January 12, 2026 • 21 mins
The trial of 59-year-old Paul Caneiro finally began this morning, seven years after police say he murdered his brother Keith, his sister-in-law, his 11-year-old nephew and 8-year-old niece and then set fire to their home and eventually his own to cover up the crimes. Opening statements laid out both cases, the prosecution detailing the brutality of Caneiro’s alleged crimes while the defense already let jurors know they are offering a different suspect in these heinous murders, Paul and Keith’s other brother, Corey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, folks.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
It is Monday, January twelfth, and today, finally, after seven years,
we just heard opening statements in the case of a
man accused of massacring his family and then setting two
mansions on fire to cover it up. We've been waiting
seven years to hear how he's going to defend himself,
and we heard it this morning. With that, welcome to
(00:24):
this episode of Amy and TJ and Robes. He's going
to defend himself with the defense that's well been around
since the invention of criminals.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Wasn't me?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Wasn't me? And who knew? I guess a lot of
people did.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
There's a third brother and so it wasn't me, it
was possibly.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
The other brother.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
To make that clear, one guy is on trial, One
brother's on trial for killing another brother who's blaming now
the other brother for the death.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So all three of them.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
This is awful family actually awful family dynamic right now.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's an understatement. I was actually an imagining.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I don't know if their parents are alive, but that
has to be like the most chosrithic experience to know
that one of your sons was brutally murdered and his
entire family. Your other son is accused of doing it,
and that son is accusing your other son of doing it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And that is what we found out. That is where
we are a lot of people might remember or recognize
the name Paul Canaro, certainly in the northeast, but this
is a case that goes back to twenty eighteen when, yes,
Paul Canaro is accused of going over to his brother's house,
which only about twenty minutes away in the town in
New Jersey, shooting his brother, then going in the house,
shooting his brother's wife, killing her, and then killing his
(01:40):
eleven year old nephew and eight year old niece, then
setting fire to that house, driving back to his own
mansion and setting it on fire to cover it up.
That is the crime we're talking about. And Robes remind me,
I know you did a deeper dived than I did
on the reasons why it has taken so long is
been seven years since the crime while we're only getting
(02:02):
to opening statements today.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Yes, Well, first of all, there were a lot of
pre trial hearings where they were trying to get evidence excluded,
namely this DNA evidence, which we actually heard his defense
attorney reference and already set the stage to try and
debunk when it came to their presentation of his defense,
but that took a lot of time. They also blamed COVID.
COVID nineteen set back this trial significantly. And so between
(02:30):
I guess the pre trial hearings and the evidentiary hearings,
what was going to be admitted, what wasn't, and then
COVID nineteen, it's just taken seven long years.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So we've gotten to this day. So yes, they had
jury selection all last week, but opening statements today now
the prosecutor came out and it's always interesting to me,
and I go back again to Brian Walsh, the case
we just covered. To see someone sitting in a courtroom
in a V neck sweater and a tie and a
button up, with glasses on, looking like a guy who
(03:02):
might teach fifth grade social studies, who was accused of
doing the most heinous things.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Ever, when you just said that, I got chills because
I thought it was interesting. In a lot of these
courtrooms where there are cameras, you only see the back
of the defendant's head. You only see maybe the side
you can see when he's whispering to his attorneys. You
had a full front angle of his face straight on,
and I couldn't take my eyes away from his face
(03:30):
because it was emotional.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
He looked, he looked. He wasn't stoic.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I think a lot of times we see these defendants,
they're stoic, they're unemotional, they sit there.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
He was clearly emotional listening to.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
The prosecution create and present their opening arguments, and what
they were saying was horrific to hear.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
He almost looked defeated at times, and he did looked
genuinely emotional at times in the courtroom. And that's not
something I can say for a lot of defendant, at
least before they hear not guilty.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Don't attorneys.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Defense attorneys tell their clients not to show emotion because
they can be interpreted different ways. The jury is obviously
looking at him, and I have to say, I was
watching We haven't.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Talked about our experiences.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
We were watching it together, but I also had it
on my computer and I was watching it on YouTube,
and you know, there's a live stream of comments and
people were going off on his facial expression, saying he
looks guilty, and I just kept thinking, I get that
that could be an interpretation, and that is why attorneys
tell their clients not to show emotion because he might
(04:37):
be feeling something completely different. But it looked like he
had this guilty emotion on his face. That's not necessarily
fair to know what was behind the emotion, but people
were already jumping to those conclusions.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, I'm on a jury, I'm sitting here in judgment
of you, and I'm also judging how you're sitting there
and your facial expressions. That's human nature. You have to
to your point. Why they tell them give them nothing,
don't be emotional in any way. But he looked like
a human being today. He did bro Brian Walsh never did.
