Paul Caneiro gets trial date in Colts Neck mansion murders of brother's family

FREEHOLD Paul J. Caneiro is scheduled to stand trial in June in the shocking murders more than five years ago of his brother's family on the grounds of their Colts Neck mansion in what prosecutors have described as a greed-filled crime spree.

Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley, at a conference last week, set June 3 as the date for Caneiro, 56, of Ocean Township, to stand trial in the November 2018 murders of his brother, Keith Caneiro, 50, sister-in-law, Jennifer, 45, niece, Sophia, 8, and nephew, Jesse, 11.

Despite speedy trial provisions in New Jersey's Criminal Justice Reform Act, the defendant's trial has been held up by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to make arrangements for him to review voluminous amounts of evidence against him and some lengthy legal wrangling over a cutting-edge method of evaluating DNA evidence collected in the investigation.

With much of that legal wrangling now in the past, the only thing that stands in the way of Caneiro's trial is a hearing on the admissibility of that DNA evidence. Oxley has scheduled the pretrial hearing for the weeks of Feb. 26 and March 4. DNA experts from as far away as New Zealand will be testifying at that hearing.

Oxley said he will need time after the hearing to render his decision on the admissibility of the DNA evidence, but once that is done, the trial can get underway.

"Once we get a ruling, we can look forward to a June 3 trial,'' the judge said.

Attorneys told the judge they expect the trial to take about four weeks.

Prosecutors allege Caneiro committed the murders and set fire to the victims' mansion after his brother, his business partner, discovered he was stealing money from the companies they co-owned.

They allege he returned to his Ocean Township home after the murders and set fire to it overnight in a failed ruse to throw off investigators by making it look like the extended Caneiro family was being targeted by violent criminals.

Hours after the fire was reported at Paul Caneiro's home in Ocean Township on Nov. 21, 2018, emergency personnel responding to a fire on Willow Brook Road in Colts Neck found Keith Caneiro's body on the front lawn of his sprawling estate as the mansion was burning to the ground. He had been shot four times in the head and once in the back, according to police documents.

Inside the house were the bodies of Jennifer Caneiro and the couple's children, who were all repeatedly stabbed and badly burned. Jennifer Caneiro also had been shot in the head, according to police documents.

Among the evidence collected from the two crime scenes - in Colts Neck and Ocean Township - were 13 DNA samples examined using a cutting-edge computer program designed to analyze small or mixed DNA samples. The analysis concluded eight of those DNA samples were mixtures to which Paul Caneiro contributed.

The state Public Defender's Office, which is representing Caneiro, is challenging the validity of the technology used to analyze the DNA and the admissibility of the evidence.

At the upcoming hearing in February, Oxley will have to rule on whether the technology, which employs a method known as probabilistic genotyping to analyze DNA, is generally accepted by the scientific community.

The Public Defender's Office, in court papers, claims probabilistic genotyping is "a far cry from traditional, 'gold standard' DNA testing' and the software program, known as STRmix, "pushes the bounds of testing far past what scientist 'generally accept.'"

The STRmix technology has not been challenged in court in New Jersey before, so Oxley's ruling will have statewide implications.

Prosecutors have asserted that even if the DNA evidence is ruled inadmissible, they have other evidence to prove Caneiro committed the murders. That includes a pair of jeans and a latex glove, both with Sophia's blood on them, and an unspent 9mm round of ammunition, all recovered from a container in the defendant's home.

In addition to four counts of murder, Caneiro is charged with two counts of arson and theft of more than $75,000 from his brother's family. He also is charged with insurance fraud, accused of collecting disability benefits following a car accident and continuing to work while having his paycheck issued to his wife.

The defendant has been in the Monmouth County Jail since his arrest shortly after the murders.

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.