I was hunting a killer in the Hamptons when my Uber driver told me something that led cops straight to the murderer
It had all the elements that crime writers like me spend their careers chasing.
A young artist trying to build a life in New York’s creative world. A wealthy older admirer who referred to her as his ‘muse.’
A quiet wellness retreat in the Hamptons, where rooms cost more than $1,200 a night and guests come looking for silence, rest and a bit of distance from the city.
And inside one of those cedar-lined suites – Unit 12 – a lifeless body, a missing companion and a mystery that would eventually stretch from Long Island to a remote cabin in the Pennsylvania woods.
It was the type of story that got the newsroom excited.
But what no one expected was that the trail leading to the man suspected of killing 33-year-old Sabina Rosas would run straight through the back seat of an Uber – and that I would end up sitting in it myself, retracing the final journey he took before everything unraveled.
When I went to investigate the case in Water Mill on Long Island in October 2024, the assignment immediately carried the uneasy feeling that something deeply disturbing had taken place.
A woman had been found brutally bludgeoned to death inside Shou Sugi Ban House, the ultra-exclusive Japanese-inspired retreat that has counted Hollywood A-listers Kate Hudson and Gwyneth Paltrow as guests.
Artist Sabina Rosas was found dead in October 2024 at a luxury wellness retreat in the Hamptons
A room at Shou Sugi Ban House where the murder happened – and where stars like Kate Hudson and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow have stayed
Its minimalist architecture, meditation gardens and cedar-scented bathhouses attract celebrities, financiers and wellness devotees seeking refuge from the chaos of Manhattan 93 miles away.
The ‘private sanctuary,’ as the spa proudly describes itself, is the sort of place where guests arrive hoping to cleanse the mind and body – not somewhere police cruisers and homicide detectives would normally gather.
Yet on October 28, 2024, it became the center of a murder investigation.
Rosas, a Brooklyn-based artist known among friends for her bohemian charm and complicated romantic life, had checked into the retreat days earlier with Thomas Gannon, 56, a businessman who had quietly become a constant presence in her life and openly described her as his ‘muse.’
The Daily Mail’s Ruth Bashinsky led cops right to the killer – but it was too late
But when a staff member entered the couple’s suite at around noon that day, she made the discovery that would shatter the spa’s carefully curated calm.
Rosas was dead, lying beaten and bloodied on the bedsheets, and her benefactor was nowhere to be found.
Detectives would later piece together that on the morning of October 28, hours before Rosas’s body was discovered, Gannon had slipped into an Uber waiting outside the retreat’s understated wooden entrance.
By the time police began asking questions, he was already hundreds of miles away.
As a reporter based on Long Island, the Hamptons is familiar territory to me – a stretch of picturesque villages where, beneath the carefully curated calm, there are often stories far darker than anyone expects.
But I never imagined that the crucial break in this investigation would come in such an ordinary way.
I stepped off the Long Island Rail Road at Southampton Station and requested an Uber to take me to the spa just four miles away along roads lined with immaculate multi-million-dollar homes.
A sedan pulled up to the curb and the driver introduced himself as Ozan.
Rosas was a budding young artist with a complicated love life
What he told me during the short ride that followed would unlock the most crucial clue to the mystery.
Halfway through the journey, Ozan mentioned that he had picked up a passenger from the very same spa the previous day.
I just had a gut feeling that this could be a lead and began questioning him about the person’s name, appearance and demeanor.
Ozan spoke Turkish and his English was patchy, so we had to use Google Translate to communicate for some of the ride.
With each answer, I felt my heart beat faster.
The middle-aged male passenger had made an unusual request for this quiet corner of Long Island: a 220-mile ride across state lines to a secluded cabin in Pennsylvania.
Ozan remembered him clearly: tall, pale, wearing a long black coat.
The man had given his name simply as Tom.
For most of the journey, the driver recalled his passenger said almost nothing, sitting in silence as the Hamptons gave way to the long highways heading west.
At one point, the man seemed so exhausted that he slumped back and fell asleep in the rear seat.
Four hours later – with the fare $370 – the passenger stepped out at a wooded property near Honesdale, Pennsylvania, muttered a quiet thank you and disappeared inside.
There had been no blood on his clothes that Ozan could see. No dramatic outburst. Nothing that would have raised alarm.
After speaking with Ozan, I contacted Suffolk County Police, passing along the driver’s account and the exact address of the Pennsylvania cabin where he had dropped off his silent passenger.
The Daily Mail learned that Sabina had been staying at the property with Thomas Gannon, shown above
Detectives moved quickly. When officers arrived at the property, they found Gannon inside.
He was dead.
Authorities say he had taken his own life with a single gunshot to the head, closing the investigation before detectives could ask him what happened inside the quiet spa suite where Rosas lost her life.
When I arrived hours later, there was a set of sliding doors on the balcony with a giant hole and shattered glass debris on the ground – likely the scene of his suicide.
