THREE PEOPLE VANISHED IN NEW MEXICO - THEN ONE TRUCK CONNECTED EVERYTHING
Important Corrections and Verification Notes
This documentary is based on the supplied bodycam and interrogation transcript, but several names, ages, dates, and legal details in that transcript require correction. The man at the center of the case is Sean Michael Lannon, not "Shawn." His ex-wife was Jennifer Lannon, 39. The two men who disappeared from Grants were Jesten Mata, 40, and Matthew Miller, 21, not 19. The fourth New Mexico victim was Randal Apostalon, 60. The New Jersey victim was Michael Dabkowski, 66.
The four bodies at the Albuquerque International Sunport were discovered on March 5, 2021. Lannon was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 10, 2021, after the March 8 killing of Michael Dabkowski in East Greenwich Township, New Jersey. In October 2022, Lannon pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the Dabkowski case and received a 35-year New Jersey sentence in December 2022.
The New Mexico cases were resolved in 2024. Lannon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Randal Apostalon in May and then resolved the remaining three second-degree murder counts for Jennifer Lannon, Jesten Mata, and Matthew Miller. The four New Mexico sentences are 15 years each, consecutive, for a total of 60 years. Under the plea arrangement reported in New Mexico, Lannon is to serve the New Jersey sentence first and then return to New Mexico for the 60-year term.
One of the most sensational details in the original narration is Lannon's claim that he killed 11 additional people in New Mexico, which would bring his claimed total to 16 victims. Authorities investigated that statement, but no additional bodies or charges have publicly substantiated it. Those alleged killings therefore remain an unverified claim by Lannon, not established fact.
The Evicted House
The case did not begin with a truck at an airport. It began with a landlord cleaning out an evicted home in Grants, New Mexico.
According to the bodycam transcript, the landlord told police that the former tenants had stopped paying rent months earlier. Pandemic-era restrictions had delayed the eviction process, and by the time the occupants were finally gone, the property was in poor condition. The landlord said he and others were gathering items left behind when they found a dead puppy inside a box beneath children's belongings.
What disturbed him most was a cord around the animal's neck. Animal control was called, and the people at the scene believed the animal had not died accidentally. The discovery was disturbing enough that the landlord wanted the incident documented, especially because he expected additional civil disputes with the former occupants.
The supplied bodycam material connects the residence to Sean and Jennifer Lannon, but the public homicide reporting that later documented Lannon's five murder convictions does not establish a separate animal-cruelty conviction or identify who killed the puppy. For that reason, the incident belongs in the investigative timeline as a troubling report from the property, not as proof of another crime by Sean Lannon.
On that same weekend, Grants police were also dealing with a disappearance that appeared, at first, to have nothing to do with the house.
Matthew Miller Is Missing
Matthew Miller was 21 years old. When he stopped contacting his family in late January 2021, those closest to him knew he had struggled with drugs, but they also knew his habits well enough to recognize when something was different.
Detective Robert Turney was assigned to the missing-person investigation. During an early conversation with Matthew's family, he tried to balance concern with the reality of a case involving a young adult who had sometimes disappeared into a drug-centered social circle.
Turney told the family to call hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, jails, and other places where Matthew might have ended up. He also made a revealing comment about the young man he knew from previous contacts. Police had had opportunities to arrest Matthew before, Turney said, but he did not see him as someone likely to rob or threaten people for drugs. That made the possibility that someone else had taken advantage of Matthew especially troubling.
The family began giving detectives names. One was Jennifer Lannon, a blonde woman Matthew had recently been around. Another was Jesten Mata, a friend in the same circle. The bodycam transcript also refers to a woman associated with Mata who initially told investigators she had not seen Matthew in a long time.
Then Matthew's vehicle was found.
The Abandoned Chevy Colorado
Matthew's Chevrolet Colorado was parked only a few blocks from a residence connected to Jesten Mata. The truck was locked, dirty, and appeared to have been sitting there for days.
Inside and around it were details that made the case feel less like a voluntary disappearance. Detectives found personal belongings and damaged phones. In the bed of the truck were rubber gloves and a shovel. None of those items, by themselves, proved a violent crime, but together with the abandoned vehicle they gave investigators more reason to keep digging.
Surveillance footage became the next important piece. A nearby camera showed Matthew's truck arriving in the area on January 26. That mattered because a woman at the residence initially told investigators that Matthew had not been there for roughly a year.
Detectives confronted her with the discrepancy.
"What if I got video of his vehicle here?" an investigator asked in substance.
Her answer shifted. Maybe Matthew had been there when she was away. Maybe she had not noticed. She also said Jesten had left earlier in the month and had supposedly gone toward Arizona with Jennifer.
The search of the residence did not reveal a crime scene. There was no obvious blood or evidence of a killing. Yet the interviews had done something important: they had connected three people who now seemed to be missing at nearly the same time.
Matthew Miller. Jesten Mata. Jennifer Lannon.
Jennifer's Name Changes the Case
When Detective Turney looked further into Jennifer, he discovered that her ex-husband, Sean Lannon, had recently reported her missing. That name connected the missing-person case back to the Kingman Avenue property where police had already responded to the landlord's disturbing report.
The investigation was no longer about one young man who might have disappeared into a drug scene. Three adults within the same tight social circle were unaccounted for.
Detectives began canvassing the area around the former Lannon residence. A neighbor's surveillance camera pointed toward the property, and the footage produced one of the first major breaks.
On January 26, Matthew was seen entering the area around the Lannon home. The later investigation would establish that Sean Lannon had access to Matthew's truck. The camera evidence showed Lannon moving the vehicle, and Matthew did not appear again on the footage.
The original narration frames the video as proof that Matthew entered the house and never left. The broader public record supports surveillance evidence connecting Lannon and Matthew's truck, but investigators still needed much more than one camera to prove what had happened inside the residence.
They needed Sean Lannon's explanation.
The First Interview With Sean Lannon
Lannon initially presented himself as cooperative. When Turney asked about Matthew, Jennifer, and Jesten, Sean had answers ready.
He acknowledged driving Matthew's truck but tried to make the use of the vehicle sound ordinary. He said the missing people had been involved in drugs, that they had talked about going elsewhere, and that he had simply used the truck for errands before leaving it where he had been told.
Turney asked whether he thought something bad had happened.
Sean did not behave like a man who believed his ex-wife and several acquaintances were in immediate danger. He instead described a chaotic drug circle in which people disappeared, reappeared, borrowed property, and changed plans without warning.
The calmness bothered the detective, but calmness is not evidence. Lannon was allowed to leave because police still lacked a body, a confirmed homicide scene, or physical proof that he had killed anyone.
The next break came from someone outside the immediate family.
A Witness Points at Sean
An acquaintance named Josh contacted police and told Detective Turney that he believed Sean Lannon had killed the missing three.
Josh described a strange incident involving a bag Lannon had allegedly hidden at another woman's house before going to speak with detectives. According to Josh, the bag contained personal property, identification belonging to Jennifer, and a gun. He said another man, Daniel Lemos, had taken the gun and left with it.