I mean, he didn't look the same way this dude.
And that's just the truth. Now, this was a smaller courtroom.
(05:11):
Given how big of a story this has been, it
is kind of a smaller courtroom.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I think most of the.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Pew it didn't seem jampack necessarily, but the pews were
fairly full.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's the scene.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Nicole Wallace started the day off ro she's the prosecutor,
and she laid out. She went in kind of hard.
I don't think it was necessarily for shock value. These
are the facts of the case, but she kind of
laid out how the crime unfold.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yeah, she talked about how he waited in the shadows
and then hunted them down. She used those types of
phrases to describe what she claims he did leading up
to the murders, the murders of his brother Paul Canaro.
She claims deliberately disconnected the generator, cut the power off.
(05:58):
He knew that his brother would come out to try
and see what was going on, and she claims as
he was waiting for him there in the dark, he
shot his brother. I think she said he fired six shots,
five of them hitting his brother execution style. So he
had taken out the person who could have defended his family.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
And then it gets worse.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
They say, he goes into the house and this is
where she said, I mean, he had cut power to
the house, so in the dark, he is hunting an
unsuspecting family. Now by all accounts, robes everybody was awake
because of the disturbance, because of everything that's going on.
The power's gone out and Dad has to go outside
hunted them down. So the woman is found in one spot,
(06:42):
shot on a staircase. One of the kids stabbed seventeen times.
This was the little girl, and they made a point
Robes to say, seventeen times in her forty five pound body.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Didn't that just send just this horror throughout your entire
body to him? Imagine a grown man over on top
of a forty five pound eight year old girl who
was his niece, who he presumably loved and spent a
lot of time with.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That is as horrific as it gets.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And the same now as with eleven year old Jesse
found in a different part of the home stabbed as well.
So the prosecutor. I thought, at least I hadn't heard
a lot of these details. I didn't do a deep
enough diet to hear some of this. But and this
is everything we've just said, and I apologize. I meant
to actually give a warning at the top, just to say, hey,
some of this stuff that came out in court today
(07:37):
is awful, and I think this is probably the most
awful thing given what we just said. This next thing
is the most awful detail. Robes to hear that the
kids had smoke in their lungs, so he kills everyone
in the house. It does what he does. And they
say he goes out and sets a fire that actually
(07:58):
smolders for hours.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
They say, like a slow burning fire is how they
describe it.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
They think, get a call about this fire for hours
and hours and hours later, So it took a while
for this thing to burn. So they're saying both kids
had evidence of smoke and their lungs, meaning those kids
were left alive in that house.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, she put it like this.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
She said they were inhaling smoke as they bled to death.
That is quite the scene, thinking about this family on
the stairs bleeding out.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Still, these things can Okay, she has to tell the
facts and if it's true, But my god, how are
you sitting on the jury and still in that moment going, okay,
remember what the judge said that he's presumed innocent.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
How can you not want.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
To to get back at somebody for that just as
a human being. All Right, it's tough to do your
job there, but that that particular detail, hearing he killed them,
hearing what they went through, like you want somebody to
pay for that shit?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
It's hard to have.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I mean, they're taking their lunch break and I after
hearing what was set in court today, it's hard to
even want to eat.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's how horrific this is.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
In addition to the other evidence there, he left the
pile of clothes, they said, in his basement, and then
they ended up being near where the fire started. This
pile of clothes, I mean some of these details. They
said that the niece and nephews some of their DNA,
some of their blood on these clothes. There were six
black gloves mixed in there, and there were blood. So
they're putting together a case. You're scratching your head like,
(09:28):
holy hell. Yeah, just for the overwhelming.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Just from the opening statement alone from the prosecutor, the
evidence is overwhelming. Yes, the pile of bloody clothes that
are his clothes that have his niece and nephews DNA
on them. They found a barrel of a gun in
his backpack in the porch that the family was sitting.
