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Transcript

Police Discover Car Filled With Serial Killer's Bodies · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to just imagine for a second that
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: you're walking past a long-term airport parking lot. Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Something we've all done a million times.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. I mean, you've probably done it dozens of times.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You're dragging your suitcase. You're checking your boarding pass on
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: your phone, stressing about the security line being too long.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, completely distracted. Right.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You walk past hundreds, maybe, I don't know, thousands of cars.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: And you never, ever think twice about what's actually inside them.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Well, it's because it's the ultimate space of transition, right?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Like everyone there is entirely focused on where they are going,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: not on the static objects that have been left behind.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, an airport parking lot is quite literally designed
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to be ignored. It's a liminal space.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: A landscape of temporary abandonment, I guess you could call it.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But sometimes it is sitting right there in like row 4B.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And the journey to that parking lot it didn't start
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: at a baggage claim.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: No, it started much further away.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 80 miles away, to be exact, in this completely
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: gutted house in the small high desert town of Grants,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: New Mexico.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Which is such a specific setting for this.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: It really is. So today we are digging into an
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: investigation that demonstrates how these scattered, seemingly completely unrelated pieces
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of a puzzle.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Like a disturbing eviction, right?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a disturbing eviction, a missing teenager, and an abandoned
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Chevy truck. How they all finally connected to unmasked a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: highly organized, highly mobile serial killer.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: And, you know, we really need to look closely at
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the methodology of this investigation for this deep dive. We
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: are examining the specific friction between a detective's gut intuition
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and the rigid constraints of the legal system.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Because those two things clash constantly here.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Constantly. As well as the forensic reality of a suspect who, frankly,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: actively and intelligently destroyed the narrative of his own crimes.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Let's ground ourselves in Grants, New Mexico,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: because the catalyst for this entire nightmare, it didn't start
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: with a missing persons report and it didn't start with
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a body.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Which is unusual for a case like this. Yeah.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: It started with a landlord who was finally able to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: clean out a rental house after a really difficult eviction.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: The tenants were this guy named Sean Lannan and his ex-wife, Jennifer.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And the address, just for context, is 817 Kingman Avenue.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And I think....
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I think the context of this eviction is foundational. You know,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Grants is a town with a really complex socioeconomic fabric.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: It's an old mining town, right?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a former uranium mining hub right along Route 66.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And it has experienced significant economic depression over the years.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And while that often brings a corresponding rise in substance abuse.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Which definitely plays a huge role in this story.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: It does. And evictions in these types of environments happen.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: They are inherently tense. This landlord, he had been dealing
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: with unpaid rent for months. And when he saw Sean
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: on moving day, Sean made this highly unusual, just bizarre statement.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he looks at the landlord and says, I'm going
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to leave you a pile to throw.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Right, a pile to throw.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Which is super eerie in hindsight. But at the time,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, the landlord probably just assumed it meant bags
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of trash or like broken furniture left behind.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Just the usual mess of a bad eviction.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. But when the landlord actually goes into the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: house to clean, they find a cardboard box tucked underneath
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: some children's belongings, like kids' toys. And inside that box
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: is a dead puppy.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And the responding animal control officer, along with the police,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: they quickly determined this wasn't an animal that had died of,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: you know, natural causes or parvo or even standard neglect.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: No, it was so much worse. When the landlord went
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to put the puppy in a trash bag, they saw
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a cord. It was tied super tightly around the dog's neck.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was deliberately, brutally tortured to death.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And if we look at this through the lens
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of criminal pathology, the weight of this discovery is just monumental.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, the responding officer immediately recognized this as a
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: massive behavioral anomaly.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Because it's not just a dead pet. Right.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: The deliberate torture of an animal is a core component
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of the McDonald triad. Okay.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Remind everybody what that is again.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Sure. So it's a set of three childhood behaviors. Animal cruelty,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: fire setting, and bedwetting. that are often associated with later
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: violent tendencies. But seeing it in a grown adult, especially
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: an animal left hidden under his own children items, it
