Slow Burn

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0:43Yep, even on weekends. That's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. Tonight on Dateline. I still dream about it. I dream about them. Still. A house fire. A family. A horrific doesn't even begin to describe what it is. What it still is. You've got a mansion that you're responding to. Yes. It's an urgent response. Looked like a combination of fire and something more sinister. It's a crime scene. It seems that the entire family is gone. Your best friends, just absolutely devastating. I was just so sad and heartbroken.

1:31When I found out it was murder, I was like, who did it? Can we catch this person? There was a camera. You could see this figure through the garage door. Is it a hitman? Was it revenge? You find out there has been another fire in a neighboring town. Yes, and it's the brothers' home. Two brothers' houses are on fire. Alarm bells going off? They're starting to, yes. What is going on in this family that we need to know? It's like evil washed over the town. Absolutely. Evil washed over the town. Two fires, four deaths, and one terrifying twist. Murders at the mansion. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Date Live.

2:19Here's Andrea Canning with Slow Burn.

2:28With its sprawling estates and quiet country roads, there's a little town in New Jersey called Koltznek, not too far from the hustle and bustle of New York City. It's a great town. Lots of horse forms, lots of golf courses, lots of open space. Great people. Affluent town. It's where Keith Canaro, a successful entrepreneur, lived with his wife Jennifer and their young children. They built their lives, they built their business, they built their home, they built their family. They made a positive impact on the community. For Keith and his two brothers who live nearby, it was a world away from their humble beginnings in working-class Brooklyn.

3:05The kind of community where people felt safe. Until November 20th, 2018, just before Thanksgiving. A call came in to dispatch at 12.33 p.m. Keith's house was on fire.

3:28A minute later, a different caller.

3:35And there is smoke coming out and there's a person laying down. Where are they laying down? On the property. There's somebody's dead here. Multiple fire crews responded, including the all-volunteer Adelphia Company, firefighters Carmelo LaMarca and Mike Whitehill. What are you told is going on with this fire at this point? It was announced over the radio that there was a mother and two children in the house. It was probably as urgent as it gets. And there's sirens blaring, you're peeling out of this fire station. That's correct. Local and county investigators also raced to the scene, including Lieutenant Patrick Petruzzillo and Sergeant Stephen Vogt with the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office and Colts Neck Detective Richard Zirillo.

4:22What do you see as you arrive at the house? Saw the house, we saw smoke coming out. Once we entered the property, there was possibly a deceased victim in the front yard of the house. When you hear that there's someone dead in the front yard, does your mind go to, could be a fire victim that maybe was trying to escape the fire? It could be a victim of any kind. We don't know who the person is, how they got there, what the circumstances were. This is a full-on active crime scene at this point. It's also a very active fire going on with all these fire trucks. So we're trying to do our job, but also not get in the way of fire suppression.

5:04Very chaotic. Yes, and it's not a small scene. The house itself is a couple of acres of property. There's access points. We're trying to control a large scene, shutting down traffic, airspace. Word quickly reached then-Mayor J.P. Bartolomeo. You had an instinct as you were driving to the scene that there was something really big to this. There was more than meets the eye. Yes, when the information was provided to me that there was a dead body, a lot was going through my head. Confusion, concern. I was puzzled as to what was really kind of unwinding. Monica Guy, Colts Neck resident and on-air news reporter, also got wind of the commotion.

5:45I was on assignment about 30 minutes away. and my assignment editor called and said, there's a really bad fire in your town. He gave me the address and I knew it was near my house. Monica also knew it was the home of Keith, Jennifer and their son and daughter, Jesse and Sophia. My daughter went to the same school as Sophia. And Jesse was just a little bit older than my son. Neighbors told first responders that the children weren't in school, and their mom Jennifer wasn't answering her phone. As soon as we entered to the front door, there was a very, very heavy smoke condition. So you're looking for, hopefully, survivors in this house, and you can't see a thing?

