00:37:57
three were tied to drugs and that their main suspect, Sean Lannan, had already likely fled
00:38:03
to New Jersey. Word just in that the multi-state manhunt is now over for a man wanting the connection
00:38:09
with five murders. Minutes ago, we learned that federal marshals captured Sean Lannan in St. Louis, Missouri.
00:38:15
Sean fled New Mexico with his kids on March 4th. The bodies in the truck weren't found until the following day, March 5th.
00:38:24
By March 7th, the local police in New Jersey were already taking the kids from Sean's family.
00:38:31
Sean was on the run in Virginia. He spoke with police that night. They told him they wanted to talk to him and that they had already found the body of his wife.
00:38:42
He agreed to return home, but never did. Instead, he made a beeline for Mike's house.
00:38:49
He arrived on March 8th. By the time Sean was arrested on March 10th, he had already made it all the way to St. Louis in Mike's car.
00:38:58
He was caught sleeping inside. He had some questions to answer. One day I took a walk to Walmart, pushed a double strawler empty to go get groceries.
00:39:11
A half hour into the walk around, I sent out my food cart, turned around, came back, went
00:39:17
in the front door, went down the hallway to get my food cart on my dresser, and I noticed
00:39:23
it was quiet. Me and the kids opened the door, Jim and Justin are in there fucking.
00:39:29
I knew they were we were divorced whenever I was like idiots, fuck the kids, grab them a card
00:39:37
Seeing Jen fucking another man didn't really faze Sean He was just worried about the kids
00:39:43
He didn't see them or hear them So call the kids, nothing Open the door, cross your mind
00:39:49
It's a pile of blankets Behind the blankets are the kids Sean runs to his kids and picks up one of his daughters
00:39:58
his daughter is non-responsive barely breathing he looks at the other two kids neither one
00:40:09
seem to have a pulse i'm flipping out like what the fuck you do justin's putting on his clothes
00:40:15
comes in like done this a hundred times man like they're fine they're fine i'm like gonna find that
00:40:20
reason fuck you do justin they drugged them something in their medicine justin assured
00:40:26
Sean that he and Jen had done this a hundred times. They drugged the kids so they would go to sleep so they could fuck.
00:40:35
Sean was livid. Justin ran out the room, out the house immediately. Jen picked up their son, the youngest.
00:40:42
He showed no signs of pulse or breathing. Their baby was dead. She kisses the kids on the forehead.
00:40:51
All three of them. This is all I see in a minute. She goes to do all of her shit. Jen
00:40:56
believing she was responsible for the death of her kids didn't call for help. She went to the
00:41:02
bedroom and prepared her heroin. Sean, with his medic training from the military, didn't give up
00:41:09
so easily. They said they also blew a heroin smoke in their faces, so they didn't know if Narcan would
00:41:16
work. We looked around the garage and found one. In case you don't know, Narcan is a brand name for
00:41:22
a drug called naloxone. It reverses the effects of opioids. A person overdosing on opiates and
00:41:30
near death can be brought back in seconds with this drug. But Sean only found a single dose.
00:41:38
So in a matter of moments, he grabbed some straws and some duct tape and rigged a dual applicator.
00:41:45
He placed it under the noses of the two kids without a heartbeat. Normally, people who overdosed
00:41:51
snap awake, but with Sean's kids, nothing happened. He was convinced they were beyond saving He placed the barely breathing daughter on the couch so the nanny would see her when she arrived
00:42:05
With the other two kids dead, Sean felt like a failure. He no longer had a reason to live.
00:42:13
I told my scene in a minute. I missed the bedroom. I was already out with the heroin.
00:42:21
It was enough to take her life. so I said really she was breathing. She wasn't going to OD.
00:42:28
Jen had shot up the rest of her heroin in an attempt to end her life but it wasn't enough.
00:42:33
She was breathing and she wasn't going to die. Sean psyched himself up for what he was about to do.
00:42:41
He blamed her over and over for their children's deaths and then... I put the pistol behind her head
00:42:48
and I pulled the trigger. It was fucking level. A couple seconds later, I was positioned on the bed too.
00:42:56
I put the piss on my mouth. My handle up. I just slipped past my teeth and my son cried out.
00:43:07
I was like, what the fuck do I do now? Right before he pulled the trigger and blew his own brains out,
00:43:15
his son woke up and cried out. The kids weren't dead. Sean immediately abandoned his suicide attempt.
00:43:24
Now, the only problem was that he had already shot his wife. I was living on borrowed time at that point, so I need to get my kids somewhere safe.