For those who loved Rosas, the news felt like a second blow. They realized that they may never know exactly what happened to her.
Rosas’s partner, Ryder Itawa, told me that the unanswered questions might haunt them forever.
‘It was such a cowardly thing,’ he said quietly. ‘Such a cop-out. We may never know what really happened.’
What happened to Rosas in that hotel room was devastatingly violent.
A trove of police records that I later obtained shed light on Gannon’s evil, selfish motive.
Sabina’s devastated partner, Ryder Itawa, told the Daily Mail Gannon’s suicide was an act of cowardice. ‘Now we will never really know why she is no longer with us’
Rosas felt ‘trapped’ by Gannon ‘psychologically’, her partner Ryder said (pictured together)
After bludgeoning Rosas to death with a hammer, he sent his ex-wife a text message.
‘She has no more power over me or anyone else,’ Gannon wrote.
‘She was the real devil. I was running out of money, she wouldn’t stop taking it.
‘I had no way to stop her, she was going to kill me. I stopped her yesterday, the only way was to kill her.’
At 8am on Monday, October 28, 2024, the hotel’s host supervisor sent Gannon a text message regarding check-out after he had requested a late departure.
About ten minutes later, the supervisor saw him walk calmly past the front desk and out toward the entrance.
He would not be seen there again.
Roughly four hours later, at 12.25pm, a housekeeper knocked on the couple’s door, intending to clean the room. When no one answered, she entered – and was confronted with a horrific scene.
Rosas’s battered and bloodied naked body lay on the bed. The curtains had been drawn and there were bloodstains on the bedsheets and floor.
The housekeeper later told police she was so disturbed by what she saw that she immediately backed out of the room and closed the door.
She returned moments later with two colleagues. Through the sliding glass door, they could see Rosas motionless on the bed, covered in blood.
The terrified employees then called 911.
According to the official death report, Rosas had been repeatedly struck in the head with a blunt object, causing catastrophic injuries. Investigators said the wounds were consistent with blows from a hammer.
The autopsy revealed a brutal assault. She suffered multiple defensive wounds, fingernail gouges on her arm, extensive skull fractures, blunt force trauma to the head, aspiration of blood in her lungs and an air embolism in the heart.
What also emerged in the aftermath was a portrait of a complicated web of relationships surrounding the young artist.
Sabina Khorramdel was born in Tajikistan and spent her early childhood moving across Central Asia after civil war forced her family to flee. According to a biography on the website of Harvestworks, a New York City-based non-profit organization that helps artists create work using technology, the family relocated to Turkmenistan when she was two and then to Crimea.
In 2009, at the age of 17, she traveled alone to the United States to pursue her education and artistic career, studying at Borough of Manhattan Community College before completing a degree in new media at SUNY Purchase.
She was legally separated from the husband whose surname she continued to use while romantically involved with Itawa.
Property records also linked her to another man entirely. When Itawa arrived at the coroner’s office to identify her body, he encountered that man there, too – both had been summoned to perform the same grim task.
Yet the figure who looms largest in the story remains Thomas Gannon.
Insiders describe him as intensely devoted to Rosas – and increasingly possessive.
‘He helped fund her artistic projects,’ Itawa said. ‘She was like his muse.’
Budding artist Sabina moved to the US in 2009 aged 17. Born in Tajikistan, she and her family had fled to Crimea when she was a child. Her parents remain there today
But the generosity he suggested came with emotional strings attached.
‘He told me once that Sabina didn’t love him,’ Itawa recalled. ‘He believed she was using him for his money.’
Just months before her death, Rosas had launched an online fundraiser to support her creative work. As part of the appeal, she reflected on turning 33 in words that now read with unsettling poignancy.
‘As I approach my 33rd birthday, I can’t help but chuckle at the fact that 33 is often associated with the age of Jesus when he made his ultimate sacrifice,’ she wrote. ‘While I’m not planning anything dramatic, I see this year as a turning point in my life.’
Gannon donated $1,000, leaving a message: ‘You have an amazing gift. Soon all the world will see. I love you.’
Investigators believe that he was also paying for the couple’s lavish stay at the Hamptons retreat.
Today, the spa continues to operate, but the cedar walkways and meditation gardens that once promised serenity now carry the uneasy memory of the crime that shattered the silence there.
Suffolk County detectives later thanked both the Uber driver and the Daily Mail for helping them trace Gannon’s final movements.
But for Rosas’s family – thousands of miles away in Eastern Europe – the investigation ending with his death offers little comfort.
In a statement issued after the killing, they said: ‘Your support during this challenging time is a testament to just how special Sabina was and will remain. As the eldest of three daughters, Sabina brought excitement, adventure, joy and love to our family. We are devastated by this senseless loss.’
The man who might have explained exactly what happened inside that tranquil spa suite is gone.
And the place where it all unfolded, a sanctuary designed for healing, instead became the setting for a grisly murder mystery that may never be fully solved.