6:32No. Outside, Detective Zarrillo took a closer look at the body on the lawn. I examined him, briefly rolling him, checking to see for any signs of life. When I rolled him, I found his hands underneath his body and blood underneath him. that it appeared that he had sustained a gunshot wound. It was Keith Canero. He'd been shot in the head. Investigators had a mystery on the front lawn. And inside the house, an unthinkable horror. This one is the most brutal case that I've seen in my experience here. The level of planning and the level of violence was just sickening. This is like the story of Cain and Abel.

7:15It's hard for anyone to process. Hardened criminal defense friends of mine, judges that I'm friends with, no one's ever seen anything like this. It comes down to greed. I think it comes down to jealousy. There's a murderer in our town. Do we stay inside? Do we lock the doors? Just any kid would, like, freak out and not know what to do.

7:4850-year-old Keith Canero lay dead outside his house with a gunshot wound to the head. While detectives combed for clues, firefighters searched for his family inside. It was zero visibility. As we climbed the stairs and got to the landing, that's when we encountered the first victim. Is this person alive? There was no way for us to tell. Do you scoop this person up and get out of there as fast as you possibly can? As fast as we could. Once outside, he glanced down. What did you see? I was able to see that it was a small female who was badly, badly injured. It was the Caneros' 8-year-old daughter, Sophia.

8:30She was dead. Seconds later, another horrific discovery. The bodies of 45-year-old Jennifer and 11-year-old Jesse. It was one of the worst things investigators had ever seen. Was it apparent to you right away how everyone had died? Jennifer, no, certainly. Because of the amount of fire injuries throughout her body, you really couldn't see anything. What injuries did the children have that were apparent? It looked like they had multiple stab wounds. What's that moment like when you realize this isn't just Keith on the lawn? This is the whole family. We try to maintain that professional aspect of it.

9:11You try to leave your emotions out of it and you work the scene. Word of the murders and apparent arson spread through Colts Neck. Mayor Bartolomeo couldn't help but speculate. Your brain starts to wander. Is it a hitman? Did they have a bad way with someone? Was it revenge? All of the above? None of the above? Even as she covered the breaking story, Monica struggled to process the loss of a family she'd known for years. It was the worst day of my career. I quickly had to shut that off and go to work. She had her own initial theory about what happened. The first thing that came to my mind was maybe it was a domestic violence situation that had escalated.

9:55Like a murder-suicide? Yes, absolutely. But the more she thought about it, the less sense that made. Keith and Jennifer seemed to be so in love. I'll tell you this story, and it was shared with me. Keith and Jennifer were out on a date, and Keith said, draw me the house you want to live in. And Jennifer said, okay. And it was used as the inspiration for the house that they built and lived in. He gave her her dream house. Yeah, he did. What were Keith and Jennifer like as parents? Because you saw them really in that parent environment. They were great parents. See them at different school events.

10:35I'd often see them getting their kids off the school bus. Sometimes Keith would be there, and he would just be beaming. Jennifer, was she a stay-at-home mom? She was. She was involved in Girl Scouts, and Sophia was a brownie. She was involved with the PTA and things at school and within the community. Ripley and Asher Burgess went to school with Sophia and Jessie. They remember the moment their parents shared the heartbreaking news. We had like a family meeting and my dad said we had some hard news to say. Some of our really close friends have passed away. Your parents are crying. This is real.

11:18When they first told me, I was so confused. I just did not know how to process any of this information. Really, I just was blank and I was drowning everything out. They met the Canaro siblings four years earlier and became instant best friends. My friendship with Sophia started off with doing soccer when we were little. We both did it together and then we both hated it. So then we tried cheer, gymnastics. Where were you in the cheer order? We were kind of on the sidelines. Instead of actually doing the cheer that we were supposed to, we went on the side and danced to our own thing. And then we'd get yelled at.

12:02What do you think connected you with Jesse? We both really liked history. He got me into history. He had posters all in his room of World War I, World War II. We liked to, like, climb around and just do stupid things. Why would anyone want to harm this loving family? Investigators needed to find out everything they could about the Caneros. We weren't drawing any conclusions and not knowing who the Canaros were. There was a lot of questions. Who is this family? What do they do? Who are they involved with? They learned that Keith got his start at a Brooklyn computer store working as a janitor. All he asked for in return was a chance to study the software manuals.

