Investigators reject alternate suspect theory in Caneiro quadruple murder trial

⚖️ Lead investigator defends focus on Paul Caneiro, saying evidence always pointed to him — not his other brother.

📞 Jailhouse phone calls and financial records add to the prosecution’s case.

🔥 Jurors hear graphic testimony detailing stabbings, gunshots and fire that killed the Colts Neck family of four.

FREEHOLD BOROUGH — Three weeks into the Caneiro quadruple murder trial, the lead investigator pushed back on repeated questioning about why Paul Caneiro was focused on so quickly after his brother’s family was killed.

Caneiro is accused of the gruesome 2018 slayings of Keith Caneiro, Keith's wife, Jennifer, and their two children, 11-year-old Jesse and 8-year-old Sophia.

Investigator says evidence always pointed to Paul Caneiro

“Corey Caniero was never a suspect in this investigation. We followed the evidence. The evidence, it always led us to Paul Caniero,” Lt. Patrick Petruzziello of the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said on Thursday afternoon.

Defense attorney Monika Mastellone had grilled him about why the third and youngest brother, Corey Caneiro and his wife, Elisa, were not scrutinized by investigators as closely.

Petruzziello repeated what his fellow investigators have said — that Corey Caneiro met with police and spoke to them after the awful discoveries of that day and the next, and was always cooperative.

READ MORE: Caneiro murder trial opens as prosecutors detail jarring evidence  

Prosecutors outline financial motive tied to life insurance

Prosecutors cite financial desperation as motive. Paul Caneiro was the trustee of an account linked to a $3 million life insurance policy on Keith.

Bank records showed that the defendant drained tens of thousands of dollars from the trust account, transferred to his personal account.

Casting suspicion on Corey Caneiro was part of Mastellone’s opening statement, referencing DNA results that have yet to be discussed at length during the trial.

 READ MORE: Police share Caneiro's big expenses before Colts Neck killings 

Jurors hear jailhouse calls and review timeline of violence

Also on Thursday, jurors heard calls made by Paul Caneiro from jail after he was charged with killing his brother’s family.

“I just can’t believe I’m here,” Paul Caneiro says to his wife in one call played in the courtroom.

Additionally, both the defense and prosecutors physically wrote out a timeline of the horrendous violence and fires being considered by the jury.

Jurors heard from six different witnesses over a three-day span at Monmouth County Superior Court, as the recent winter storm and a scheduling issue condensed the week.

Read More: Testimonies and 911 calls shape the Caneiro murder trial

Graphic testimony details murders and arson evidence

Earlier this week, a detective from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office testified on arson evidence and blood stains.

Detective Joseph Cordoma, who has since retired, went through some of the awful conditions at 15 Willow Brook Road in Colts Neck on Nov. 20, 2018.

Keith was found outside, shot five times in the head and back. He had gone outside at 3:18 a.m, to check on his house’s power outage and failed generator, according to his final text messages, which were sent to Paul.

Inside the home, Jennifer Caneiro was shot in the head and stabbed in the torso.

She and their children were each stabbed multiple times and left to die in a slow-burning fire set in a basement storage closet, according to evidence and testimony presented so far.

Investigators have also accused Paul Caneiro of setting his own Ocean Township home on fire, with his wife and adult daughters still inside. They survived.

A longtime employee of the Caneiros’ IT consulting business, Square One, also testified on Tuesday. Robert Block said that he received an early morning alert about the firewall being down at the Colts Neck house.

State Police Sgt. Matthew Cocking testified that his police dog zeroed in on a pile of clothes in the basement of Paul Caneiro's Ocean Township home.

Knife, bullet evidence and surveillance footage shown to jury

On Wednesday, Detective Sgt. Stephen Vogt of the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office went through more grisly details of the wounds suffered by the victims.

During his testimony, he held up a silver chef's knife recovered from the Colts Neck house. It matches a knife block set from the kitchen.

The knife was recovered a day after the fire in a pile of debris in the burned-up foyer, near where Jennifer Caneiro's body was found, Vogt said.

Vogt was also part of the investigative team that collected several Wyze security cameras as evidence on Thanksgiving Day 2018, days after the Caneiro family was killed.

On Thursday, expert witness Judith Link of the State Police Office of Forensic Sciences testified about Keith Caneiro's bullet wounds. Link said evidence shows that the shots were fired at point-blank range.

Jurors were shown some Colts Neck security footage from inside the garage, which only shows a silhouette outside the frosted garage door before the power was cut.

Verizon confirmed the loss of power at 15 Willow Brook Drive happened at 2:52 a.m.

The jury also heard several jail phone calls placed by Paul Caneiro after his arrest. In addition to his family, Caneiro spoke with the office manager of the Caneiro companies. In the calls, he asked Tiffany Rodriguez to consolidate his accounts and to help his wife log in to pay their family’s bills.

When she tells him that Corey Caneiro has been by the Asbury Park office, Paul says something muffled about not wanting his brother and asks, "What's he doing?"

"He's trying to keep everything going," Rodriguez responds.

The trial will resume on Monday, Feb. 2.

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