Josh also described Sean becoming angry when the bag disappeared.
The claims immediately created new problems. If true, they could connect Sean to property belonging to his missing ex-wife and potentially to a weapon. But they also introduced new people whose own actions had to be investigated before police could rely on the story.
Detectives went to speak with the woman who had allegedly received the bag. She first agreed to come to the station, then did not show. When detectives returned to her home, she said she had spoken to a lawyer and did not have to accompany them.
Her behavior changed as investigators pressed her. She acknowledged Sean had been there and had destroyed a phone, but she denied seeing the specific bag, gun, and identification described by Josh. She also acknowledged that Sean had stored property in a shed.
The detectives searched the shed with permission. They found belongings associated with Sean, but no immediate evidence proving a homicide.
Once again, the investigation moved forward just enough to deepen suspicion without producing the single piece that could close the case.
The House Has Been Changed
Police later obtained authority to search the former Lannon home on Kingman Avenue.
By then, however, the property had been extensively altered. Flooring and carpet had been removed. Parts of the interior had been stripped or renovated. Whether those changes were routine landlord work, cleanup from the eviction, or something more could not be determined simply from appearance.
For investigators who already suspected that the missing people had been harmed there, the timing was frustrating. If blood or trace evidence had once existed in easily accessible areas, much of the original environment was gone.
Turney continued to call Sean.
Lannon remained outwardly cooperative. He said he would return to the station. He said he would look at photographs and help identify vehicles. Then he failed to appear.
When the detective offered to pick him up, Sean again did not materialize.
The pattern was becoming harder to ignore.
An Unrelated Warrant Gives Police Time
Detectives discovered that Lannon had an outstanding warrant tied to a missed court appearance in an unrelated case. That gave officers a lawful reason to take him into custody while the missing-person investigation continued.
On February 25, 2021, Sean was arrested in Albuquerque and brought back for questioning.
Turney returned to Matthew's truck. Sean again admitted driving it, but he portrayed the entire situation as an errand between people using and selling drugs. He said Matthew, Jesten, and Jennifer were alive when he last saw them. He insisted they had plans to obtain drugs and had simply left the vehicle behind.
The detective tested possible explanations, including self-defense, an accident, or a confrontation that had gone too far. Sean rejected them.
"I don't have any bodies," he said during the interview, according to the transcript.
When Turney introduced Daniel Lemos as another possible suspect, Sean leaned into the possibility. He portrayed Lemos as violent and frightening. He even repeated a disturbing story about Lemos supposedly talking about disposing of bodies using pigs.
There was no evidence at that point supporting such a claim, but it showed something investigators would later recognize more clearly: when given another possible target for suspicion, Sean was willing to redirect attention toward that person.
Because the warrant was unrelated to the missing people, Sean could not be held indefinitely on suspicion alone. After serving the short custody period connected to that matter, he was released.
That release dramatically raised the stakes.
The Red Ford Ranger
Investigators had been trying to locate another vehicle seen around the Lannon property: a red Ford pickup. They suspected it might have carried property from the house or played some role in whatever happened to the missing people.
On March 5, 2021, security personnel at Albuquerque International Sunport called about an abandoned red Ford Ranger in the parking garage.
The truck belonged to Randal Apostalon, a 60-year-old Albuquerque man known to give rides for money.
Officers approaching the vehicle noticed a strong odor. Inside the pickup were sealed containers. When investigators opened the scene and began processing the truck, the missing-person case changed instantly into a multiple-homicide investigation.
The bodies of Jennifer Lannon, Jesten Mata, and Matthew Miller were inside containers in the vehicle. Randal Apostalon was also dead inside the truck.
Later court records and Lannon's own statements established that Jennifer, Jesten, and Matthew had been killed in Grants. Public reporting states that at least Mata and Miller had been dismembered before their remains were placed in plastic bins. Apostalon had been killed separately in Albuquerque.
A hammer associated with Apostalon's death was recovered from the truck.
For Detective Turney, the discovery answered one terrible question. The three missing people were not hiding, traveling, or avoiding police. They had been dead while investigators were interviewing friends, searching houses, and listening to Sean Lannon insist that everyone had simply left.
But Lannon was no longer in custody.
Airport Cameras Show Sean
Investigators immediately reviewed Sunport surveillance.
The cameras captured Sean Lannon bringing the truck into the airport parking structure on March 3. He left the vehicle there and departed.
According to later court documents, Lannon took a taxi back to the apartment complex where he had been staying. The next day he returned to the airport with his children and flew east toward New Jersey.
By the time the truck was found on March 5, Sean had put hundreds of miles between himself and the crime scene.
The case became a nationwide manhunt.
New Mexico investigators were still reconstructing four deaths when authorities in New Jersey suddenly had another one.
Michael Dabkowski
On March 8, 2021, police performing a welfare check at a home in East Greenwich Township, New Jersey, found 66-year-old Michael Dabkowski dead from blunt-force injuries.
Dabkowski had known Sean Lannon and his twin brother when they were children and had served as a mentor through a youth program. Lannon later accused Dabkowski of sexually abusing him when he was young and claimed he went to the home seeking photographs connected to that alleged abuse.