00:43:35
Back home. Sean knew he would eventually get caught, but he wanted to get his kids to his family so they wouldn't be taken away.
00:43:44
He starts preparing for their trip, but can't shake his anger for Justin. He blames him for the whole situation.
00:43:52
He decides to kill him. He used Jen's phone to text him that everything was fine and to come over.
00:43:59
All the while, still debating Justin Mata. He's responsible for the drugging and doing it to my kids.
00:44:06
It took like a week. I came to the house. We're in the laundry room. Connected to the garage.
00:44:13
That's where I killed him. Just before I killed him. He offered up a trade. His phone had pictures of Shawn Michael standing there naked in my living room.
00:44:27
I don't know what the fuck his name was, William or Matthew Miller, whatever the fuck his name was.
00:44:34
With his fucking dick on my son's shoulders. In an attempt to save his life, Justin offered pictures to Shawn.
00:44:42
The pictures were of his naked son. On one side of his son was Matthew Miller. On the other was a man named Daniel Lemos.
00:44:53
Both had their exposed penises resting on the little boy's shoulders. Sean's childhood trauma must have flooded back at that moment.
00:45:03
He was tempted to let Justin go until he confessed he was the one who took the picture.
00:45:10
flashbacks of Uncle Mike probably flooded his brain along with all the unresolved feelings
00:45:16
of anger and shame then he realized why Justin had the pictures he was selling them
00:45:24
he wanted to know if he could do a shot of heroin for it so I said well if you find any in the vent
00:45:32
so he was looking down in the vent he didn't see it coming and I shot him in the back of the head
00:45:39
It disgusted me. It was gross. Sean now had two murders to clean up. But he wasn't done yet.
00:45:49
Sean wanted to kill the two men in the picture, abusing his son. He tried to lure them to the house one at a time.
00:45:57
Eventually, Matthew Miller showed up alone. I asked him about the thing with my son.
00:46:02
He said that it wasn't his idea. And I was like, you have an erection in the picture.
00:46:06
Like, can you force someone to have an erection in your child? I shot him in the garage, put up the tobacco set, built trigger.
00:46:14
Disgusting. This time, Sean planned ahead and lined the garage floor with tarps and whatever he could find so there wouldn't be much to clean up.
00:46:22
But Matthew's body missed. The fat kid felt kind of weird. It's like my hand was, I guess, in part of his brain and picked up by his head,
00:46:31
his hair, and kind of wiggled the back one so I had to contain it. You know, it was disgusting.
00:46:37
Sean was running out of time. Ever since he lost his job, he'd been living off of unemployment.
00:46:44
But with Jen's, let's say, spending habits, they were getting kicked out of the house.
00:46:50
The water and the electricity had already been shut off. He didn't have time to get to his next target.
00:46:56
I had been trying to get Daniel Lemos to the house for weeks. He just wasn't that stupid.
00:47:03
His original idea when he started dismembering Justin and Matthew was that maybe he could get away with it.
00:47:11
Maybe he could cut them up small enough that he could get rid of the pieces discreetly.
00:47:16
But after he started, he found out how hard it was and also how utterly disgusting.
00:47:23
He tried using a reciprocating saw to cut through Matthew's torso. but rather than cut through the bone, it got stuck and started violently shaking the corpse instead.
00:47:36
That's terrifying. So he resorted to knives and hand saws and settled for just making them small enough to fit in storage totes.
00:47:47
He spent the better part of the month cleaning the home. He ripped up the carpet and scrubbed the garage floor.
00:47:53
He used so much bleach that he got blisters. Then came the time when needed to dispose of the bodies.
00:48:03
He had a literal truckload of storage bins. That's when he met Randall Apostolon.
00:48:11
Yeah, and then meet up with Randy, says he can move it. Sean didn't have a car, so he needed help moving the totes.
00:48:19
He asked around the street until he heard about Randall, or Randy. Randy was living out of his truck
00:48:26
and was always looking to make a quick buck. Randy told Sean he could not only move his stuff, but also store it.
00:48:34
But it would cost $150. He took him to one storage unit, but it was full. So after driving around for a while, Randy changed his mind.
00:48:45
He told Sean it was going to cost him another $150. He just leases me for the $150, drives me back, like, get your shit out.
00:48:55
And I'm like, what? And he's like, yeah, you're lucky I don't say nothing about what's in the boxes.
00:49:00
So at that point, we get in a fight. Of course, Randy knew what was in the boxes.
00:49:06
It had been weeks at this point. Even in the chilly temperatures of Albuquerque in February,
00:49:13
the smell was starting to point to signs of something. Something sinister. I think death has a smell that you're not going to forget anytime soon.
