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Inset: Dylan Lamb (Monroe County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Amoray Dive Resort in Key Largo, Florida (WPLG/YouTube).
During a meeting with his parole officer, a Florida man left out a key detail about his recent activities: that he allegedly committed a murder.
Dylan Lamb, 33, stands accused of murder in the death of 43-year-old Nadyne Marie Tillman at a resort hotel in the Florida Keys. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that it responded around 11 a.m. Monday for a missing persons report at the Amoray Dive Resort in Key Largo. Deputies entered a hotel room where they found Tillman’s body stuffed in a closet under a water heater. She had been beaten to death.
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According to a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, Lamb had solicited Tillman for sex via a website. Investigators later spoke to one of Tillman’s friends who had texted with her before she went to the hotel on Saturday morning. She told her friend she agreed to a “date” with a man at the resort. She texted her friend that she was knocking at the door, but no one answered. After a few minutes, the man later identified as Lamb opened the door.
“I’m in,” Tillman told her friend.
It was the last time anyone heard from her.
A resort employee told cops Lamb rented the hotel room using Expedia and provided his mother’s phone number. He checked into the room on Friday night, but hotel employees tried to move him to another room the next day. Lamb spoke to the employees through the door and declined. He was allowed to stay in the room until Sunday morning.
The housekeeper found three large trash bags inside the room after Lamb left, the affidavit said.
“The bags were filled with soiled towels and bed linens, and were described as heavily stained with substances consistent with blood, urine, and feces,” cops wrote.
Instead of alerting law enforcement, staff threw the bags into a dumpster that has since been disposed of and is unable to be recovered, detectives wrote. The Miami Herald, citing unnamed sources, reported an unwitting guest stayed the night in that room with the corpse on Sunday into Monday.
Tillman’s family members became concerned about her well-being after she failed to respond to messages and reported her missing. Her daughter tracked her car to the resort on Monday morning and alerted law enforcement, which is what led to the discovery of her body.
Investigators identified Lamb as the person who had rented the room. Lamb was on probation from a previous grand theft of a motor vehicle conviction. Cops contacted his parole officer on Tuesday, who told them he had met with Lamb in person the day before. Detectives went to his job where he worked as a kayak instructor and took him into custody without incident.
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Post-Miranda, Lamb told cops he paid Tillman $200 for sex but claimed she tried to leave without providing the services, according to the affidavit. He allegedly said he blocked the door to prevent her from leaving and she started hitting him. Lamb insisted he only hit her once in the face. She fell, hit her head and lost consciousness, he claimed. Lamb went to the bathroom to calm himself down and when he returned, he saw she wasn’t breathing, the affidavit stated.
He told cops he “freaked out” and instead of calling 911 tried to clean up the mess using towels and linen before putting her body inside the water heater closet. He threw away the towels, linen and victim’s cellphone in the trash bags, the affidavit said. Tillman’s injuries were not consistent with just one hit to the face, cops said, because she had two black eyes, busted lips and other facial trauma.
In addition to the murder charge, Lamb stands accused of kidnapping, destruction of evidence and procuring a prostitute. Lamb remains in the Monroe County Jail without bond.