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: demonstrates a profound, chilling lack of empathy.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: An extreme compartmentalization.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: But wait, when you say compartmentalization in this context, are
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: we talking about a literal split in personality or just
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: extreme emotional detachment? Because hiding a tortured animal under your
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: own kid's toys is is frankly hard to wrap your
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: head right around.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. But no, it's extreme emotional detachment functioning
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: as a survival mechanism for the ego. He isn't experiencing
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: like a dissociative identity break. He is building airtight bulkheads
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: in his mind.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Like compartments on a submarine.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Precisely. In one compartment, he is a normal father managing
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: his children's belongings. In the adjacent compartment, he is indulging
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: in sadistic, uncontrolled violence.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: And the fact that the physical manifestations of these two
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: compartments actually touched the dead dog and the toys It
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: shows that his internal bulkheads were beginning to fail.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: A symptom of a much larger unseen crisis. And while
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: this landlord is filing a report about a tortured puppy,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: a completely different crisis is unfolding just across town.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Right, the parallel timeline. Yeah.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: A grandmother calls 911 to report her 19-year-old grandson, Matthew Miller, missing.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: He hasn't been seen in nearly a week at this point.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And Detective Robert Turney catches the case.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And this right here introduces a critical friction point in
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: law enforcement. It's the danger of heuristic thinking.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Meaning, like, taking mental shortcuts.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Detective Turney is already familiar with Matthew because Matthew
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: has a history of severe substance abuse. So the immediate,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: almost reflexive mental shortcut used by law enforcement is that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: this disappearance has to be drug-related.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the working theory is basically that Matthew might have
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: overdosed in an abandoned property somewhere or, you know, he's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: just on a heavy bender and actively avoiding his family.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: But doesn't law enforcement kind of have to use triage?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you have limited resources in a town
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: that's already struggling with high addiction rates, it makes statistical
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: sense to assume the teenager with a drug history is
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: on a bender rather than the victim of some random kidnapping.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Triage is necessary. Absolutely. I agree. But statistical probability cannot
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: completely blind an investigator to behavioral deviations. That is exactly
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: where the family's input becomes the essential counterbalance to police bias.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Right, because the family knows the baseline.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The grandmother insists to Detective Turney that this specific
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: disappearance breaks all of Matthew's established patterns. She states explicitly
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: that she fears he has been taken advantage of.
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  Speaker 2: She even tells the detective Matthew is not going to
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: pull a gun on anybody to get his drugs. He's
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: not that kind of person.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: She is essentially drawing a psychological boundary around her grandson. Like,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: she knows his demons, obviously, but she knows his limits.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: And to Detective Turney's credit, he actually listens. He doesn't
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: just dismiss her as an overprotective grandmother. He visits her
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: in person. And that decision to trust her intuition over
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: his own statistical bias, that's what cracks the door open
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: on this whole thing.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because during that visit, Turney learns that before he vanished,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Matthew was seen getting into a vehicle with a blonde woman.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And her name was Jennifer Lannan.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: The very same Jennifer Lannan who was just evicted from
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: 817 Kingman Avenue.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: The puzzle pieces are touching.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: The narrative threads are absolutely beginning to intersect here.
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  Speaker 1: Right. So Turney also learns Matthew was running in a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: very specific circle in town. He was spending a lot
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: of time with a close friend named Justin Ma and
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Justin's girlfriend, Leonie Calzada. They all moved in the same
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: orbit and they were all known to use drugs together.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: So Turney starts doing the physical legwork. He starts canvassing
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: the locations Matthew is known to frequent.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And it pays off quickly. Within a few blocks of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Leone and Justin's residence, they spot Matthew's vehicle. It's a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Chevy Colorado truck.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And locating an abandoned vehicle, well, it alters the entire
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: legal and operational framework of a missing persons case.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Because now it's a crime scene.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It transitions the objective from locating a transient individual
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: to preserving a potential primary or secondary crime scene.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: And let me tell you, the physical state of the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: truck told a very specific, very creepy story. It was filthy,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: it was locked, and it was just sitting idle. Detectives
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: look into the bed of the truck, and they see
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a shovel and a pair of heavy rubber gloves.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Which is immediately alarming.
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  Speaker 1: But it gets worse. Inside the cab, just sitting right
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: there on the seats, are multiple cell phones that have
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: been deliberately physically smashed to pieces.
