A jury convicted Paul Caneiro on Friday of killing his brother’s family and torching their New Jersey home in 2017 in a series of murders that prosecutors said was motivated by “greed and desperation.”
Caneiro, 59, was found guilty of murder, aggravated arson, theft and other crimes in the horrific killings of Keith Caneiro, 50, his wife, Jennifer Caneiro, 45, and their children, Jess, 11, and Sophia, 8.
The jury began deliberating Friday morning and delivered its verdict hours later. Paul Caneiro faces multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
His sentencing is scheduled for May 12.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Caneiro’s defense team said they plan to pursue “all available post-trial remedies and have preserved every appellate issue to ensure that Mr. Caneiro ultimately receives the fair and impartial trial the law guarantees.”
“We believe the jury was not permitted to hear critical evidence that went directly to Mr. Caneiro’s defense, and without it, they could not fully and fairly evaluate the case before them,” the spokesperson said.
In court, Monmouth County Assistant District Attorney Nicole Wallace said Caneiro committed the murders because of his financial circumstances, which she described as a “house of cards.”
The prosecution presented evidence during the monthlong trial alleging that DNA, ballistics and security video linked Caneiro to the Nov. 20, 2017, killings.
Defense attorney Monika Mastellone accused authorities of having “tunnel vision” in the case and suggested another sibling who was never accused in the killings may have been responsible for them.
“He certainly did not brutally murder the family members that you will hear he loved and cherished and adored so much,” she told the jury.
Keith Caneiro’s body was found in the front yard of his Colts Neck home on the morning of Nov. 20 by authorities responding to a report of a house fire. He had been shot once in the back and four times in the head, according to an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant.
His wife was found stabbed to death inside, authorities have said. Their two children were also stabbed, but Wallace said they were alive when their house burned — a grim fact she attributed to the smoke inhalation that medical authorities have said was a contributing factor to their deaths.
Afterward, prosecutors said, Paul Caneiro tried to cover up the killings by setting his own home on fire to make it appear as if the whole family had been targeted. No one in Paul Caneiro’s family was injured in that blaze.
The day before the killings, Wallace said, Keith Caneiro confronted his older brother about a bank account associated with an irrevocable trust that the younger sibling had established nearly two decades before.
Keith Caneiro had made Paul Caneiro the trustee, Wallace said, and Paul Caneiro began taking money from the account the previous year. According to the indictment, Paul Caneiro was charged with stealing $75,000 or more.
“I need to see where the money went,” Keith Caneiro yelled at Paul Caneiro during a phone call Nov. 19, according to Wallace.
Wallace said the younger brother gave the older sibling a deadline of 8 p.m. that night to get back to him. Paul Caneiro never did.
“Instead, he began making plans that were executed eight hours later,” Wallace said. “You know how those plans ended.”
Mastellone said there was no world in which her client would murder his brother and his family over the tens of thousands of dollars he was accused of stealing.
In a pending lawsuit, Jennifer Caneiro’s family had also accused Paul Caneiro of other allegations of financial misconduct.
The brothers ran two companies together. A lawsuit filed in 2021 by Jennifer Caneiro’s family alleged that in the months before the killings, Keith Caneiro discovered “numerous” instances of Paul Caneiro stealing from their businesses.
A review of business records found that he misappropriated roughly $11,000 per month for personal use and claimed the charges as an insurance reimbursement, according to the suit, which says that Keith Caneiro made it known that he planned on ending their business relationship.
In a filing, Paul Caneiro wrote that he couldn’t comment on the civil allegations because they were relevant to his criminal case.
@ NBC News
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