And so his family gets out of the fire, the
(09:54):
fire that they say he set to cover it up
to make it look like their entire family was targeted
by someone. So he sets the fire to his own home,
they claim, and then he gets his family out alive
and they're waiting in the family's Porsche. But in that
porsche was a backpack, and in that backpack was a
lot of evidence, a lot of evidence.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And so again we're trying to piece this together. But
according to the prosecution, there is the barrel of a gun. There,
they go in the house, they find another gun that's
whose barrel had been swapped out. So they say though
they can trace the barrel of the gun and the
actual gun, both two bullets that were used at the
(10:34):
other house. Again, this is all wildly overwhelming. Now the
timeline I had not heard before either. This is one
of those you have to go hmm. I know it
looks bad, but this looks awful.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
This is terrible, This looks all So this is based
on surveillance camera, so this isn't their estimation. They actually
have video evidence at two six am that Porsche left
Paul Canarrow's home. It's a twenty minute drive to his
brother's house. At two fifty two the power was lost
at the brother's house. They can document that. And then
(11:06):
at three fourteen am to three eighteen am, there were
four texts that went from Keith's phone that's the brother
who was murdered, to Paul's phone and saying that the
power was out and he was going to check his generator,
like basically that he was updating his brother on what
was happening.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And then would you believe at three eighteen they said
the last one that brother sent was saying, I'm gonna
go out and check the generator.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
So three point thirty am there's a nine to one
to one call from someone who heard gunshots. And then
at four oh eight am that Porsche returns back to
Paul Canaro's house, and at five oh two am there
is a call about a fire at Paul Canaro's house.
That timeline is, damn, it looks bad.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It's his car.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I know it looks bad. It all looks bad. I
know it looks bad.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Terrible again, So you're listening to this and like, how
in God's name are they going to defend themselves because
on top of all this, we talked about this in
previous cases, jurys like to have a motive, and they
are trying to set up a financial one here at
least on two fronts. One, he's the beneficiary of a
life insurance policy and also he was in business with
(12:19):
his brother and that was going His.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Brother had just found out that or claimed that Paul
had stolen money from the company, and he was demanding
answers the day before, saying, I need to know what's
going on, asking for passwords to get into certain accounts
to see what actually happened where this missing money was.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And in addition, now the crazy part here about the
life insurance. There was a three million dollar life insurance
policy that Keith Canaro had. The beneficiary of that policy
was his wife. But in the event of his wife's death,
that money would go to the kids. God forbid, if
everybody in the family's taken out, that three million dollars
(12:58):
is to be split among two brothers.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Paul Canaro and Cory Canaro.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Those are the two that's left.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And so if one of the brothers goes to prison,
all of that money goes to Corey. Now that is
a wild scenario that would you believe the defense is
about to explore. Yes, stay here, we'll tell you about
the defense opening statement and their line of defense.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Welcome back everyone.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
We are talking about the explosive trial that is taking
place in New Jersey seven years in the making.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
This is a horrific.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
It murders, it's a massacre of an entire family, and
one brother is accused of murdering his other brother and
his brother's family in the most terrific fashion. But he's
now suggesting, according to his defense, that the other brother
actually is the one who may.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Be responsible, suggesting.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They're I was trying to be I mean, they are
not dancing around it, dude, did you take it?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
They are absolutely saying that, hey, this other brother, Corey,
actually benefited the most if he could take one brother
out by a murder, take out the other brother by
framing him for the murder, and then he gets all
the life insurance money.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
That is the defense they're setting up.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
I also thought it was interesting the defense attorney in
this case started out by saying basically acknowledging the overwhelming evidence,
and she said, it's so obvious it doesn't make sense.
So they're actually using the fact that there's so much
obvious evidence against Paul canarow that no one would be
that stupid as to commit a murder and leave all
(14:53):
this evidence behind.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I am not Maybe that's good and legal strategy, but
I am just a dude, and and I would have
been offended by that on the jury, like you're actually
telling me, don't believe the overwhelming evidence against your client,
because it's so overwhelming. It's so overwhelming that it can't
be true. Right, Nobody is a stupid of a criminal.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's basically what they're doing. Nobody is this stupid.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I didn't necessarily it wasn't. Didn't love that opening, uh direction,
she went, But okay, but she did acknowledge, and she
walked over to the table at one point saying, I
am not here to defend this tragedy. I am here
to defend Paul Canaro and walked over to him and
I thought that made sense and that was effective. But yes,
they are going after the other brother and flat out
(15:36):
saying that Paul Canaro did not do this. She is
declaring he is innocent. This is not just another theory.