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  Speaker 2: We really have to analyze the specific nature of that evidence.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, a shuttle and rubber gloves, they speak directly
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: to excavation and biological disposal.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Digging a grave.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. But the smashed cell phones are a highly
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: sophisticated indicator of foul play. You know, in the modern era,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: a cell phone is a continuous digital tether.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Tracks everything.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Right. And smashing the physical screen doesn't necessarily destroy the
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: solid state memory. But what it does do is prevent
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: immediate casual access to call logs. And it prevents the
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: phone from easily connecting to local cell towers to ping
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: a location. Wait.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: OK. So how does law enforcement actually pull data? From
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a phone that looks like it took a literal hammer
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to the screen.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Well, they use a process called chip-off forensics. So if
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: the logic board isn't completely pulverized into dust, forensic technicians
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: can physically remove the memory chip. They clean the contacts,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and then they solder it onto a donor board, or
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: they read it directly with a specialized adapter.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Wow, so they basically transplant the brain of the phone.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the act of smashing the phone in the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: first place tells the detective something vital about the perpetrator.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: That they know they're being tracked.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, the perpetrator knows that their digital proxies to the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: victim is incriminating. They are actively trying to sever the
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: digital timeline.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: So Turney knows he is looking for a victim now.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: This isn't a drug bender anymore. He urgently goes to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the residence of Justin Ma and his girlfriend, Leonie Colzada.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: He knocks on the door and Leonie answers. Turney straight
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: up asks her where Matthew is.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And her response is incredibly brazen.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Leonie lifts a seasoned homicide detective dead in the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: eye and claims she hasn't seen Matthew in an entire year.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: She insists he hasn't set foot on her property since
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the previous February.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: A statement that Detective Turney already knows is a complete fabrication.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Because detectives had already done the basic light work. They
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: canvassed the neighborhood where the truck was found and pulled
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: footage from a neighbor's CCTV camera. And that camera clearly
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: captured Matthew's Chevy Colorado arriving at Leone and Justin's exact
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: address on January 26th.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Which was just three days before Matthew was reported missing
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: by his grandmother.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So she's lying.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: We really need to examine the mechanics of this deception, though,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: because we frequently observe this insular silence in communities bonded
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: by illicit activities.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: But wait, I have to push back on this. If
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Leone's own boyfriend is missing, at what point does the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: biological imperative to find your loved one, override the fear
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of getting busted for, you know, some drug possession. I mean,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: why lie when your own partner could be in mortal danger?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It's a great question, but it's because the fear of
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: the known predator often outweighs the fear of the abstract
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: justice system.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Right. Leone is operating in a state of sheer hypervigilance.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Inviting police into her life invites scrutiny into her own
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: illegal survival mechanisms, her drug use, her associates. But more importantly,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: she likely has an inkling of who is actually responsible
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: for the disappearance.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So she's terrified of retaliation.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If she cooperates with Detective Turney and the police
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: fail to incarcerate the perpetrator, she becomes the primary target
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: for that retaliation. She is rapidly calculating that lying to
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a detective carries a lower mortality risk than telling the truth.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It's like playing poker with someone whose cards are facing you. Like,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: detectives can see Leone is lying because of the CCTV,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: but the real challenge isn't calling her bluff. It's figuring
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: out why she's bluffing in the first place. Exactly.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: It is a horrific trap she's in.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: But the web gets even wider because when Turney presses
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Leone on where her boyfriend Justin is, she casually drops
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: another massive variable into the equation. She says Justin vanished
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: on January 17th.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: And what's her explanation?
