Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Colts Neck Mansion Murders: An Affair, Lies and Betrayal

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Paul Caneiro is accused of murdering his brother, Keith Caneiro, and Keith's family at their mansion in Colts Neck, New Jersey in November 2018. Keith Caneiro was found shot to death outside of the home while his wife, Jennifer, was found stabbed to death inside, along with the couple's children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8. Prosecutors say Paul killed the family because Keith and Jennifer discovered he was stealing from a trust. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes over the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Jarrett Ferentino https://www.youtube.com/@JarrettFerentinoProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The very realistic concern is that way more people in Mammoth County have judged this book by its cover than anywhere else. That book is Paul Canero, a New Jersey man accused of murdering his brother Keith and Keith's wife and children in their mansion. I go through the details and the evidence in the cult's neck. Mansion murders as the trial of Paul Canero is set to begin. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Keith Canero was a successful businessman married to his wife, Jennifer, and they had two beautiful children, Jesse and Sophia. On November 20th,

2018, the family's seemingly picture perfect life came to an end. Firefighters. Firefighters, tried to put out the huge fire at the Canero's mansion in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Fire officials would later determine that fire had been burning for hours before erupting into an inferno. Keith Canero was found shot to death outside of the house near the home's generator. Jennifer was found shot in the head and stabbed to death inside the burning mansion. Also stabbed to death in the home were the couple's children, 11-year-old Jesse and 8-year-old Sophia. Who would want to shoot and stab a woman and then stab her children and set their home on fire and then shoot their husband and father? Well, prosecutors said there was only one person with the motive and opportunity to do so, and he was close to the family.

Keith's brother, Paul Canero. A fire had been reported at Paul's home before the fire at Keyes Mansion was discovered. Body camera footage from police responding to the fire at Paul's home was played in court earlier this year, a look. How are you going to say? It's all the DVD stuff for the cameras and everything in the house? It's just in the garage. In the garage?

Yeah. We're wearing a garage out. You walk in the garage and it's all the way up top to the west. Up top to the rest. Do you have them running right now? I've been having trouble stuck in the garage. You've been having five of the stuff in the garage? Yeah.

Okay. A fire investigator met with Paul Canero that morning, too, when responding. to his home to investigate the fire at his house. Well, I spoke with Paul. It wasn't my intention. I really don't care who I talked to as long as it's not a minor. I think he was just the first one that I ran into. The house was a two-story wood frame, single family.

I believe it was wrapped in siding. The fire was low, and it extended up to the exterior, up into the master bedroom, into the attic. At some point did you learn who the occupants? the occupants of that house were? At this point I didn't. Okay. At some point,

yes. Yes. Okay. And who was that? The Caneros, Caneros, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing it right, but yeah. Do you remember how many of them there were? It was mom and dad, and I believe two daughters. Prosecutors have said Canero set his home on fire with his family inside to make it look like the Canero family, including Keith's family, was being targeted.

Before I left the corner of the house, I was. approached by a police officer, they wanted to show me a gas can by the garage door. And I made my way to the gas can, to the garage, technically. Where's the garage door in relation to the... opposite side of the house. Opposite? Yeah. And that's the... It was on the north wall. Okay. And so you indicate you observed a gas can, anything about that? Can you explain?

It was laying, I believe it was laying outside. I had a melted tip on the spout. But, you know, maybe a little bit of what I thought to be a... Fire, you know, some fire damage on the garage door and it'll floor. Prosecutors say Paul Canero murdered Keith, Jennifer, and the children because Keith and Jennifer had discovered that Paul was stealing from a trust. Keith and Paul owned two companies together, and prosecutors claim Keith was using money from the trust to fund a lavish lifestyle, including a girlfriend. Paul Canero has pleaded not guilty. And his attorneys have said that he is innocent. The case has garnered a lot of media attention in New Jersey. So,

Paul Canero's lawyers have argued for a change of venue. I submit, based on this representative pool of comments, that this is what they're going to be thinking as they walk into this courtroom. They're going to be thinking, what a monster, please bring back the hot shot, take these animals off the board. He doesn't deserve another breath. Hopefully he will learn his lesson in prison, and I would shake that person's hand. This guy should hang.