She saying this is not the right guy. Part of
that is robes. It looks like they are going to
go after the investigation pretty strongly.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Yes, they're saying that the police never once looked at
Corey Canaro as a possible suspect. They zeroed in and
immediately on Paul Canaro and had tunnel vision, and they.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Only investigated him.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
They only checked his DNA, they only looked at his
text and his life and any evidence appointed to Paul.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
They never once considered that Corey.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Could have had something to do with it, and because
of that they got the wrong guy.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
That seems crazy that they wouldn't have looked into the
other brother in some way because she's making an argument
the defense attorney that yes, they're saying she used house
of cards, saying, my client is sitting here saying he
had this financial house of cars and that's why he
had to kill over money. Said Corey's house of cars
was worse.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yes, they said our client's financial situation was bad, but
Corey's was worse.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
That's what they were saying.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yes, And they said that the evidence is so conveniently
overwhelming and that's why you should question their theory. They
pointed to the fact that the gas can wasent conveniently
in the front lawn.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That is. That is and you think about even the
fact that.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
He took some of those clothes of the like bloodied
clothes and then like put them in his own home
and went to burn them, but they didn't burn completely,
Like why would you even possibly leave that kind of
evidence behind? It sounds stupid, Yes, it does sound very
stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
The barrel I'm gonna I need to hear about the
barrel of the gun.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Yeah, how did someone conveniently put that in his backpack
in the period of time that, Yeah, there wasn't really
a lot of opportunity there for Corey or anyone else.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
To do that.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
But they also pointed out about the relationship between Paul
and Keith. They said that they were best friends, they
were each other's person I.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Thought that's strong, that that's a big deal. I mean,
it sounds like they were really really close. That might
be a factor. I thought it was in the middle
of the night, something goes wrong with your house, the
first thing you think to do is to text your brother.
I thought that said a lot. That three in the morning.
It was just his power out, and the first thing
he did was textas brother several times. And they even said, Hey,
I'm gonna go out and check it out.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That suggested to me a very tight relationship.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
And in fact, you know, I've been doing a deep
dive and this is so incredibly sad.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
But his adult daughters, who were there at the time
of the fire, they have.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Through social media over the years, paid tribute to their
niece and their nephew, and their aunt and their uncle,
saying how much they missed them, how much they loved them,
putting up photos. This was a family that vacationed together,
that ate together, that did everything together.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
She said.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
When she went away to college, her nephew, Jesse, facetimed
her every day. Her niece she called her her little
mini nie. So these were families that were so entwined
and so close knit. They were a family in and
of themselves. Even said, it wasn't even like there were
two families. It was as if they were all one
family in business and in pleasure.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I mean, they decided to live twenty minutes apart.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah, ten miles from one another.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
They were over at each other's house all the time
doing whatever. Those things open to have this all now
playing out.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
But yes, that is.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I'm not sure how far they're going to go with
that theory and trying to prove it, or they're just
hinting at it and suggesting it. But if you give
an a juror's mind, another possibility, another option, And right
now they're saying, there's somebody else who had just as
much to gain from this, who made them it was
a prosecutor. She said, this case is not about how
much he had to gain, but about how much he
(19:27):
had to lose. Wow, it wasn't about how much money
was coming, but he was about to lose his way
of life and had no way out.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
He was desperate.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
It's interesting because in the last two major court cases
we followed Diddy and then Brian Walsh, we saw both
of those defense teams choose not to put up a
defense at all. And it'll be interesting to see this
case because there are they are clearly at least an
opening statement suggesting they have a full defense, that they're
going to present an alternative theory.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You hear her, She said, she told the jury five
six or seven weeks, five six or seven weeks, and
they are almost getting I was ready for a really
boring a few weeks of testimony, and they acknowledged it.
They said, Hey, this is going to be a lot
of stats, a lot of info, a lot of financial records,
(20:19):
a lot.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Yeah, it's crazy in a story that is this salacious
and this horrific and this headline provoking that it could
immediately be so boring from the beginning. But once opening
arguments ended and testimony began. It so far, it's exactly
as they suggested, because they're getting into the financials of
the company. They're getting into the financials, they're getting into
the business. It is tedious, and it's not it's I
(20:43):
found myself kind of having to make myself focused thinking
about those jurors sitting in this room preparing themselves for
two months of this.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And then the guy that's up now as we're recording this,
they're on lunch break. But that guy was frustrating the
hell out of the judge and he was trying to
read through emails and he was just all over the
place and all this. Yes, it was one of them.