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: According to Leone, Justin took off with a woman named
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Jennifer to go to Arizona to get drugs and make money.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: So the scope of the investigation has just tripled in
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: a matter of seconds. Detective Turney isn't just looking for
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Matthew Miller anymore. He is looking for Justin Ma and
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: he is looking for Jennifer Lannan. Three people missing from
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: the exact same social microcosm in a matter of days.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Turney immediately runs Jennifer Lannan's name through the system. And
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he realizes she had recently been reported missing by her ex-husband,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Sean Lannan.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: The guy from the evicted house with the dead puppy? Yes.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Turney realizes the epicenter of this entire phenomenon is Is
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: 817 Kingman Avenue. So he goes back to Sean and
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Jennifer's former home and he starts looking for any external
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: digital eyes.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Which is standard practice now. I mean, the proliferation of
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: residential security cameras like ring doorbells has fundamentally altered homicide investigations. Historically,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: detectives had to rely on the faulty bias or fearful
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: memories of neighbors. Now they look for a fixed lens
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: that simply doesn't sleep and doesn't lie.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And they find one. A neighbor has a camera pointed
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: directly at Sean and Jennifer's house. They pull the footage,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and the timeline is undeniable. On January 26, the camera
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: shows Matthew Miller arriving and walking into Sean's home.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And the crucial part here is what it doesn't show.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Right. The camera never shows him walking out.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Instead, the footage establishes a direct, unassailable link between the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: suspect and the victim's property. Because hours after Matthew enters
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the home, the camera captures Sean Lannan getting into Matthew's
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: truck and driving away.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And when Sean returns, he is on foot and he
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: is alone. Then, two days later, on January 28th, the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: camera catches someone loading heavy household items into a red truck.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: It looked like a Dodge Dakota or maybe a Ford
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Ranger truck. parked right outside the home before driving away.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So Turney finally has the legal leverage to bring Sean
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: in for a formal interview.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Sean actually agrees to come down to the
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: station voluntarily. And I have to say, his demeanor is
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: just chilling.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Well, think about it. His ex-wife is missing. Two acquaintances
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: are missing. Turney asks him what happened to Matthew's truck.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And Sean doesn't even flinch. He claims Matthew and Justin
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: left the truck at his house and hitchhiked to Arizona.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Ah, the Arizona story again. Right.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: And Sean says he only moved the truck down the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: street because he needed to go get groceries. And they
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: told him to just leave it there.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: This is a widely recognized psychological tactic used by highly
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: organized suspects. I call it feigned boarding.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Feigned boredom.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. Sean is seamlessly weaving plausible elements like a spontaneous
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: drug trip to Arizona or needing to buy groceries into
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: a narrative that completely distances him from the violence. He
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: doesn't panic. He downplays the severity of the police inquiry.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: framing the disappearances as just another chaotic, unreliable drug venture
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: among addicts. He projects innocence by acting mildly inconvenienced by
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the questions.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: But here's where it gets really interesting. Because the real
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: world is infinitely harder to control than a quiet interview room.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: The very next day, a man named Josh Hall contacts
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the police.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And who is Josh Hall?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: He's an acquaintance of Matthew Miller, and he is terrified.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: He tells detectives that prior to Sean's interview at the stations,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Sean showed up at the house of a woman named
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Kelly Dotto. Sean was carrying a heavy bag, and he
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: carefully hid this bag up in the ceiling structure of
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Kelly's house before leaving for the police station.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Now this is classic resource guarding. Sean recognizes that walking
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: into a police station with a weapon is a catastrophic risk,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: but he doesn't want to get rid of it entirely,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: so he utilizes the property of a vulnerable associate as
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: a temporary armory.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But the plan totally backfires. Because while Sean is at
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the station projecting that calm, feigned boredom you talked about,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Kelly finds the bag in her ceiling.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She pulls out a gun, spooked. She immediately hands
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it off to another local guy, a man named Danny
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Dog Lamos. Danny takes the gun and just vanishes with it.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: So Sean's weapon is now completely out of his control.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And when Sean gets back from the police station and
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: realizes the gun is gone, Josh says Sean flew into
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: an absolute rage, like screaming, and he physically smashed his
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: own cell phone on the ground before storming out.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Notice the duality of his psychological state there. The controlled
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: environment of the interrogation room where he feels intellectually superior
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: to the detective, he is perfectly composed. Right. But the
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: moment he loses control of a physical variable, the murder weapon,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: his compartmentalization completely shatters. The rage and the destruction of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: his own phone indicates severe immediate panic.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So Turney goes to Kelly's house to track down this gun.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: But Kelly is super evasive. She immediately brings up her lawyer,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: and denies knowing anything about it again.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Of course. The stop-snitching culture in effect again. Yeah.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Detectives eventually search her shed, and they do find some
