Suffolk County police have released new information concerning the murder last October of a 33-year-old woman found dead in a room at the Shou Sugi Ban House in Water Mill.
A staff member of the hotel discovered the body of Sabina Khorramdel Rosas, a Brooklyn artist originally from Tajikistan, on the afternoon of Oct. 28, 2024. Southampton Town police quickly responded, and county homicide detectives were called in within the hour. News of a murder at the luxury spa and wellness retreat immediately attracted media attention. County police released a statement saying the woman had been “a victim of violence,” providing no further detail. The dead woman was publicly identified as Ms. Rosas the next morning, and confirmed as the victim of a murder.
The investigation was cut short two days later when police announced that a suspect, Thomas Gannon, 56, had been found dead at his Honesdale, Pa., residence, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was reported to have confessed to the killing in a text message.
The victim’s family released a statement that day, describing her as having brought “excitement, adventure, joy and love to our family,” and saying they were “devastated by this senseless loss.” They asked anyone with information about the case to come forward.
Reports from the ongoing investigation, obtained by The New York Post last week and by The Star on Tuesday, fill in details about the sequence of events leading up to the violent crime, though some questions remain unanswered.
Southampton Town police found the body lying face-up on a bed, and reported that the cause of death appeared to be blunt force trauma to the head, likely inflicted by a hammer that was found under the bed. That information was not disclosed to the public at the time. An autopsy conducted by the county medical examiner the next day supported that initial conclusion. Detectives had also observed wounds to the face, arms, legs, and neck, and noted defensive wounds on the hands of the dead woman.
Hotel staff told police that Mr. Gannon and Ms. Rosas had checked into the hotel shortly before 9 p.m. on Oct. 26 for a scheduled weekend stay. He had stayed at the hotel at least three times, according to an employee, including a visit with Ms. Rosas in May 2022.
The couple had dinner together the next night, a Sunday, in the hotel’s Main Barn, where the front desk and kitchen are located, and were last seen walking back to their room just before 9 p.m. A friend of the victim confirmed to detectives that his last communication from her had been a text message around 10 p.m.
At 8 a.m. on Monday, an employee texted Mr. Gannon to remind him of the hotel’s checkout time, and he quickly responded with a request for a late checkout, pushing the time to noon. The employee told detectives she’d seen him walking through the Main Barn about 10 minutes later, wearing “a long black coat and a cross-body bag,” and that she assumed he was on his way to the spa. He did not return, and that afternoon a housekeeper discovered the body of his companion.
Detectives determined that Mr. Gannon was already back in Pennsylvania by that time. An Uber driver called Southampton police on Tuesday after hearing of the murder from another passenger, telling them he’d received a request for a pickup at the Shou Sugi Ban House around 8 a.m. on Monday, and had arrived to find “a white male in his 50s, wearing a black coat down to his ankles,” standing on the sidewalk along Montauk Highway.
The driver asked the man to confirm that he was “Tom,” the name listed on his profile, and verified that he had requested a ride that was scheduled to take four hours and 25 minutes. His passenger was quiet during the long ride, the driver told detectives. He dropped him off near a “big house in the woods” at 12:45 p.m.
The trip totaled 212.11 miles and cost $357.10, and the driver said he did not receive a tip.
The day after Ms. Rosas was found, county detectives issued an alert to law enforcement that Mr. Gannon was wanted for questioning. Around 9:30 p.m. that day, Pennsylvania state police called to say they’d found him at his house, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His ex-wife had asked them to conduct a wellness check, they said, after receiving a series of “disturbing” text messages.
“She has no more power over me or anyone else,” the messages began. The messages described the victim as a “real devil” with “evil powers,” adding that she “took everything” from him and that he was running out of money. “I stopped her yesterday, the only way was to kill her,” he wrote, and requested that police be sent to his house to find him.
“It is my opinion that Thomas Gannon murdered Sabina Khorramdel Rosas,” a county detective wrote in a report in February, adding that his statement was “based on a review of the evidence and witness statements” and “also supported by Gannon’s admission to the crime in his text messages to his ex-wife.” The report concluded that the case would be closed — “exceptionally cleared” — due to the death of the identified subject.
The Shou Sugi Ban House did not publicly comment on the murder at the time, but a staff member told a Daily Mail reporter that they would not be accepting reservations for two weeks. The hotel did not respond to a request for comment last week.
