Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: The Room Downstairs

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Josh Mankiewicz catches up with Andrea Canning about her episode, “The Room Downstairs.”  In March 2011, a suburban New Jersey home was suddenly engulfed in flames. When firefighters entered the basement, they found 59-year-old Robert Cantor dead on a bed.  An autopsy revealed that he’d been fatally shot before the fire was set. Andrea and Josh talk about the love triangle that pointed investigators to their prime suspect and the circumstantial case that resulted in his conviction – twice. Plus, Andrea shares two podcast-exclusive interview clips, one from the victim’s best friend and the other from his killer.See the sweater Tung wore during his interview: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ijdpFw5AMm4?feature=share   Listen to the full episode of "The Room Downstairs" here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_theroomdownstairs

Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and we are Talking Dateline today with Andrea. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Josh. This episode of yours is called The Room Downstairs. And if you in the audience have not listened to it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed, so go there and listen. Now for this talking Dateline, Andrea has two extra interview clips that did not make it into the broadcast. So to recap, this was March 2011 in suburban New Jersey, just across the George Washington

Bridge from Manhattan in New York City. A house was engulfed in flames,ers found a body in a basement bedroom, belonged to a 59-year-old guy named Robert Cantor. And police did have a feeling that it was more than a standard house fire. It turned out they were right because he had been shot in the head and that the fire was a kind of a cover-up. So this case sort of takes us to the oldest motive in the book, which is jealousy, passion, revenge, and a love triangle, familiar shape to anybody who watches Dateline, that went very, very wrong.

So let's talk Dateline. You know, everything about this from the beginning, from when you first, you know, the guy first sees the smoke coming from across the street, the guy who's fixing his tire, like, you immediately think, yeah, there's gonna be more to it than just somebody dies in a fire. And I thought it was very interesting what the fire investigator said,

that when you see a healthy person, not somebody who's, you know, confined to their bed or something, a guy who's 59 years old, they don't stay in the bed, they're trying to get out. You find them near the door or they're clearly trying to get out of the place where the fire is happening and that that didn't happen in this case. And that was in itself suspicious. Nicole Soule- It sure didn't. And of course, Rob had been shot. So, you know, once they got a closer look at the body, this was not a death by fire, not a death by burning or

smoke inhalation or anything like that. It was cold-blooded murder. Pete This reminds me of Dawn Hackney, the woman who was killed in Bremerton, Washington in a podcast I did called Mortal Sin, in which it was thought that she died in a fire. Turned out that her husband had strangled her before the fire began. So, you know, there were two other kind of similar murders, arsons, in that Teaneck, New Jersey area. I know, strange, right? Around the time of Rob's death.

And so police clearly were at least wondering whether this had to do with one of those. It certainly does leap out at you from the beginning. What do you think? You think Tony Tung knew about those? Lauren Henry Oh, that's a good question I never thought of. It's possible that he, you know, did it that way because he had researched crime in the area. I mean, oh, that's a good observation, Josh. I mean, they'd been in the paper, like, you know, you could have seen it. And they were so eerily similar. Right.

You know, I don't know. I have to believe that in this case, Tony Tung was the main suspect, sort of, from the get-go. I mean, Rob had to tell people, you know, I'm having an affair with this woman, Sophie, and by the way, her husband was not happy. Like, that's not the kind of thing you keep to yourself. Yeah. I mean, the hardest part was proving it. You know. They suspected him very quickly, but they had all this circumstantial evidence and they had a hard time proving that he went over to New Jersey from Manhattan that night. That was the hard part, but things like him wiping his hard drive, I mean, it looks really

bad, but where's the proof that he went over the bridge? This was in 2011. This was sort of when there were cameras in some places, but not every place. Like sort of one imagines that if that murder were committed today, there would be video and there would be a way to place Tony at the scene more accurately.

New York City now has now must have a camera, multiple cameras it seems on every corner. And then that's not even including the business, I'm talking city cameras, and then there's the businesses, and then there's cars with cameras now. The license plate readers that they have now on taxi cabs and garbage trucks that are hired by insurance companies and law enforcement.

And I mean, there's so many ways to catch people now on camera doing something they shouldn't be doing or at least providing a piece of the puzzle to a crime. Pete Slauson The prosecutor was pretty clear with you, I thought, that he believed that somebody else had helped Tony Tung get from Manhattan to New Jersey to cover his tracks, that it wasn't just, you know, he took a cab and the cab driver didn't realize, you know, who he was taking or why he was taking it and didn't remember it later. Like, he makes it sound like it's an actual co-conspirator and nobody ever got arrested for that. I mean,

the feeling you get is that whoever that was, if that person does exist, they're getting away with it. Yeah, there was some talk of, and this is all alleged, that some people in Tony's world, that he may have had some connections to a gang, some bad people. Tony Tung has denied any allegations that he's somehow connected to gang violence and, you know, has maintained his innocence throughout this. It just was very circumstantial, as I said. You know, there was no smoking gun. There was no like, we caught him buying the murder weapon that matched the bullet. Like, nothing was concrete. But as we know, you don't need the smoking gun to put someone away for murder. It's all those little pieces that add up for a jury. Pete You know, I mean, I've said this in the past, but there's this sense that, you know,