12:44From there, he launched his own IT consulting business. His first employee? His older brother, Paul. They joined their middle names to create J. Martin Consulting. Sounds like they're both smart. Keith was described more as like a business smart and Paul more tech smart. That could complement each other nicely in a business like that. Sure. They renamed the company Square One and moved it to New Jersey. Early on in the tech boom times, they had substantial clients and the company was extremely successful. Keith owned 90%, Paul 10%. And they took over a second business they split 50-50, EcoStar Pest Management.

13:30Monica says the brothers were also close personally. When Keith married Jennifer in 2000, Paul was in his wedding party. And when Paul married in 1991, Keith was his best man. Both went on to have two kids and were doting uncles to each other's children. Jesse had even asked Paul, his Uncle Paul, to go to school with him for Special Persons Day. Now, Keith and his family were gone. Investigators had their work cut out for them. But before the Colts Deck fire was even out, they got word of another blaze in a nearby town. One that would cast a whole new light on the investigation. Now you have two fires very close to each other, same day.

14:14are you starting now to feel like, wow, this can't be a coincidence? Yes.

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16:24Investigators raced to collect evidence from Keith and Jennifer Canero's house in Koltzneck, but the fire was still raging. There could be evidence going up in smoke. Yes, 100%. We immediately were discussing, like, what can we do to preserve the evidence? We did the best we could at that point. Worked on securing the exterior as best we could. Right away, they noticed there were a number of things that were out of place. Starting with the electric meter. I found the meter not in its place on the side of the wall. That's odd. That's one of the oddities. Another was the generator. It was turned off.

17:05You feel like the generator should have been kicked on? If there's no meter, there's no power going to the residence, you would hope that the generator would come on. Detectives weren't sure what it meant, but they dusted both the meter and the generator for fingerprints. Then, a firefighter spotted a lone bullet. A cartridge, which is an unspent live round, was found on the back deck. And near Keith's body, six fired shell casings. Was there a murder weapon anywhere? No. Was it possible that this could be a home invasion? They had a lot of money, the Caneros. At that point, anything was possible.

17:43Who is this family? What do they do? Who are they involved with? As detectives tried to make sense of the murders, they wondered if they had something to do with another suspicious house fire that was reported hours earlier in the town of Ocean Township, 10 miles away. Officers from that local police station responded to the scene before dawn. A 911 call comes in that there's a fire in Ocean Township. Yes, received 911 call from a woman reporting smoke and fire at her house. Lieutenant Christopher Brady with the Ocean Township Police Department jumped out of bed and headed to the fire. Police body cameras captured the growing blaze.

18:22Hey, is everybody out of that house? Yeah. All right, I thought you could hear this. Get out of here. Officers talked to the family of four who lived in the home. They were across the street, watching everything unfold. Hey, how you doing? You all right? Everyone okay? No one was injured. Just shaken? Just shaken, yeah. Do they have any idea of how this fire started? No, they had no idea how the fire started. Describe, you know, waking up to the smoke detectors and seeing smoke in the house. And they ran outside the house. Captain Brian Weisbrot and Lieutenant Nicholas Cataluna with the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office arrived to assist in the investigation.

18:57The first things that were concerning to me was there was multiple points of origin on the fire. What were all the points? The first point was in the back of the home, adjacent to the gas meter. The second was in the area of one of the garage doors on the other side of the house. And then there was a third on the top of one of the Porsche vehicles that was parked in the driveway. way. They believed it was arson and that whoever set the fire left this behind. There was also a gas can found on scene with a burnt nozzle. This gas can is possibly a goldmine. You know, maybe it has DNA. Maybe it has a fingerprint.

19:31Yeah. And what was interesting about the gas can is the nozzle was burnt, which was indicative that it was in close proximity to a fire source. Right next to the gas can, they noticed something else. We found a partially burnt Black nitrile glove. Whoever lit this fire was probably wearing gloves. That would be a possibility, a very strong possibility. The county fire marshal examined the evidence and determined the fire was set intentionally. He told me that there was presence of an accelerating liquid outside the residence. Investigators spotted security cameras and went back to the family to ask about them.