I know these folks don't testify all the time, but yes,
but yeah, folks with just want to hop on and
give you that update. This is one we're keep a
(21:13):
close eye on. Anytime there is a significant update. In
this case, you can find it here always top right
corner of your Apple podcast app where you see our
show page a little button that says follow click that
you don't have to go hunting for our updates.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
They'll come right to you. And but now on behalf
of I mean robot I'm TJ. Holmes. Talk to y'll soon.
Hey there, folks.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
It is Monday, January twelfth, and today, finally, after seven years,
we just heard opening statements in the case of a
man accused of massacring his family and then setting two
mansions on fire to cover it up. We've been waiting
seven years to hear how he's going to defend himself,
and we heard it this morning. With that, welcome to
(00:24):
this episode of Amy and TJ and Robes. He's going
to defend himself with the defense that's well been around
since the invention of criminals.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Wasn't me?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Wasn't me? And who knew? I guess a lot of
people did.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
There's a third brother and so it wasn't me, it
was possibly.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
The other brother.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
To make that clear, one guy is on trial, One
brother's on trial for killing another brother who's blaming now
the other brother for the death.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So all three of them.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
This is awful family actually awful family dynamic right now.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's an understatement. I was actually an imagining.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I don't know if their parents are alive, but that
has to be like the most chosrithic experience to know
that one of your sons was brutally murdered and his
entire family. Your other son is accused of doing it,
and that son is accusing your other son of doing it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And that is what we found out. That is where
we are a lot of people might remember or recognize
the name Paul Canaro, certainly in the northeast, but this
is a case that goes back to twenty eighteen when, yes,
Paul Canaro is accused of going over to his brother's house,
which only about twenty minutes away in the town in
New Jersey, shooting his brother, then going in the house,
shooting his brother's wife, killing her, and then killing his
(01:40):
eleven year old nephew and eight year old niece, then
setting fire to that house, driving back to his own
mansion and setting it on fire to cover it up.
That is the crime we're talking about. And Robes remind me,
I know you did a deeper dived than I did
on the reasons why it has taken so long is
been seven years since the crime while we're only getting
(02:02):
to opening statements today.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Yes, Well, first of all, there were a lot of
pre trial hearings where they were trying to get evidence excluded,
namely this DNA evidence, which we actually heard his defense
attorney reference and already set the stage to try and
debunk when it came to their presentation of his defense,
but that took a lot of time. They also blamed COVID.
COVID nineteen set back this trial significantly. And so between
(02:30):
I guess the pre trial hearings and the evidentiary hearings,
what was going to be admitted, what wasn't, and then
COVID nineteen, it's just taken seven long years.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So we've gotten to this day. So yes, they had
jury selection all last week, but opening statements today now
the prosecutor came out and it's always interesting to me,
and I go back again to Brian Walsh, the case
we just covered. To see someone sitting in a courtroom
in a V neck sweater and a tie and a
button up, with glasses on, looking like a guy who
(03:02):
might teach fifth grade social studies, who was accused of
doing the most heinous things.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Ever, when you just said that, I got chills because
I thought it was interesting. In a lot of these
courtrooms where there are cameras, you only see the back
of the defendant's head. You only see maybe the side
you can see when he's whispering to his attorneys. You
had a full front angle of his face straight on,
and I couldn't take my eyes away from his face
(03:30):
because it was emotional.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
He looked, he looked. He wasn't stoic.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I think a lot of times we see these defendants,
they're stoic, they're unemotional, they sit there.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
He was clearly emotional listening to.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
The prosecution create and present their opening arguments, and what
they were saying was horrific to hear.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
He almost looked defeated at times, and he did looked
genuinely emotional at times in the courtroom. And that's not
something I can say for a lot of defendant, at
least before they hear not guilty.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Don't attorneys.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Defense attorneys tell their clients not to show emotion because
they can be interpreted different ways. The jury is obviously
looking at him, and I have to say, I was
watching We haven't.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Talked about our experiences.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
We were watching it together, but I also had it
on my computer and I was watching it on YouTube,
and you know, there's a live stream of comments and
people were going off on his facial expression, saying he
looks guilty, and I just kept thinking, I get that
that could be an interpretation, and that is why attorneys
tell their clients not to show emotion because he might
(04:37):
be feeling something completely different. But it looked like he
had this guilty emotion on his face. That's not necessarily
fair to know what was behind the emotion, but people
were already jumping to those conclusions.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, I'm on a jury, I'm sitting here in judgment
of you, and I'm also judging how you're sitting there
and your facial expressions. That's human nature. You have to
to your point. Why they tell them give them nothing,
don't be emotional in any way. But he looked like
a human being today. He did bro Brian Walsh never did.