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of Sean's belongings, but no hard evidence of murder. So
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Turney is surrounded by all this circumstantial noise, terrified witnesses
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: pointing fingers, but he has zero bodies.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: No physical proof of a homicide.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Nothing. So he takes a massive swing. He secures a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: search warrant for 817 Kingman Avenue. The house with the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: dead puppy. They gear up, expecting to breach the house
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and find the horrifying aftermath of a triple homicide. They
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: walk through the door and they find absolutely nothing.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Because the house was entirely gutted, stripped right down to
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the studs?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the carpets have been ripped out. The
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: padding underneath is gone. The drywall has been completely stripped away.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: It's like trying to read a book where someone hasn't
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: just torn out the pages. They've burned the binding and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: sanded down the cover. Turney isn't looking for clues. He's
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: looking at an absolute void.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: We really have to pause and consider the sheer physiological
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: stamina required to execute this. We often conceptualize killers as
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: operating in a frenzied, chaotic fugue state.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Right, like it's a blur.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But tearing out carpets, hauling away soaked padding, stripping
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: drywall paneling, that is exhausting, meticulous, highly organized physical labor.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And I want you listening to really ponder this. How
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: does someone have the presence of mind... to successfully execute
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a total home renovation to destroy evidence while actively in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the middle of a suspected murder spree. And he's doing
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: this while managing the police, witnesses, and his own children.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: It's baffling.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: But wait, how does a forensic team even begin to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: process a room that essentially doesn't exist anymore?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Well, they rely on chemical agents like luminol. Luminol reacts
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: to the iron found in hemoglobin, so when it's sprayed
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: in a darkened room, blood residue will chemiluminesce. It basically
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: glows blue.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Right, you see that on TV all the time.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: You do, but luminol has massive limitations. If the blood
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: has pooled and soaked deep into porous materials like subflooring
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: or drywall, and the suspect physically removes those coarse materials entirely,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: the iron is gone. You cannot illuminate what has been
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: amputated from the structure. Sean didn't just clean the crime scene,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: he surgically excised it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: So Turdy is literally staring at bare floorboards. He's out
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: of options. He needs Sean back in an interview room
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: right now. So the police run a deep background check
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and they find a technicality.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: What do they find?
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Sean has an outstanding warrant from 2020 for a failure
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to appear in court on a misdemeanor assault charge.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: OK, so it's thin, but it allows them to slap
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: cuffs on him.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly. On February 25th, they arrest Sean and bring him
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: in for round two.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Now, when a detective knows a suspect is lying, but
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: they lack the forensic anchor to confront them directly, they
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: often pivot to a diversionary tactic. They provide a psychological off-ramp.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Turney does. He introduces Danny Dog Lemos,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the guy who took the gun into the conversation. Turney says,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: did Danny kill him? Talk to Dog.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: He's giving him a scapegoat. Yeah.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And Sean takes the off ramp immediately. Sean leans in
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and starts talking about Danny's violent nature. He claims he's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: terrified of Danny and then drops this bizarre, grotesque detail.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: What does he say?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Sean says, if someone's going to move a body and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: put it somewhere, my guess is the creepy dude that
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: talks about pigs. Pigs do everything but eyeballs.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, so by offering Danny as a scapegoat, Turney allows
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Sean to indulge his narcissism. Sean actually believes he is
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: successfully manipulating the investigation here. And the detail about the
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: pigs serves a highly specific function for the killer.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, because it explains the missing bodies.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It provides law enforcement with a plausible explanation for
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the total absence of human remains. If the victims were
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: consumed by livestock, the police will stop looking for freshly
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: turned earth.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Wow. But despite the manipulation, Sean doesn't actually confess to anything.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And here is where the ticking clock of the justice
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: system creates an agonizing bottleneck.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: The time limit.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ternia's gut is creaming that Sean is a multiple murderer.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: But the law requires empirical proof. Because Sean was only
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: picked up on a failure to appear warrant, his mandatory
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: sentence is exactly seven days.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: The legal constraints of habeas corpus are profound here. The
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: constitutional framework prevents law enforcement from holding an individual indefinitely
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: based on mere suspicion, regardless of how strong that suspicion
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: actually is.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It's maddening.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: It is. But without a body, without a confession, and
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: without a primary crime scene, the district attorney simply cannot
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: file homicide charges. Detective Turney knows a highly dangerous individual
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: is about to walk right out the front door, and
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: the mechanisms of the justice system offer zero recourse.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And I know what you're thinking. If you're listening to this,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: you might be wondering, why couldn't they just put a
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: tail on him? Why couldn't they surveil him 24-7?