This you piece of, own it, it's going to happen anyway. you're going to spend the rest of your days locked up. Where you're going is not going to be fun. Trust me. Poster child for the death penalty. Pile of garbage, pure evil. Why is he still breathing? This guy is a POS.

He deserves the electric chair. Automatic death penalty. Put it in the books. Case closed. I hope he suffers a long, awful death. Horrific. There is no justice for this man except death. Judge Mark Lemieux pushed back on claims from the defense that the jury pool was tainted.

I mean, I understand what you're, trying to argue, but making that huge assumption that because they read an article that they don't think for themselves, I don't know if this court can go that far. And I don't think that the case law, whether it's from 1940 or 2025, would say otherwise. You know, I get where you're coming from. And I hear you. Believe me, I hear you. I have a lot of concerns. But at the same point in time, I just want to make sure that I am not taking a speculative leap here to make a determination based upon information in social media because, again, there are many people out there that don't have social media. And the prosecution argued against the request for a change

of venue. I submit that, well, do you respect the standard for presumed prejudice hasn't been shown. There's no doubt that this case received extensive media coverage. I would submit that that media coverage is consistent with what would be expected in a quadruple homicide case of this nature, especially given the time that it's been pending about six and a half years. Judge Lemieux ended up denying the motion for a change of venue. Canero's attorneys have been fighting the evidence and the case for years, and they've actually won some battles. Judge Lemieux suppressed some evidence, including some evidence from some of Paul's. electronic devices saying the search warrant was simply too broad. There's a reason crime fix is one of the top rank shows on YouTube right now, just like there's a reason why Morgan and Morgan is

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at for the people.com slash crime fix by clinking the link below or scanning that QR code that you see on your screen. I want to bring in Jarrett Ferrentino. He is a former prosecutor. He prosecuted cases, death penalty cases, homicides for 20 years. He's got a civil practice in northeast Pennsylvania now. And you can also find him on YouTube at Jarrett Farentino and on Instagram. So Jared, this case is unbelievable to me. And I'm kind of wondering what you are thinking about it. We have a brother accused of murdering his brother, you know, Paul accused of murdering Keith and then killing Keith's family over a trust fund. So to me, and then setting the house on fire, the mansion.

So this to me is just unbelievable. You know, I have been reviewing this case extensively. And I try to find a little bit of myself in each case as, you know, someone from that part of the country as an Italian, your nieces and nephews, here's what jumped off the page of me. Your nieces and nephews in a big Italian family, and I'm sure in many families, they're like your own kids. My kids were raised with their nieces and my nieces and nephews like siblings. This man is alleged to have stabbed repeatedly. his 11-year-old and 8-year-old niece and nephew who were beautiful children. He went into the house and is said to have stabbed them after executing their father and mother.

That's the allegation. This case is unbelievable. That anyone could do that to another human being, let alone children, let alone your own family, is shocking. And that's this case. And then you have a mansion that's engulfed in flames and full of even more miscellarming. once you go inside? Well, Paul Canara at this point is saying, I didn't do this, or at least saying to the state, you can't prove I did this.

And so it's interesting, though, because the prosecution's theory is that Paul Canero, you know, then stages this to try to make it look like his entire family is being targeted. So he sets his own place on fire, too, according to the prosecution. So that right there, if they can prove that he set his own house on fire, that's a very damning fact. It's huge. And if you look at, there's a science behind arson and it's going to be a big part of this case. Basically what happens or is alleged to have happened is Paul in the early morning hours travels to Keith's home, kills Keith, Jennifer, and the children, starts the fire. then travels back to his own home, starts the fire. Paul's fire is discovered first.

Keats' fire is discovered around noon with the house fully involved to create the impression that the canaryos are being targeted by some third party. But that's when investigators had to reverse engineer the lives of the Canario brothers. What was going on before the fires? And there was no enemy on the outside. the enemy appeared to be on the inside. And that's where all of the technical evidence, all of the financial evidence, in addition to the science behind the fires, points the finger at Paul Canario. Let's break that down a little bit because, you know, Paul's fire is discovered

first. However, the arson investigators say that the fire at Keith's house, it's smoldered for hours and then turned into kind of burst into an inferno. So they're saying this was a slow burning fire. And it just, it's it wasn't really, it's smoldered and it kind of spread and spread. And then it turns into this huge inferno. And so that's a big piece of this too, because that that's going to, that's going to possibly show that they have evidence that the fire was set hours and hours, hours beforehand. They have evidence of that. And they will.

