By David Lohr
October 12, 2007
MANHATTAN, N.Y. (Crime Library) — A squabble over a $50 bill turned deadly when an unemployed artist allegedly strangled a young woman in his grandmother's apartment last week. According to police, after committing the murder, the suspect scrawled an apology on the wall and then spent the next two nights sleeping in the same room with the victim's body before calling a family member to confess his crime.
On October 6, Michael Chin Lenahan, 29, accompanied by his new girlfriend, Lorna Santiago, 24, went out to eat at a restaurant on Third Avenue. Afterwards, the couple went to Rick's Cabaret, a strip club on W. 33rd St., where Lenahan spent $50 on lap dances for his girlfriend.
After a stimulating evening at the strip club, Lenahan and Lorna Santiago returned to Lenahan's apartment at 20 Confucius Plaza, where he lives with his 80-year-old grandmother, and had sex.
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| Michael Chin Lenahan |
By the following morning, the afterglow had subsided, and Lenahan demanded his girlfriend repay the $50 he had spent on the lap dances. According to police, Lorna refused and kicked Lenahan in the groin, sending him into a rage. Lenahan then allegedly threw Lorna against a wall and choked her to death. Afterwards, he allegedly scrawled an apology on the wall, along with a drawing police have described as "bizarre."
Police say Lenahan slept in the same room with Lorna's body both Sunday and Monday night, before hiding it under a pile of clothes. He then called his brother in New Jersey and allegedly admitted what he had done. Upon hearing the news, Lenahan's brother notified their mother, and she, along with a cousin, went to the apartment and found the body. The two then escorted Lenahan's elderly grandmother out of the building and called 911.
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