WESTMINSTER – An admitted white supremacist was arrested Friday morning at a motel, nearly a week after investigators suspect he killed a man on Labor Day outside a popular Laguna Niguel bar, officials said.

Craig Tanber, a 37-year-old Dana Point man who already served time for another killing, now faces a possible murder charge after Orange County Sheriff’s Department SWAT officials found him around 6:15 a.m. inside a room at a Motel 6, 13100 Goldenwest St., in Westminster.

“We developed some information in the last 12 hours that led us to that motel on Goldenwest,” sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock said.

Tanber is suspected of stabbing Shayan Mazroei, 22, of Laguna Niguel around 12:15 a.m. Monday outside Patsy’s Irish Pub, 28971 Street of the Golden Lantern, in Laguna Niguel.

Mazroei was taken in an ambulance to Mission Hospital where he died from his injuries at 12:45 a.m., according to the coroner’s office.

The killer, suspected to be Tanber, fled from the bar, and police have been looking for him since the incident.

Sheriff’s department SWAT officials surrounded the two-story motel before sunrise Friday morning and evacuated the rooms adjacent to the one where Tanber was later found with a woman.

Witnesses said Tanber was at Patsy’s Irish Pub Monday with a woman, but officials don’t believe it’s the same one he was with at the motel Friday morning.

No one was injured during the incident, and Tanber was arrested on suspicion on murder before he was booked into Orange County jail. He was held in lieu of $1 million bail and expected to make a court appearance Tuesday.

Tanber was also arrested on suspicion of murder in 2004, after officials suspected he took part in killing Cory Lamons, a 26-year-old Laguna Niguel man whose body was found April 6, 2004, in the bed of a pickup truck by Huntington Beach police investigators.

He took a deal in 2007, when he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and admitted to committing the crime as a white supremacist gang member, after an initial mistrial, and was sentenced to six years in prison. He was released June 13 on parole, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records.

Officials are not investigating the Labor Day killing as a hate crime, Hallock said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7802 or aduranty@ocregister.com