00:49:23
Randy knew. As Sean slowly realized Randy knew, he was left with only one option.
00:49:31
He had to kill him. If he ratted him out, he'd never get his kids to safety. He had to.
00:49:39
For his kids. He was in driver's seat. I hit him two or three times with my hands.
00:49:46
I flipped the key to the dissolved position. At some point my hand got sore. I hit him with a hammer.
00:49:52
The glove was splattered. It was pretty fucking disgusting. huge pile underneath the truck coming outside the door.
00:49:58
Hard to feel. Horrible. Pretty horrible. I'm taking a pleasure and that was disgusting.
00:50:07
I wanted my kids to be safe. I could have failed that in the last year and a half.
00:50:12
He claimed he took no joy in what he did and that he did it all for the safety of his kids.
00:50:19
But Sean's story didn't end with Jen or with Mike. In custody, he would make a claim so staggering, so horrifying, that investigators couldn't even believe it at first.
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00:52:11
Cha-ching. Sean's childhood was marked by sexual abuse. His adult life and marriage to Jen unraveled under the weight of addiction and violence.
00:52:40
He killed four people in New Mexico, including Jen, and tried to hide their bodies in a truck at the airport.
00:52:47
Days later, he showed up at Uncle Mike's house. Mike was a mentor, a father figure, but he had abused Sean as a child.
00:52:56
That night ended with another brutal murder. When caught, he confessed. But when police thought he was done, he had more to say.
00:53:07
One time I stayed in the back with the kids. One came in, started beating the fuck out of Jen.
00:53:15
Okay, some dude's like, she's on the ground. She's gone from the face. I don't think he realized I was there.
00:53:22
Sean saw the violence in his home against his wife. near his children, and he lost it.
00:53:30
He claimed this was the first time he took a life. Yeah, it was always something relative to Jen.
00:53:38
I'm not sure my kids. He claimed there were 11 others he killed, connected to Jen through drugs.
00:53:46
When they came looking for the money she owed and got violent, Sean would have to step in to protect his kids.
00:53:53
And their bodies are in the Malpais? The lava tubes, lava tubes. Sean claimed to have dumped all 11 others in the Malpais.
00:54:06
Apparently, that part of New Mexico has old lava tubes traveling deep underground.
00:54:12
If he threw any bodies in there, they'd never be found. He admitted that if he hadn't been caught in St. Louis,
00:54:21
he would have returned to New Mexico to hunt down Daniel Lemus and kill him. Sean didn't blame Jen for everything.
00:54:30
He blamed himself a lot, too. But the kids deserved better. And that was his driving motivation.
00:54:39
Jen's drug associations put the kids in danger, but so did her neglect. But yeah, she was always heavily involved with drugs.
00:54:47
When I first met her, it was pills. And then she lost her nursing license because of it.
00:54:53
And she just got in deeper and deeper and deeper with it. I know that he talked all the time about her having boyfriends.
00:55:01
That at some point he thought she was prostituting herself for drugs. She would be like a drug mule.
00:55:07
Like if she came to New Jersey, I didn't even know they did stuff. They hide things in their bodies.
00:55:14
I didn't even know about that. Jennifer, I mean, I've seen her get high in front of the kids, leave her kids for hours.
00:55:21
She never used to take their diapers. Like, they'd sit for days. They wouldn't eat, nothing.
00:55:27
Jen's addiction affected their kids before they were even born. Their second daughter was born with a heart defect.
00:55:35
What a mom. And yes, I am victim-blaming Susan. Victim-blaming the drug addict, horrible mother.
00:55:43
that's probably better off in the ground. Go tell your friends. Becca and Savannah both have fun problems.
00:55:50
Becca's way worse off than Savannah. I mean, she almost died when she first was born.
00:55:56
Like she has one bunch of born apart She requires a lot more medical attention than the other children If she makes it to 15 20 would be you know unless they come out with some new medical technique
00:56:12
Sven has heart issues also, yes. Sven's not expected to have a full life. She's going to need a pacemaker sooner than later.
00:56:22
I'm sure Michael had to be detoxed when he was born. But the baby was more drug-addicted.
00:56:28
So when the baby was born, Sean and myself, we had to hold. Did you ever see a baby coming off the road?
00:56:34
Yeah, definitely. That was, like, so horrible. Just holding him and his body's wracking and he's screaming.
00:56:43
The short lives of those three children sound like utter turmoil. Before Sean's arrest, the kids were taken by the state.