20:07How are you going to start? It's your house? Yes. Where is all the DVD stuff for the cameras and everything in the house? It's in the garage. Do you have them running right now? It's been having, I've been having problems with stuff in the garage. An officer grabbed the box for the camera system anyway. Maybe they'd get lucky. They also asked the family to come down to the station. Did they have any idea who might have wanted to hurt them? Had there been an argument with someone recently? No, they had said they had no problems with anyone. And then the detectives got an alert on their phones. Indicating that there was a fire in Colts Neck.

20:44This was the first they were hearing about it, and they made a stunning connection. The last name of that home was Canaro, just the same as the incident we have at Ocean Township. The owner of the Ocean Township house was Paul Canaro, older brother of Keith Canaro. The man found dead outside his burning house in Colts Neck. Wow, I mean, what are the odds? That doesn't sound like a coincidence. It was very odd and suspicious and strange. At the police station, Paul Canero, his wife, and two daughters got the awful news that Keith and his family had died. Did they just look absolutely devastated?

21:24Yeah, they appeared just as you would expect. They were devastated. You have two suspicious fires. You have four people murdered in one of the homes. Great concern for this family, is fair to say? Yes, yes. Do you think that they're being targeted, all of them? There's a fear. Was the fire at Paul's house a failed murder attempt? If so, it could mean someone was trying to kill the entire Canero family. But who?

22:11With no arrests or answers about who killed Keith Canero and his family and set their house on fire, the town of Koltzneck was gripped by fear. There's a murderer in our town. Do we stay inside? Do we lock the doors? Just any kid would freak out and not know what to do. Residents looked to Mayor Bartolomeo for reassurance he couldn't yet give them. This crime needed to be solved. It did, because at the moment, we didn't know if we had a monster walking the beautiful streets of Colts Neck, or if it was something else. The Monmouth County prosecutor tried to quell those fears. We have no reason to believe that the community is in any danger at this point in time.

22:53But investigators knew that the third Canaro brother, Corey, had heard about the fires and was still worried. He took it upon himself to go outside of New Jersey because we didn't know what was going on. He said he was concerned for his safety? Sure, sure. Corey had gone to Pennsylvania with his children. He agreed to meet the detectives at a local police station there. We interviewed him for probably a couple hours that night. This was not a situation of Corey fleeing or trying to... How was Corey handling the death of his brother and his brother's family? He was trying to piece it together himself as well.

23:31I'm sure he was concerned that this may be a targeted event. They asked Corey about his brother's businesses. Corey, obviously, being a brother, had a wealth of information. He knew about the dynamics of the business. Was there a thought that a possible suspect could be something related to the business? you know, a business deal gone bad or an employee who's angry at them, maybe. Yeah, anytime you have that common denominator of the business, I think you have to look into, could that be part of something? Corey couldn't think of anything. But he did reveal this. Keith and Paul's IT company was losing clients and about to collapse.

24:13He had mentioned there was some emails going back and forth, things about the business, concerns that Keith had, plans that Keith had. Those plans included selling their second business, EcoStar Pest Management. Keith emailed Paul, make the deal. Paul responded, no, we can wait a quarter and see how much more we can get. Keith wrote back, I'm not interested in waiting. Meanwhile, back at the Ocean Township police station, Detectives looked through the neighborhood surveillance footage and saw something odd. They believed these clips showed the headlights of Paul's SUV reversing out of his driveway.

24:55What we believe to be a Porsche vehicle departing from his house and driving down the street. Around what time is that? Shortly after 2 o 'clock in the morning. This was strange, too. The story Paul told police about his security cameras. Do you have them running right now? I've been having problems with stuff in the garage. It turned out they had been working just fine. Investigators went straight to the most recent recording, hours before the fire. Was there anything on the cameras that caught your attention? Yes, we saw Paul Canaro walk directly towards the location where the DVR was located, and then the power was cut to the DVR system.