out there in the public that's, as you know, that circumstantial evidence sort of is lesser, that it doesn't count as much. I mean, here's the thing about circumstantial evidence. It doesn't lie. Like, he did erase his hard drive at that time that night. Circumstantial evidence can't be accused of forgetting to put on its eyeglasses. Circumstantial evidence can't be accused of being angry at the defendant and slanting its testimony for that reason. Circumstantial evidence is whatever it is, you know? There's no other way to interpret that. So sometimes circumstantial evidence is much better than direct evidence. It is. And I mean, if all you had was that he erased his hard drive, that's it.

Right. Okay, well, that's not a great circumstantial case. But when you start adding up all the pieces of circumstantial evidence, it gets to the point where, okay, who else would it be? Pete Slauson Well, you know, he leaves the apartment, you know, at different times than he says. His timeline does not match up. Rob's wife who got some insurance money as a result of this, you know, she would be someone police would look at. She clearly was not involved. You know, those kind of things also sort of end

up pointing law enforcement more and more and more toward Tony, who's a natural suspect. He's the husband whose wife is cheating on him with the person who ended up getting killed. Yeah. He was angry. He didn't want his wife seeing this man and he didn't want his daughters being around the man. And what was so interesting about Tony was he was sort of portrayed as this like, you know, the great dad who like made the lunches and went to the school meetings and all that. But he had an evil streak in him. Okay, when we come back, Andrea has a behind the scenes story about her interview with

Tony Tung. Let me ask you a couple things about Tony Dunn, because when I see him in the interview and he's wearing that atrocious sweater, right? You know, which is clearly not prison wear, I think to myself, oh, okay, he's either not the guy or he was acquitted. Now, for those of you who are listening who have not seen the episode, we have included a link to a photo from that interview in the episode description. Take a look. So, that jail was like so hot in there. And it was actually the producer who brought that

sweater to the jail. And then I got there and the AP was there, Brittany and she had told the producer, I could run over to Macy's and grab like a polo shirt or something. He's like, no, no, this is good. This is good. And Tony Tung is like, wanted to wear it. You know, that was his choice. And actually this producer, that was his own sweater. This was Tim Beach? You can believe that. Well, I wasn't gonna name him, Josh, because I don't… Oh, I know. I'm absolutely gonna name him.

I didn't know if he'd really… Okay, it was his sweater. That sweater is hideous. It was a Himalayan sweater, and it was scratchy. Right, right. And Tony Tung is like sweating, which, you know, when you're trying to defend yourself for murder, I guess you don't wanna look like you're sweating during the interview. I noticed that. And then I thought to myself was that this is so crazy, this sweater, that people are

going to think that he's not in jail because who the heck would wear that sweater? I'm surprised there's not like a jail rule, no itchy green Himalayan sweaters. Well, I'm pretty sure there is now. Stephanie Well, anyway, the sweater has lived on and the sweater almost is another character in the show. Pete It is. And I totally bought it. I thought, well, either he beat the charges or he's not gonna get charged and I'm wrong about him. So, this case took a while. I mean, he was arrested like 14 months after the murder.

Nicole Soule Yeah, because they didn't have, you know, it was such a fact-finding, right, gathering. And there's so many cases where it's not perfect, but it's kind of one of those now or never, right? Like, let's go for it, you know? And honestly, sometimes that's all it is, is we're not gonna get any better. We don't feel like we're gonna... Barring a witness coming forward or a confession, we're just not gonna find anything else at this point. So let's just do it.

Pete Slauson Clearly, some people were not expecting a guilty verdict because this was not some like overwhelming slam dunk case. Beth Dombkowski And the jury was out for a while. So they were clearly, they were struggling to reach a verdict. Pete Slaus which is a long time. Yeah. And then his conviction is overturned. You know, there's this belief that when that verdict is entered and the jury comes back, like, well, that's it, you know, there's not gonna be any more here. And then turns out a couple years later, you're back to square one, essentially. Yeah. But it didn't work for him. Guilty again.

But what do you think made the difference between the first trial and the second trial? Because the first trial, the jury was out for a long time. I think sort of a lot of people expected a mistrial. The second one, you know, the jury was only out for a couple of hours. I mean, who knows if it was the defense attorney or, you know, it's like with jurors, it's like a box of chocolates, right? You never know what you're gonna get. I mean, it's all walks of life. It's like a game of roulette. After the break, Andrea is gonna share two podcast exclusive clips that did not make

it into the broadcast, one with Rob's best friend and the other from Rob's Killer. I'm guessing you guys tried very hard to get Sophie to talk and she didn't want to, but you got Rob's sister, she was great. Danielle Pletka She was fantastic. We were so grateful that his sister spoke to us and she was so lovely. And she spoke about this wonderful relationship that she had with her brother. And I was just happy finally somebody was talking about Rob. And yes, his friend spoke to us who was wonderful, Murdad, but it was

so wonderful to have a family member saying such nice things about Rob and really stand up for her brother and let us know what he was all about. Pete I thought your interview with Meredad was just so adorable. I mean, he seems like a great guy and the closeness that he felt with Rob and clearly still feels all these years later is very obvious. I mean, that's a, he really loved his friend, like, and they loved each other, they had these silly nicknames for each other and they were running together. Yeah. They were so funny. Yeah. You know, and-