And to that, that's key. You know, taking those fires and create, you know, they'll be able to show from what, first of all, Keith's home was a mansion. I mean, there's no, the Colts Neck is a beautiful community, home to horse ranches and very, very large homes. So the fire started. They'll find that starting point. They'll break down where it's smoldered, why it smoldered, what would have caused it to smolder for

that much time. And then ultimately, when it finds it's accelerant, its backdrop, whatever kicks that fire off, and it could have smoldered for hours. And that's where that expert testimony is going to come in. But in addition to that, when you're looking at that timing, there is video surveillance of Paul from his neighbor's cameras seen leaving his home in the early morning hours and then returning, which coincide with the state's theory of the case. His comings and goings coincide with confronting Keith, killing Jennifer, and the children. There's another piece of this that I find to be very, very interesting.

And that is the fact that they have recordings of Keith on the phone with Paul. And you can only hear what Keith is saying. But Keith is confronting Paul about the money in his trust fund being missing. And this is like right before this happens. So there was trouble in paradise because Paul was kind of overseeing Keith's trust fund. And the theory by the prosecution is that Paul was using that to fund his lifestyle. He was having an affair. He had a girlfriend.

So we see Keith. We only hear part of the conversation, but we have Keith on video talking to Paul. So, first of all, the Canarios, Keith Canario was a hardworking man. He built these businesses, Echo Star and Square One. Echo Star was a pest control company. Square One was a tech company. He amassed a fortune. He built and he created what's called an irrevocable trust.

And so he wasn't living off a trust fund. He created one for his wife and children in the event of his death that was funded by a life insurance policy. When you have a life insurance policy, premiums have to be paid. That trust was run by Paul, and Paul was supposed to be paying the life insurance policy out of that trust. It was discovered by Keith that the premiums were not being paid on the life insurance policy. In fact, they learned that the PDF documents that Paul was providing to Keith had been altered to reflect that the policy was being paid when, in fact, Paul was actually taking the money to himself. So that trust fund is huge when it comes to motive in this case.

And that's only part of what happened. Inside Keith's home, he had a surveillance system. There is an audio recording of Keith and Jennifer in the background confronting Paul shortly before this killing about his management of that very fun. In fact, Jennifer has heard in the background saying, Stop BSing, Paul, essentially telling him the gig is up. Keith is upset. He's saying, give me the login information for my accounts.

The Canada life insurance policy is saying the premiums haven't been paid in months. This sets the table for the killing. And the state fought to get that information in. And obviously, the defense tried to get it out. It's coming in. The state has lost some battles, though, here. And they've had some evidence suppressed, which I'm sure they didn't like. And some of it had to do with evidence found on Paul's electronic devices.

And the judge said that the search warrant for this, the application, it was too broad. So there's information coming in from Paul's watch, his Apple Watch and some other things. But there's a lot that's not coming in. but you don't think that that's going to be an issue correct i first of all it's unfortunate that those devices have been suppressed this is a tough judge and he writes well i've had an opportunity to review the judge's opinions he held the prosecution's feet to the fire he's saying number one they took keith surveillance or paul's surveillance system from his house now the house is on fire if i've ever heard of an exigent circumstance to grab a surveillance system they're taking the

position, hey, the house is on fire. We didn't have time to get a warrant to get it out of Paul's house. This is a different system than the one we were talking about in Keith's house. The judge suppressed that saying the fire was nowhere near it. You could have secured a warrant for that information. On Paul's devices, he's saying you have not, you asked for all electronic devices in the house. Now, any house, if you're at the point in life that I'm at, has a lot of electronic devices, okay? It's not enough to say that. You have to basically make that nexus, that probable cause for a particular advice. The judge says the eyewatch and the iPhone of Paul's, you've done that. These tablets and things you found throughout the house and in his vehicle, you fail to make that nexus.

