Sean Lannon sentenced to 35 years for killing mentor in N.J.

A man suspected of killing five people in two states was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for beating his mentor to death in New Jersey.

Sean Lannon, 48, pleaded guilty in October to killing Michael Dabkowksi in March 2021. Lannon admitted to beating Dabkowski to death with a hammer at Dabkowski’s home in East Greenwich, south of Philadelphia.

Lannon is also suspected of killing four people in New Mexico, including his wife, shortly before killing Dabkowski.

New Jersey prosecutors said last March Lannon had confessed to killing 16 people. He allegedly claimed 11 of them were drug dealers.

Dabkowski had been Lannon’s mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters. He was 66 years old when Lannon killed him decades later. In multiple statements, Lannon claimed that Dabkowski abused him as a child, but he never presented any evidence to support that claim.

“The action itself to Michael, I can’t stand here and say that I regret that, but I regret the pain that I caused your family,” Lannon told the Dabkowski family during his sentencing hearing, according to NJ.com.

Authorities in New Mexico will seek to extradite Lannon in connection with the killings of Jennifer Whitman, his wife, and her two acquaintances, 40-year-old Jesten Mata and 21-year-old Matthew Miller.

Lannon fatally shot Whitman in early 2021, then lured Mata and Miller to his home on separate occasions to kill them, police said. Lannon dismembered all three bodies and put them in containers, according to investigators.

He then hired another man, Randall Apostalon, to help him move the containers, cops said. Apostalon didn’t know what was inside the crates; Lannon beat him to death with a hammer after the job was done, according to authorities.

With News Wire Services