Colts Neck slaughter: Defense seeds doubt about younger brother as Caneiro daughter cries on stand

⚖️ Emotional testimony: Paul Caneiro’s daughter Katie, told jurors she loved the victims like "second parents" and broke down recalling the day of the fires.

⚖️ Defense attorneys again point to the youngest Caneiro brother, despite investigators saying all evidence leads to Paul Caneiro.

⚖️ Prosecutors have detailed how four family members — including two children — were brutally killed before their Colts Neck home was set ablaze.

FREEHOLD BOROUGH — As jurors heard tearful testimony from Paul Caneiro’s daughter, his defense attorney pressed a familiar theme in the quadruple murder trial: raising questions about the youngest Caneiro brother, Corey, in a trial where prosecutors insist the trail leads to only one man.

Katie Caneiro, who works as an ER nurse, said she considered the victims, Keith and Jennifer Caneiro, her second parents.

“Every holiday we spent together - birthdays, my whole life,” Katie testified about her aunt, uncle and two younger cousins — 11-year-old Jesse and 8-year-old Sophia.

Prosecutors have accused Paul Caneiro of slaughtering his brother’s family at their Colts Neck home days before Thanksgiving in 2018, out of financial desperation and then setting that house and his own home on fire in efforts to cover his tracks.

Keith was shot five times, most in the head, and was found on the home’s lawn, checking on the house’s power, which had been cut.

Inside, Jennifer had been shot and stabbed several times, dying on the stairs from the basement to the first floor, before suffering intense charring in the raging house fire.

Jesse had been stabbed multiple times and was found on the kitchen floor, while the youngest victim, Sophia, had been repeatedly stabbed and was found on a staircase landing, between the home’s first and second floors.

Smoke inhalation was a factor in both children’s deaths, meaning they were still alive as the fire intensified, investigators have said.

Read More: Paul Caneiro trial: Autopsy testimony reveals chilling details

Defense uses testimony to raise questions about third brother

Defense attorney Monika Mastellone asked Katie Caneiro about her father and uncle being business partners and if they ever disagreed.

“They were brothers, so they would fight like brothers - but they would work it out themselves,” she testified, adding that her other uncle, Corey Caneiro, would “come around occasionally.”

The defense team has cast suspicion on the youngest brother, Corey Caneiro, since their opening statements, questioning why he was never treated as a suspect.

Detectives have said the evidence in the case always led to Paul Caneiro.

Daughter breaks down describing moment she learned of Colts Neck fire

About 40 minutes into her testimony, Katie Caneiro broke down in tears as she described finding out about the fire in Colts Neck while at the Ocean Township police station.

“My dad started screaming and crying that my uncle’s house was on fire,” Katie Caneiro testified.

That description is at odds with investigators, who testified that Paul Caneiro was quiet and visibly upset as the tragedy at 15 Willow Brook Road unfolded, hours after the 5 a.m. Ocean Township fire.

Mastellone asked several other questions which also attempted to bolster the defense theory about Corey Caneiro.

Katie Caneiro said she saw that her uncle was staying in the basement at Keith and Jennifer Caneiro’s house, from June through September of 2018.

She also testified that Corey Caneiro would bring his own children to swim in the pool at her family's house, 27 Tilton Drive in Ocean Township, including “times when no one else was home.”

DNA, financial records and damning physical evidence

Unlike his older brothers, Corey Caneiro was not a business partner with either Keith or Paul.

Paul Caneiro was the sole trustee of an account linked to a $3 million life insurance policy on Keith.

Early on in the trial, an investigator with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office outlined the six-figure spending of Paul Caneiro’s household and the roughly $78,000 he had drained in 2017 and 2018 from the bank account meant to pay that life insurance.

Read More: Inside Paul Caneiro's big expenses before Colts Neck killings

Trial evidence has included blood-stained jeans, several gloves and a few other clothing items found in a pile in Paul Caneiro’s basement, which led to DNA evidence linking Sophia and Jesse to Paul.

A 9mm unspent bullet was also found in the clothes. The same type of ammunition was found in Paul’s home and used in the killings of Keith and Jennifer Caneiro, a ballistics expert for the State Police lab has testified.

Another key piece of evidence, which the defense fought all the way to the state Supreme Court, is a still image of Paul Caneiro turning off his own security cameras hours before the killings and fires erupted on Nov. 20, 2018.

After charging Paul Caneiro with arson for the fire at his own house, investigators searched the Porsche Cayenne he had driven to the Ocean Township police department.

In the SUV, a black backpack was found containing an “automatic” folding knife, Paul Caneiro’s passport, a bag with a gun barrel in paper towels and other firearm parts, keys and a stack of bank or credit cards — mostly in Paul Caneiro’s name.

The backpack also held an envelope with 17 U.S. savings bonds in the names of Paul Caneiro’s two adult daughters, a cell phone SIM card and a thermal camera, investigators testified on Jan. 22.

Caneiro trial week 5 began with DNA analyst for defense

Earlier on Monday, a DNA analyst hired by the defense gave testimony about possible shortcomings of the software used on DNA samples in the Paul Caneiro murder trial.

Last Friday, the state rested its case and the defense called its first four witnesses — two different couples who have been friends with Paul Caneiro and his wife for decades.

Monday's testimony was ultimately interrupted as prosecutors objected to the scope of questions being asked of Paul Caneiro's daughter.

Earlier on in the trial, Mastellone cited case law on how the state – not the defense – has the burden of proof.

A 2017 state Supreme Court ruling, “State vs. Tier,” said that defense attorneys are not always required to provide written statements in advance from defense witnesses if they were not already prepared.

On Monday afternoon, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Marc Lemieux said he was not sure that the current situation was "covered" by that case law, and would hear arguments from both sides on Tuesday morning.

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