I mean, he didn't look the same way this dude.
And that's just the truth. Now, this was a smaller courtroom.
(05:11):
Given how big of a story this has been, it
is kind of a smaller courtroom.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I think most of the.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Pew it didn't seem jampack necessarily, but the pews were
fairly full.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's the scene.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Nicole Wallace started the day off ro she's the prosecutor,
and she laid out. She went in kind of hard.
I don't think it was necessarily for shock value. These
are the facts of the case, but she kind of
laid out how the crime unfold.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yeah, she talked about how he waited in the shadows
and then hunted them down. She used those types of
phrases to describe what she claims he did leading up
to the murders, the murders of his brother Paul Canaro.
She claims deliberately disconnected the generator, cut the power off.
(05:58):
He knew that his brother would come out to try
and see what was going on, and she claims as
he was waiting for him there in the dark, he
shot his brother. I think she said he fired six shots,
five of them hitting his brother execution style. So he
had taken out the person who could have defended his family.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
And then it gets worse.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
They say, he goes into the house and this is
where she said, I mean, he had cut power to
the house, so in the dark, he is hunting an
unsuspecting family. Now by all accounts, robes everybody was awake
because of the disturbance, because of everything that's going on.
The power's gone out and Dad has to go outside
hunted them down. So the woman is found in one spot,
(06:42):
shot on a staircase. One of the kids stabbed seventeen times.
This was the little girl, and they made a point
Robes to say, seventeen times in her forty five pound body.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Didn't that just send just this horror throughout your entire
body to him? Imagine a grown man over on top
of a forty five pound eight year old girl who
was his niece, who he presumably loved and spent a
lot of time with.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That is as horrific as it gets.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And the same now as with eleven year old Jesse
found in a different part of the home stabbed as well.
So the prosecutor. I thought, at least I hadn't heard
a lot of these details. I didn't do a deep
enough diet to hear some of this. But and this
is everything we've just said, and I apologize. I meant
to actually give a warning at the top, just to say, hey,
some of this stuff that came out in court today
(07:37):
is awful, and I think this is probably the most
awful thing given what we just said. This next thing
is the most awful detail. Robes to hear that the
kids had smoke in their lungs, so he kills everyone
in the house. It does what he does. And they
say he goes out and sets a fire that actually
(07:58):
smolders for hours.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
They say, like a slow burning fire is how they
describe it.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
They think, get a call about this fire for hours
and hours and hours later, So it took a while
for this thing to burn. So they're saying both kids
had evidence of smoke and their lungs, meaning those kids
were left alive in that house.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, she put it like this.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
She said they were inhaling smoke as they bled to death.
That is quite the scene, thinking about this family on
the stairs bleeding out.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Still, these things can Okay, she has to tell the
facts and if it's true, But my god, how are
you sitting on the jury and still in that moment going, okay,
remember what the judge said that he's presumed innocent.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
How can you not want.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
To to get back at somebody for that just as
a human being. All Right, it's tough to do your
job there, but that that particular detail, hearing he killed them,
hearing what they went through, like you want somebody to
pay for that shit?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
It's hard to have.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I mean, they're taking their lunch break and I after
hearing what was set in court today, it's hard to
even want to eat.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's how horrific this is.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
In addition to the other evidence there, he left the
pile of clothes, they said, in his basement, and then
they ended up being near where the fire started. This
pile of clothes, I mean some of these details. They
said that the niece and nephews some of their DNA,
some of their blood on these clothes. There were six
black gloves mixed in there, and there were blood. So
they're putting together a case. You're scratching your head like,
(09:28):
holy hell. Yeah, just for the overwhelming.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Just from the opening statement alone from the prosecutor, the
evidence is overwhelming. Yes, the pile of bloody clothes that
are his clothes that have his niece and nephews DNA
on them. They found a barrel of a gun in
his backpack in the porch that the family was sitting.