00:56:53
After his arrest, the children went to Jen's brother, Chris. He noticed the neglect immediately.
00:57:00
I mean, when they came in here, you could tell they were malnourished. I mean, you could see it in their face.
00:57:05
And like I said, you could see their colors. Their eyes were like sunken in almost like all around here.
00:57:10
They looked like they were not fed. You could tell there was definitely neglect there, some malnourishment.
00:57:18
They had trouble eating when we sat down for dinner or anything like that. They're getting better.
00:57:22
You could see in their face they got better color. They're eating better. They're growing, it seems like.
00:57:29
God knows what they've been through. I mean, you know, if they were left alone to fend for themselves.
00:57:37
It's heartbreaking to think of what those kids must have experienced. But now, they're safe.
00:57:45
The way Sean Lannan was arrested was about as peaceful a way as a national manhunt could end.
00:57:53
And when he was caught, he confessed. and he didn't just confess once he confessed in every jurisdiction
00:58:00
in which he committed a crime he pleaded guilty in New Jersey to the murder of Michael Dubkowski
00:58:07
he was sentenced to 35 years in prison he pleaded guilty in New Mexico for the murders of Justin Mata
00:58:15
Matthew Miller, Jennifer Lannan and Randall Apostolon he was given 15 years each
00:58:23
for 60 years total They'll serve the 35 years in New Jersey first, then be transferred to New Mexico.
00:58:31
Murderer, may you live your life miserably, feel the pain which you deserve to feel daily about taking the lives of innocent people.
00:58:42
I can only wish it be hell on earth for your actions you committed. I don't know what evil poisoned your heart and mind that caused you to murder my brother, Rand Lopasla.
00:58:57
What deranged state of mind consumed you to murder your ex-wife, Jennifer Lannan, or Justin Mata, or Matthew Miller, or Michael Dabkowski?
00:59:10
I do wish that New Mexico had the death penalty. The murderer deserves the death penalty.
00:59:16
See, Sean committed horrible, deplorable acts. He said he did it for the sake of his children, but was he right?
00:59:26
I don't know. This is a tough one. What I do know is this. If someone had harmed my kids, I would be pretty relentless in protecting them.
00:59:38
Not sure if I'd murder someone, but you could probably push me there with enough trauma.
00:59:43
I think a lot of parents would feel the same way. Sean loved his children. That much is undeniable.
00:59:51
But the love became twisted into enabling Jen, into endangering the very kids he wanted
00:59:59
to protect and finally into violence he couldn take back He saw horror He carried trauma And he became a monster in trying to fight monsters
01:00:13
I guess it's a good lesson for us all. I don't excuse what he did, but I also don't mourn every life he took.
01:00:23
I can't feel sympathy for people who prey on children or people who put their own children in danger.
01:00:30
That's the tension in Sean's story. Love twisted into vengeance. Protection warped into destruction.
01:00:41
And maybe the scariest part is this. Sean Lannan believed he was doing the right thing.
01:00:47
Isn't that something? How often does that happen in society when people who think they're doing the right thing
01:00:54
are just misinformed or tricked by those with ulterior motives. You could do a lot of harm trying to do the quote-unquote right thing.
01:01:08
I think what happened there was when he went to New Jersey, I think seeing those pictures of that situation might have triggered something to do with Mike.
01:01:17
And he was just one of those pictures out of Mike's possession. I don't know if there's truth to that, but I mean, I just heard that he's had pain in his life.
01:01:28
And that might that that probably makes sense knowing that, OK, if this happened to him as a kid, maybe that's why he's standoffish.
01:01:35
I guess it just makes sense if that really did happen. I mean, you know, I can't imagine. I've never been through that, but I mean, I can imagine that would really torment him.
01:01:44
And that's why he felt like he needed to control certain situations. In the end, authorities searched, but never found evidence of the 11 bodies Sean claimed were hidden in the lava tubes.
01:01:56
Whether it was truth, exaggeration, or manipulation, no bodies were ever recovered.
01:02:03
And those questions remain unanswered. They never found any proof of any of the pictures, either.
01:02:11
Sean said he destroyed Justin's phone and burned the photos Mike gave him. his three children were placed in the care
01:02:18
of family far from the chaos their parents left behind and Sean Lannan a man who said he killed to protect his kids
01:02:27
will spend the rest of his life behind bars unable to protect anyone from anything
01:02:36
ever again After 13 years of doing this, I'm still trying to figure things out. Still trying to figure out what's moral and just and what isn't.
01:03:07
So, I just wanted to say that I appreciate all of you who stick around for it. Thank you.
01:03:45
Thank you.