The hope is those devices are connected. The emails that can be gleaned from his iPhone and his watch will certainly be present and gotten properly through those things. But many of the things that are relevant have been secured through other means. The Canada Life Insurance Company, the financial documentation, Kate's emails to Paul were taken from Keith's information. So there are other means to get that information in. It's not fatal to their case, but it's never good when a particular piece of evidence is suppressed, obviously. No, not at all. But I think what's going to be key here is showing that there was this contention over this this this policy and over this money this trust fund and the fact that paul's leaving the house around the same time the

electric is cut to the house keith's like i'm going out to check the generator and he's found outside the house shot i mean it's just i mean if we're talking about a circumstantial evidence case and and laying out a timeline this this could be very very interesting and and i'm kind of wondering to myself too um especially with the phone with the apple watch um you know i celebrate comes to mind and all of that type of stuff a digital trail did he leave the phone at home like do we have evidence showing his movements that night as well um you know so other than the cameras and the phones it's it appears that they were communicating throughout the night it appears that keith

was texting Paul, as they would throughout the, even earlier that week they were talking about some anxiety Keith had over the business. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But I believe there was communication up to and including the time of the homicide. I don't know, and it's not public. Much of the information is not what geospatial geographic information they've been able to glean from Paul's cell phone. The other thing, he had. So the attack on Keith occurred in the dead of night. He had thermal imaging equipment to see at night. I mean, this is, you know, from a circumstantial standpoint, there's also some direct evidence as well, DNA from, I believe, Sophia on some items that were recovered from

the car, which is pretty compelling. But I think something that's been overlooked, at least in the accounts that I've seen so far, is the fact that Square One was in trouble. The company that had been so good to Paul and Key had been failing. There was a fear that they were going to lose a foundation, which was a key client, providing them with $127,000 a month in business, for example, was not going to re-up with them. And if that happened, the House of Cards, the financial security they had was in jeopardy. So Paul knew or would have known that the gig was up. In fact, Keith was expressing to Paul that week saying, I'm anxious, I can't sleep. Let's sell the pest control company for a bargain price so we can generate some cash. I'm worried about this particular client not

re-upping. So that in the background really coincides with the timing of these killings too. yeah it's really it's really horrific um what do you expect to see from this trial um you know the defense basically just saying somebody killed these people but it wasn't paul we may have had this going on in the background but it wasn't our guy well the one thing i'll say anginet is that they're doing a good job his attorneys you know they say when life gives you lemon make lemonade lemons get make lemonade right his attorneys have done a very very good job of knocking out some evidence. This is a very compelling case, though. They could say nothing. I don't think they're going to say nothing. They could say it was this third party,

which is exactly the impression that Paul tried to create. But you end up always back at Paul's house. What was going on at Paul's house and in his life? And if you look at what, despite what's been suppressed, what has been allowed in at this point. The judge wrote in earlier this month an extensive opinion. There's what's called 404B evidence, basically evidence of other wrongs or conduct of the defendant that the state sent a letter to the defense saying, hey, by the way, it's our intention to admit all this stuff about Paul. If you want to fight it, you got to file a motion to address it with the court. That's exactly what happened. And what does that evidence include? financial data, the cover-up financial data, the PDFs that were altered. It shows that Paul

was engaged in an extramarital affair with a woman that he was paying her bills, paying for her daughter's college application fees, paying, hoping to get a home with her down in Florida. All of this, not to say Paul, if he's having an affair is capable of murder, it's to say he was in a financially dire situation. He was living this extensive, expensive lifestyle, and it was all coming to an end, and his brother found out he was living this lifestyle by taking from the trust. So Paul had all of this motive. He had the ongoing financial crimes. He had the cover up of those financial crimes and the financial pressures, all of which the state says led to murder. I don't know how you defend that case other than try to knock out these individual pieces.

of evidence. It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds. This is a, it's a quadruple murder case. It's horrific and children were murdered for no reason. Keith and Jennifer were murdered for no reason. So it's, I mean, if you look at this, you know, if you look at the real housewives of New Jersey, for example, everybody likes the lifestyle, the homes, this, that, these were beautiful people living a high society life, big homes, fancy cars, big business. And then when you look into those lives, this is the result. Their beautiful children are dead. A brother is dead. Business is destroyed. And another brother now facing this murder. I mean, it's got, this case has everything and a tremendous tragedy. So it's going to be a wild one. And the trial's coming up.

Yeah, it is. It's awful. Jared Farentino, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it. Thank you. My pleasure. And jury selection for Paul Canero's trial is scheduled to begin on September 8th. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Angie Net Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.