And so his family gets out of the fire, the
(09:54):
fire that they say he set to cover it up
to make it look like their entire family was targeted
by someone. So he sets the fire to his own home,
they claim, and then he gets his family out alive
and they're waiting in the family's Porsche. But in that
porsche was a backpack, and in that backpack was a
lot of evidence, a lot of evidence.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And so again we're trying to piece this together. But
according to the prosecution, there is the barrel of a gun. There,
they go in the house, they find another gun that's
whose barrel had been swapped out. So they say though
they can trace the barrel of the gun and the
actual gun, both two bullets that were used at the
(10:34):
other house. Again, this is all wildly overwhelming. Now the
timeline I had not heard before either. This is one
of those you have to go hmm. I know it
looks bad, but this looks awful.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
This is terrible, This looks all So this is based
on surveillance camera, so this isn't their estimation. They actually
have video evidence at two six am that Porsche left
Paul Canarrow's home. It's a twenty minute drive to his
brother's house. At two fifty two the power was lost
at the brother's house. They can document that. And then
(11:06):
at three fourteen am to three eighteen am, there were
four texts that went from Keith's phone that's the brother
who was murdered, to Paul's phone and saying that the
power was out and he was going to check his generator,
like basically that he was updating his brother on what
was happening.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And then would you believe at three eighteen they said
the last one that brother sent was saying, I'm gonna
go out and check the generator.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
So three point thirty am there's a nine to one
to one call from someone who heard gunshots. And then
at four oh eight am that Porsche returns back to
Paul Canaro's house, and at five oh two am there
is a call about a fire at Paul Canaro's house.
That timeline is, damn, it looks bad.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It's his car.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I know it looks bad. It all looks bad. I
know it looks bad.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Terrible again, So you're listening to this and like, how
in God's name are they going to defend themselves because
on top of all this, we talked about this in
previous cases, jurys like to have a motive, and they
are trying to set up a financial one here at
least on two fronts. One, he's the beneficiary of a
life insurance policy and also he was in business with
(12:19):
his brother and that was going His.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Brother had just found out that or claimed that Paul
had stolen money from the company, and he was demanding
answers the day before, saying, I need to know what's
going on, asking for passwords to get into certain accounts
to see what actually happened where this missing money was.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And in addition, now the crazy part here about the
life insurance. There was a three million dollar life insurance
policy that Keith Canaro had. The beneficiary of that policy
was his wife. But in the event of his wife's death,
that money would go to the kids. God forbid, if
everybody in the family's taken out, that three million dollars
(12:58):
is to be split among two brothers.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Paul Canaro and Cory Canaro.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Those are the two that's left.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And so if one of the brothers goes to prison,
all of that money goes to Corey. Now that is
a wild scenario that would you believe the defense is
about to explore. Yes, stay here, we'll tell you about
the defense opening statement and their line of defense.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Welcome back everyone.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
We are talking about the explosive trial that is taking
place in New Jersey seven years in the making.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
This is a horrific.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
It murders, it's a massacre of an entire family, and
one brother is accused of murdering his other brother and
his brother's family in the most terrific fashion. But he's
now suggesting, according to his defense, that the other brother
actually is the one who may.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Be responsible, suggesting.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They're I was trying to be I mean, they are
not dancing around it, dude, did you take it?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
They are absolutely saying that, hey, this other brother, Corey,
actually benefited the most if he could take one brother
out by a murder, take out the other brother by
framing him for the murder, and then he gets all
the life insurance money.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
That is the defense they're setting up.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
I also thought it was interesting the defense attorney in
this case started out by saying basically acknowledging the overwhelming evidence,
and she said, it's so obvious it doesn't make sense.
So they're actually using the fact that there's so much
obvious evidence against Paul canarow that no one would be
that stupid as to commit a murder and leave all
(14:53):
this evidence behind.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I am not Maybe that's good and legal strategy, but
I am just a dude, and and I would have
been offended by that on the jury, like you're actually
telling me, don't believe the overwhelming evidence against your client,
because it's so overwhelming. It's so overwhelming that it can't
be true. Right, Nobody is a stupid of a criminal.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's basically what they're doing. Nobody is this stupid.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I didn't necessarily it wasn't. Didn't love that opening, uh direction,
she went, But okay, but she did acknowledge, and she
walked over to the table at one point saying, I
am not here to defend this tragedy. I am here
to defend Paul Canaro and walked over to him and
I thought that made sense and that was effective. But yes,
they are going after the other brother and flat out
(15:36):
saying that Paul Canaro did not do this. She is
declaring he is innocent. This is not just another theory.
