BLOOD BROTHERS
DA: Sibling killed mansion family
The murders were cold and calculated. The motive was pure greed.
In the dark, early morning of Nov. 20, Paul Caneiro drove to brother Keith’s New Jersey mansion and gunned down his business-partner sibling on the front lawn, prosecutors said Thursday.
He then stormed inside and repeatedly stabbed sister-in-law Jennifer, 45, niece Sophia, 8, and nephew Jesse, 11, until all three were dead, officials said.
“This is one of the most brutal cases I’ve seen in my experience here,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said Thursday as he announced the charges a week after the quadruple murder.
“The state alleges the defendant murdered his brother Keith Caneiro and Keith’s entire family.”
Paul is charged with four counts of murder, two of arson and two weapons charges, for allegedly using a gun and a knife in the slayings.
He faces a maximum life in prison if convicted, Gramiccioni said.
After the murders, Paul, 51, tried to cover his crimes — taking steps that included torching his own house to make it appear like he, too, was a victim, according to investigators.
Sometime before 5 a.m., Paul removed “certain items of evidence” from his 50-year-old brother’s place and set fire to the house, Gramiccioni said, declining to disclose the items.
The fire was not discovered until approximately 12:30 p.m. that day, when a neighbor’s groundskeeper reported it to authorities.
“Based on what we know about the cause or origin of that fire, it was started in the basement; it continues to smolder until there was entry made into the home,” Gramiccioni said.
“A great deal of oxygen coming into the home effectively fed that fire. So it wasn’t reported until 12:38, and what we believe caused the fire to catch on from there is likely the feeding of oxygen as the house was entered into.”
The investigator would not say who entered the home, causing the cinders to flare.
But by the time firefighters arrived, the smoldering embers had become a raging inferno that took 20 local fire departments and more than a day to quench.
Back at his own home in Ocean Township, under the predawn gloaming, Paul set about crafting an alibi that would cast him as a victim. He doused his house in gasoline and sparked it — with his own wife, Susan, and adult daughters Katelyn and Marissa still inside — at about 5 a.m., prosecutors said.
While he ignited the Colts Neck blaze deep in the heart of his brother’s home, Paul was careful not to destroy his own residence — he instead set two smaller flames on the building’s extremities, prosecutors said.
“The defendant intentionally set fire in his house at or about 5 a.m. for the purpose of both destroying evidence of his earlier crimes in Colts Neck and to also create the illusion that the overall Caniero family was somehow victimized or targeted,” Gramiccioni said. “We allege that it was a ruse.” Although he was OK with slaying and incinerating his brother and in-laws, Paul never intended to kill his own wife and kids, according to investigators.
“Our theory and belief is that he was going to get his family out all the time,” Gramiccioni said.
The alleged murderer’s ruse even fooled his devoted wife and children. Even as he was arrested on Nov. 21 and charged with aggravated arson for the blaze at his own home, his family claimed he was a hero and pledged to testify on his behalf.
“In the criminal complaint, his family is listed as the intended victims. But they firmly believe that he actually saved them,” Paul’s lawyer, Rob Honecker, said last week.
“He was the one who woke them up and got them out of the house” as the home’s smoke detectors blared, Honecker said.
Outside his burning home, Paul let loose with crocodile tears, putting on an Oscar-worthy display of grief, a neighbor said last week.
“He was sitting in his car with his wife and girls. The first thing he said to us was, ‘I’m in shock.’ He was visibly shaken,” the neighbor told The Post the day after the incident. “If it was fake, you’d have to be a pretty damned good actor,
because it was psychosomatic. [He] was shaking, nervous.”
Gramiccioni said the quadruple-murder suspect’s motivation was “financial in nature, stemming from [Paul] and [Keith’s] joint business ventures” — but the prosecutor refused to provide details about how riches could come between the two brothers, who appeared quite wealthy by all accounts.
Investigators are now probing Paul’s finances, Gramiccioni said, adding “we have no reason to believe that there’s any aspect of organized crime involved in these two investigations.”
Paul and his brother were business partners in two Asbury Parkbased IT ventures — Square One and Jay-Martin Consulting.
The latter’s name is derived from the brothers’ middle names, Paul Jay Caneiro and Keith Martin Caneiro.
The pair did tech support, data security and surveillance installation for New York law firms, advertising agencies and major companies including Nike, Citibank, HSBC and Sabrett.
Using his technical expertise, Paul wired up his home with an arsenal of surveillance equipment.
“His house is loaded with surveillance cameras,” a neighbor told The Post last week. “He also has infrared on both floors, scanning the whole house. He’s nuts with technology, everything over the top.”
Investigators said Thursday they have a “great deal” of evidence from both crime scenes, but declined to say whether Paul’s own camera gear helped do him in.
The murder puts a grisly punctuation mark on what appeared to be a deep relationship between brothers.
The pair grew up in Brooklyn, later moving to Staten Island where they met their future wives, according to reports.
Following a familiar migration pattern, the couples both moved to suburban New Jersey, eventually settling down within about 10 miles of one another.
Indeed, Paul wass Keith’s first hire when Square One was founded, according to reports.
In a statement, Honecker claimed Paul wass “falsely accused” by prosecutors.
“Paul’s family means more to him than anything else in this world,” the lawyer wrote, arguing that Paul loved slain in-law Jennifer “like a sister” and “participated in the lives” of Keith’s children.
“Paul’s expectations are when this case is over he will be completely vindicated and the truth will come out,” Honecker added.