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: It's a common question.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: But small-town police departments do not have the manpower for
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: round-the-clock covert surveillance. They just don't. So on March 3rd,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Sean Landis' seven-day sentence ends. The jail doors open, and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: he walks out.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Which is terrifying.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the Albuquerque Sunport Airport.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: The critical inflection point of the whole timeline.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Two days after Sean's release, a security guard is
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: patrolling the long-term parking lot under the hot desert sun.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: He notices a red Ford Ranger, the exact same type
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of truck seen on the neighbor's camera leaving Sean's house
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a month earlier.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: But the guard doesn't know that yet.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Right. The guard approaches the truck, not because it looks suspicious,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: but because of the smell. He calls it in and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: he actually describes it on the radio as dirty, almost
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: like decomposer.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the biology of decomposition in an enclosed metal vehicle
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: exposed to the New Mexico sun is incredibly aggressive.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: It basically bakes.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: It does. The heat rapidly accelerates the breakdown of cellular tissue,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: which creates a concentrated buildup of gases, specifically putrescine and cadaverine.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: The olfactory signature of that is simply impossible to mask
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: or ignore.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So police arrive, they breach the truck, and they look
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in the back. There are several sealed storage bins, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: inside those bins... are the dismembered bodies of Jennifer Lannan,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Matthew Miller, and Justin Ma.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: All three of them?
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Yes. Jennifer had been shot in the head. Justin was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: shot in the head and severely beaten. Matthew showed signs
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of massive blunt force trauma. But there is a fourth body.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And this is where it spirals even further out of control.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Hidden under a tarp in the passenger seat is a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: man named Randall Apostolon, the actual owner of the truck.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: He had been bludgeoned to death. A bloody hammer was
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: found right next to him.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: The inclusion of Randall Apostolon introduces a horrifying new variable
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: to the case. This is collateral damage driven by sheer
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: logistical desperation.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Think about it. Sean walks out of jail knowing he's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: on borrowed time. He has four bodies. He needs a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: place where vehicles go to be ignored.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: The airport parking lot.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You take it to the Albuquerque Sunport.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Anonymity in plain sight. But Randall's death forces us to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: ask a really dark question. Could Randall have been saved
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: if the seven-day limit didn't exist? Was he killed before
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: or after Sean got out of jail?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: It's a haunting thought.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: We'll get to the timeline of when Randall was killed shortly.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But the discovery at the airport gives Turney the undeniable
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: proof he needed. Detectives pull the airport's CCTV. And on
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: March 3rd, the very day he was released from jail,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the cameras capture Sean driving the red truck into the lot,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: parking it, and walking away.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: So the realization for law enforcement is staggering. They finally
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: have their physical crime scene. But the perpetrator has a
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: massive head start and is highly mobile.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So the Grants Police immediately kicked this up to the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: federal level. The U.S. Marshals are called in and they
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: issue a nationwide alert. The entire paradigm of the investigation
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: shifts instantly. We go from a slow, painstaking local search
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: through gutted houses to a massive federal dragnet.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And the methodology transition here is stark. The Marshals do
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: not rely on knocking on doors. They rely on digital hunting.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: How does that work?
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: They utilize cellular time difference of arrival, or TDOA, tracking.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Even if Sean isn't actively making phone calls, his phone
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: is constantly handshaking with nearby cell towers.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Just by being turned on.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And by measuring the microsecond differences in the time
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: it takes for a ping to reach three separate towers,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the marshals can triangulate his movement across the interstate highway
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: system in real time.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: This is like a digital footprint that you can't erase.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And they needed every bit of that federal infrastructure because
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Sean wasn't just running to hide in the woods somewhere.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: On March 9th, just four days after the bodies were
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: found at the airport, Detective Turney gets a terrifying call.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: From out of state? Yes.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Sean Lannan is wanted for a new murder over 2,000
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: miles away in New Jersey. The victim is Michael Dikowski.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: The authorities tied Sean to the scene using local surveillance.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: But the detail that sends a chill down your spine
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: is that Dikowski wasn't a random target of opportunity.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: No, he wasn't.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Dikowski was Sean's former childhood mentor.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: And this represents a profound, terrifying evolution in the killer's
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: psychological profile.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: How do you mean?
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Well, the murders in New Mexico, horrific as they were,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: were primarily reactive. They were rooted in domestic disputes, resource control,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: and the immediate need to cover up the initial crime, right?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was cleaning up his own mess.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: But traveling across the country to violently murder a childhood mentor,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: that is mission-oriented killing. Sean has transitioned from a desperate
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: man covering his tracks to an active predator hunting specific
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: historical prey to settle deep-seated personal scores.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: He turned a local New Mexico mystery into a multi-state
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: federal manhunt in a matter of days, like a spark
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: jumping the fire break. Suddenly the whole forest is burning.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: It's a perfect analogy.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So knowing that anyone from Sean's past could be next
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: on the list, the marshals intensify the digital tracking. They
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: watch his cellular footprint bounce across the map. And finally,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: on the morning of March 10th, they pinpoint his exact
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: location in St. Louis, Missouri.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Right in the middle of the country. Yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: They swarm his location. And despite the extreme escalation of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: violence over the last week, they capture him without a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: single shot fired.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Which is the nature of his surrender is revealing.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Really? Why didn't he fight?