She saying this is not the right guy. Part of
that is robes. It looks like they are going to
go after the investigation pretty strongly.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Yes, they're saying that the police never once looked at
Corey Canaro as a possible suspect. They zeroed in and
immediately on Paul Canaro and had tunnel vision, and they.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Only investigated him.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
They only checked his DNA, they only looked at his
text and his life and any evidence appointed to Paul.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
They never once considered that Corey.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Could have had something to do with it, and because
of that they got the wrong guy.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
That seems crazy that they wouldn't have looked into the
other brother in some way because she's making an argument
the defense attorney that yes, they're saying she used house
of cards, saying, my client is sitting here saying he
had this financial house of cars and that's why he
had to kill over money. Said Corey's house of cars
was worse.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yes, they said our client's financial situation was bad, but
Corey's was worse.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
That's what they were saying.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yes, And they said that the evidence is so conveniently
overwhelming and that's why you should question their theory. They
pointed to the fact that the gas can wasent conveniently
in the front lawn.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That is. That is and you think about even the
fact that.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
He took some of those clothes of the like bloodied
clothes and then like put them in his own home
and went to burn them, but they didn't burn completely,
Like why would you even possibly leave that kind of
evidence behind? It sounds stupid, Yes, it does sound very
stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
The barrel I'm gonna I need to hear about the
barrel of the gun.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Yeah, how did someone conveniently put that in his backpack
in the period of time that, Yeah, there wasn't really
a lot of opportunity there for Corey or anyone else.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
To do that.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
But they also pointed out about the relationship between Paul
and Keith. They said that they were best friends, they
were each other's person I.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Thought that's strong, that that's a big deal. I mean,
it sounds like they were really really close. That might
be a factor. I thought it was in the middle
of the night, something goes wrong with your house, the
first thing you think to do is to text your brother.
I thought that said a lot. That three in the morning.
It was just his power out, and the first thing
he did was textas brother several times. And they even said, Hey,
I'm gonna go out and check it out.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That suggested to me a very tight relationship.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
And in fact, you know, I've been doing a deep
dive and this is so incredibly sad.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
But his adult daughters, who were there at the time
of the fire, they have.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Through social media over the years, paid tribute to their
niece and their nephew, and their aunt and their uncle,
saying how much they missed them, how much they loved them,
putting up photos. This was a family that vacationed together,
that ate together, that did everything together.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
She said.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
When she went away to college, her nephew, Jesse, facetimed
her every day. Her niece she called her her little
mini nie. So these were families that were so entwined
and so close knit. They were a family in and
of themselves. Even said, it wasn't even like there were
two families. It was as if they were all one
family in business and in pleasure.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I mean, they decided to live twenty minutes apart.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah, ten miles from one another.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
They were over at each other's house all the time
doing whatever. Those things open to have this all now
playing out.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
But yes, that is.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I'm not sure how far they're going to go with
that theory and trying to prove it, or they're just
hinting at it and suggesting it. But if you give
an a juror's mind, another possibility, another option, And right
now they're saying, there's somebody else who had just as
much to gain from this, who made them it was
a prosecutor. She said, this case is not about how
much he had to gain, but about how much he
(19:27):
had to lose. Wow, it wasn't about how much money
was coming, but he was about to lose his way
of life and had no way out.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
He was desperate.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
It's interesting because in the last two major court cases
we followed Diddy and then Brian Walsh, we saw both
of those defense teams choose not to put up a
defense at all. And it'll be interesting to see this
case because there are they are clearly at least an
opening statement suggesting they have a full defense, that they're
going to present an alternative theory.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You hear her, She said, she told the jury five
six or seven weeks, five six or seven weeks, and
they are almost getting I was ready for a really
boring a few weeks of testimony, and they acknowledged it.
They said, Hey, this is going to be a lot
of stats, a lot of info, a lot of financial records,
(20:19):
a lot.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Yeah, it's crazy in a story that is this salacious
and this horrific and this headline provoking that it could
immediately be so boring from the beginning. But once opening
arguments ended and testimony began. It so far, it's exactly
as they suggested, because they're getting into the financials of
the company. They're getting into the financials, they're getting into
the business. It is tedious, and it's not it's I
(20:43):
found myself kind of having to make myself focused thinking
about those jurors sitting in this room preparing themselves for
two months of this.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And then the guy that's up now as we're recording this,
they're on lunch break. But that guy was frustrating the
hell out of the judge and he was trying to
read through emails and he was just all over the
place and all this. Yes, it was one of them.
I know these folks don't testify all the time, but yes,
but yeah, folks with just want to hop on and
give you that update. This is one we're keep a
(21:13):
close eye on. Anytime there is a significant update. In
this case, you can find it here always top right
corner of your Apple podcast app where you see our
show page a little button that says follow click that
you don't have to go hunting for our updates.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
They'll come right to you. And but now on behalf
of I mean robot I'm TJ. Holmes. Talk to y'll soon.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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