And Meredaad was the perfect person to talk about Rob and to bring Rob to life for us. So here's a clip of that did not make the broadcast from your interview with Mardad. And I truly believe if he were alive today and this heinous man was in prison, he said, Murdoch, maybe we should buy some cookies and go see him. When the first time this whole thing happened, he went to his house and he called me. They said, Murdoch, I'm running late.

He came to see me. I said, who's he? He kept saying he. They said, Doc, I'm running late. He came to see me. I said, who is he? He kept saying he. I said, who? He said, Tony. I couldn't connect the dots. Then I realized. He said, I'll see you in a few minutes.

So he showed up at work. He looked disheveled. I made the coffee. We sat down. He explained to me. I told him, how did you let him in? He said, bizarre behavior. You mean just showing up like that?

You thought that was bizarre. To knock at somebody's door, how did he find the house? Right? I mean, it's not that Roberto was a famous person, he was a celebrity or- And Tony came back more times. A second time. He let him in again. He said, oh, I feel sorry for him.

I mean, if I'm in that situation, I'm not letting that guy in my house. I know why he's there. I know he's ticked off at me. I'm gonna be like, hey, look, you should probably talk to your wife about this. Like, this is not, this is between the two of you. This is not about you and me. You know, but I would not be like, hey, come on in, let's have coffee, let's be buds. That was Rob. Yeah, it was Rob, right? That he wanted to diffuse things, he wanted to give this man what he needed as far as understanding what was happening in the relationship. And I mean, that was very nice of him to say, you know what, let's talk it out. And you know, everyone, you have friends that you're so frustrated because you're like, you can see from the outside. Don't do that. Like, don't let them in. Or if someone's dating someone that you don't think is the right person or that's not a good person, and that person

can't see that maybe it's- Pete Or if somebody's wearing an incredibly garish sweater. Anna That's sweaters. Pete Yeah. Anna Yeah. Now we have a different piece of sound about the same thing. This is Tony Tong telling you about those visits to Rob. Let's listen to that. You decide to go pay this Rob Cantor a visit. That's a bold move. Take us to what happened.

I introduced myself. I said, you know, my name is Tony. I'm Sophie's husband. Can I come in and talk to you? He was like, okay, yeah, sure. So I walked in. He just invited you in? He has to stay a little bit, but, you know, he invited me in. Are you there to tell him to stop seeing Sophie? That's the end. I'd like to find out what's going on first. What did you gain from this visit? No, I was what I gained from the visit, I gained the knowledge of who this person is

and how this person's gonna behave later on. He's not a bad guy. Did you tell Sophie that you had gone to see him? No, he did. And how did she react to that? Oh, she yelled. And I tell her, you know, I tell her the same thing I'm telling you right now. I don't know how you can not see this love triangle, you know, from Sophie's point of view, for example, or Rob's, and not think to yourself,

this is gonna head in a direction I don't want it to head in. Like they did not seem to see that. Rob seemed to think, no, no, I'll win this guy over the way I win everybody over, and Sophie did not seem to perceive the danger. That, I mean, your husband has found out about the affair. He's been cyber stalking you. He read all

your emails. He's learned everything about this affair. And now he's going to confront the guy you're having the affair with. That's when, like, alarm bells should be going off. Like, this is a time to start taking this extremely seriously. Right? You know, one of the things that, one of the things Meredod said is, Rob died so Sophie could be free. That was so, wow. So profound. I mean- Those two loved each other. I think that's true. I know. Sophie had finally found her true love, you know, in Rob. And yeah, I mean, it was like Tony had the shackles on her, right? Like he wouldn't let go and he was so angry.

And then she finds sweet, calm, patient Rob, who appears to be her soulmate, but she can't shed Tony. And then Tony ends up killing her one true love. It's heartbreaking. Pete And in the process, ruining everybody's life. Bethany Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Pete Right? His, Rob's, Sophie's, and probably the kids. Bethany Yeah, it's awful. Pete It's the worst. It's the worst. And I wish we never see it, but we see it all the time. That's it for this episode of Talking Dateline.

Thank you, Andrea. Before we go, we wanted to tell you about something that we're trying now. You can now send us audio of your questions, and so your voice might be featured on an upcoming episode. Make a recording of your message on your phone and send it to us as a direct message on Facebook, Instagram or X, formerly Twitter. And it doesn't have to be about the episode itself and no topic is off limits, although some language is not going to get you on Talking Dateline.

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