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Because frequently, perpetrators who exhibit this level of sustained cross-country
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: violence will engage in a final confrontation. They're seeking suicide
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: by cop. The momentum of their violence carries them into
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: the gunfire.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: But Sean simply gave up. He was extradited back to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: New Jersey, and eventually he sat face to face with
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Detective Turney again.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And Turney must have been ready for anything.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Turney is bracing himself for more pig stories, more misdirection.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But Sean tells Turney he's, quote, tired of running. He
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: says he knew capture was inevitable. And then he gives
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a brutally detailed confession of the mechanics of every single murder.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: We really have to scrutinize the psychology of this confession.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Why would a man who meticulously gutted a house to
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: avoid detection suddenly offer full transparency?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Just because he was tired.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: No, for some killers, a comprehensive confession is the ultimate
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: final act of control. Once they realize they can no
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: longer control their physical freedom, they pivot to controlling the narrative.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: They relish the shock of the investigators, basically dictating the
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: terms of their own notorious legacy.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Well, the details he provided definitely shocked them. They were haunting.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: He starts with his ex-wife, Jennifer. He claims he went
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: into the bedroom where she was sleeping. He said he
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: first put the gun in his own mouth, intending to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: take his own life, but he couldn't pull the trigger.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: A classic display of cowardice.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So with his children in the very next room,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: he shot Jennifer in the head. He then attempted to
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: dismember her body to fit her into the storage containers.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: And he actually describes the dismemberment to the detectives as
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: awful and traumatic. attempting to solicit sympathy from them.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Which is absurd.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: It is, because his subsequent, highly calculated actions completely negate
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: any claim of genuine remorse or trauma.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly, because what he did to Justin Ma next is
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: incredibly cold. Sean admits he used Jennifer's phone to text Justin,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: pretending to be her, luring him to the house. When
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Justin arrived, John told him he could have some drugs
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: if he could fish them out of a floor vent.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: He literally manufactured a specific environmental scenario to manipulate the
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: victim into a physically vulnerable posture. Yeah.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: While Justin was bent over, looking down into the ductwork,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Sean shot him in the back. And remember, the gutted house.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Sean admitted there was so much blood from Justin's murder
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: that it rapidly seeped into the subflooring.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: So that's why he tore it up.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He had to physically pull up the floorboards in
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: his kid's bedroom to hide Justin's body beneath them. When
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the landlord asked about the torn up carpet during the eviction,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Sean effortlessly lied and blamed it on a fake water
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: leak that caused mold.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate domestic camouflage. He utilized mundane home
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: maintenance to mask a homicide from the property owner standing
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: right in front of him.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It's sickening. So then Matthew Miller returns to the house
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: looking for money. Sean shoots him in the back of
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the head. Now Sean has three bodies, and the eviction
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: is looming. And this brings us back to Randall Apostoline,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: the absolute tragedy of the timeline.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: The owner of the truck.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Yes. Randall owned that red truck, and he agreed to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: store some large boxes for Sean. Randall had absolutely no
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: idea what was in those sealed bins.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Randall was merely providing a logistical service. Right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And Sean originally agreed to pay Randall $ 150 to hold
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the containers. But then Randall asked for another $ 300. Sean
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: didn't have it. So over a dispute of $ 300 regarding
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: storage space for human remains, Sean bludgeons Randall to death
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: with a hammer in the front seat of his own truck.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: It's just senseless.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: It is. He leaves the truck at the airport, waits
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: out his seven-day jail sentence, and then takes a flight
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to New Jersey to find Michael Dikowski. Sean claimed Dikowski
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: had abused him as a child, and more importantly, that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Dikowski possessed physical photographs proving the abuse.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: So he was tying up loose ends.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Basically. Sean said he beat Dikowski to get the photos
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and then, in his words, took his life.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: So the narrative appears complete at this point. Law enforcement
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: has confessions aligning perfectly with the physical evidence of five homicides.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Right. Case closes, you'd think.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: But this is precisely when Sean deploys a psychological grenade
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: that upends the entire region.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Just as detectives are closing the files, Sean casually mentions
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: to Detective Turney that he had killed 11 other people
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: over the previous two to three years.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: 11 unverified victims.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He claimed these individuals were mostly local drug dealers
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: tied to Jennifer. He said he shot two of them
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and stabbed the other nine using a tool he described
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: as being like a pickaxe. A pickaxe.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And he claimed he transported and hid all 11 of
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: these bodies deep in the rugged volcanic terrain of Malpais
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: National Park in New Mexico.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And we must critically analyze the source of this information.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: You know, is this an empirical truth or is this
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: a calculated fabrication by a proven manipulator? We look at
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: historical parallels. Killers like Henry Lee Lucas, for example, who
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: falsely confessed to hundreds of murders just to manipulate the system.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But are we sure those 11 victims are entirely fabricated?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, given what he was capable of, what if
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: he's actually telling the truth?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: It's possible, absolutely. But we must evaluate his motives. Often,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: suspects facing multiple life sentences will invent phantom victims as
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: a bartering chip.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Like to get a better sell. Exactly.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: They attempt to secure better prison conditions, transfers, specific privileges,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: better food in exchange for leading authorities to bodies that
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: simply do not exist. Alternatively, it is a play for
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: ultimate historic notoriety. He wants to elevate his status from
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: a regional murderer to one of the most prolific serial
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: killers in state history.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, how does law enforcement even process an account
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: that is verifiably accurate on the microscopic details like the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: floor vents, The specific $ 150 dispute, the bloody hammer, yet
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: ends with a massive, unproven ghost story. Is he telling
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the truth, or is this his final mind game with
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the police?
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And despite massive, coordinated searches of the lava flows and
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: caves in Malpais National Park, not a single bone or
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence was ever discovered.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Nothing at all.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Nothing. And Danny Lamos, the man Sean tried to frame
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: with the pig story, was located by marshals and completely cleared.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Detectives ultimately concluded Sean acted entirely alone.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Because the justice system can only prosecute what it can
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: actually prove. So in October 2022, Sean pleaded guilty to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the first-degree murder of Michael Dikowski in New Jersey and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to 35 years.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: And what about the New Mexico victims?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: In May 2024, he pleaded guilty to killing Jennifer, Justin, Matthew,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and Randall, receiving four consecutive 15-year sentences. He will serve
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: his time in New Jersey first, then return to New
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Mexico for another 60 years. Basically, he will die in
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a concrete cell.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: It brings legal closure to the five confirmed victims, sure,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: but it leaves a massive lingering shadow over Grant's New Mexico.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It really does. When we synthesize this entire journey, it
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: is just staggering. It didn't start with a high-tech federal dragnet.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: It started with one observant grandmother who refused to let
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: her grandson be dismissed as a statistic.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: And one landlord.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one landlord who decided to report a disturbing
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: discovery in a cardboard box.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: We navigate a world built on the assumption of normalcy.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: We walk past parked cars at the airport. We drive
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: past normal-looking rental houses, completely unaware of the absolute horrors
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: they might be hiding just behind the drywall.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: This case violently strips that assumption away. It reveals how
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: easily profound calculated darkness can camouflage itself in the utterly
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: mundane details of daily life.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Like a water leak.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Right. A water leak, a trip for groceries, a dusty truck,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: and long-term parking.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to a final, really chilling thought for
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you to mull over. We discussed those 11 unverified victims.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: If a serial killer confesses to a massive number of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: ghost victims that are never found, how does that affect
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the community they leave behind?
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Think about the psychological fallout. Does a killer's unverified confession
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: inflict a secondary kind of psychological terror? By claiming 11
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: unknown bodies... Sean essentially hijacked every unresolved missing person's case
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: in that area.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: He really did.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: He took the agonizing pain of dozens of families waiting
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: for answers and twisted it into his own dark legacy,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: whether he actually killed them or not. It is the enduring,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: toxic power of a killer's final words, leaving a community
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: forever wondering what else is buried in the desert.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: The physical threat has been neutralized and locked away, but
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: the psychological manipulation continues indefinitely. It is the ultimate, cruelest
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: form of control.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Something to think about the next time you hear a
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: story that seems neatly tied up. Thank you for joining
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: us on this deep dive.