COLTS NECK, NJ — The New Jersey man convicted of murdering his brother and his brother’s family before setting their Colts Neck home on fire in 2018 will spend the rest of his life in prison, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
Paul Caneiro, 59, of Ocean Township, was sentenced to four life terms without the possibility of parole by Judge Marc C. Lemieux on Tuesday morning in the deaths of his brother, Keith, Keith's wife, Jennifer, and their children, Jesse and Sophia, in their Colts Neck home in November 2018.
Prior to Caneiro’s sentencing, Bette and Bonnie Karidis, the mother and sister of Jennifer Caneiro, and a friend and former employee of Keith Caneiro, Darren Altman, spoke about the legacy of the late Caneiro family and asked the judge to impose a maximum sentence for Paul Caneiro.
“I believe you will do what is right and remove this killer – this monster – from society for good,” Bette Karidis, Jennifer’s mother, said. “...[Paul Caneiro] stole the source of joy and happiness in our lives and replaced it with bottomless sadness, sorrow, and grief.”
“Sadly, my husband, Vlassis, is not here today,” Karidis continued. “He died without knowing that justice was done for our family. During the trial, the defense attorney once said to a witness, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’ I would like to tell you what you do not know.”
Karadis went on to describe the kind of people her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren were, describing them as “warm, vibrant,” “loving and devoted,” having “the kindest heart” and being “joyful and spirited.”
“There’s not an hour in the day where I do not think of them,” Karadis said. “And to think of them is to think about this terrible thing. How their last moments were terrifying, painful and horrific…Paul Caneiro’s horrific and despicable actions have caused agony and grief beyond what anyone should endure.”
“In an act of pure evil, he took the lives of four innocent people, his own flesh and blood, out of greed and selfishness,” Karadis continued. “He disgusts us. He represents the very worst of humanity.”
Bonnie Karidis, Jennifer’s sister, also spoke at the sentencing on Tuesday, and said that she and her family are not just grieving their lost relatives, but grieving who they would’ve been if they were still here today.
“We are not just grieving who they were, we are grieving who they would have become,” Karidis said. “The sheer malice and betrayal behind this is unbearable. They were executed and tortured by someone who was family — Uncle Paul.”
“...While my family’s voices were silenced, their lives and the value of their lives should never be diminished,” she continued. “There is no sentence that can bring my family back, and there really is no justice in my mind for these crimes, but for a crime rooted in greed and complete disregard for human life, there must be accountability. Maximum accountability.”
“Your Honor, I respectfully request that you impose maximum sentences allowed by law,” Karidis said. “The defendant must be removed from society.”
Paul Caneiro did not speak at his sentencing. His attorney, Monika Mastellone, said he maintains his innocence and has nothing further to add at this time.
“It’s not lost on the defense that four lives were tragically lost and that, as the first gentleman [Altman] indicated, the amount of loss and devastation is truly immeasurable to the friends, to the family members, community members, the victims,” Mastellone said. “And so there’s nothing I can say to mitigate that tragedy, but again, it’s not lost on us.”
Judge Lemieux spoke to that loss as well, telling Paul Caneiro that he “was never a victim. You were the cause of all of it.”
“A father is placed on this earth to protect children, to protect his own children, to protect his niece and nephew, to shield them from harm, to sacrifice for them when necessary,” Lemieux said. “[Paul Caneiro] did the opposite.”
“...Today, [Paul Caneiro’s] grief, manipulation, and selfish conduct ends,” he continued after handing down the sentence. “His address will forever be the Department of Corrections. His only reality is confinement, consequence and accountability. Punishment is paramount, and the court imposes it without any hesitation.”
“…You are no longer Paul Caneiro,” Lemieux said. “You are an inmate number in the Department of Corrections. You are a quadruple murderer who slaughtered innocent children. That is your identity. That is the identity you will carry for the remainder of your life behind prison walls, confined to a four-foot by seven-foot cell until your final breath. That’s the sentence I’m imposing.”
Caneiro’s sentencing comes after he was convicted on all counts in February in connection with the murder of his brother and his brother’s family in their Colts Neck home in November 2018, before it was set on fire.
Shortly after Caneiro’s conviction, his defense attorneys, Mastellone and Andy Murray, filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that Lemieux “denigrated” them both in and out of the jury’s presence, which ultimately denied him the chance at a fair trial.
Though his attorneys filed a motion for a new trial, it was ultimately denied by Lemieux toward the end of April.
In his written opinion, Lemieux sided with the state’s argument and said that the court “does not find that its conduct was denigrating or prejudicial to the defense.”
“To the contrary, the record reflects that the court’s interventions were consistently responsive to specific and identifiable failures by Ms. Mastellone to adhere to the court’s rulings and New Jersey’s Rules of Evidence,” Lemieux wrote. “During trial, Ms. Mastellone advocated zealously but repeatedly failed to comply with the court's instruction, mischaracterized witness testimony in questions posed, and persisted in lines of inquiry after objections had been sustained and explained.”
“Indeed, it was Ms. Mastellone’s non-compliance that necessitated the court’s repeated intervention to maintain the orderly conduct of the trial and to ensure that the presentation of evidence remained within the limits established by law, not judicial hostility or bias.”
Overall, Lemieux ruled that “a new trial based on an alleged denigration of defense counsel before the jury is not warranted.”
“Throughout the trial, the court relied on the New Jersey Rules of Evidence and its inherent authority to manage its courtroom,” he wrote. “Judicial intervention occurred when defense counsel did not adhere to the court’s rulings, and each intervention was grounded in specific and correct evidentiary authority. Defendant received a fair trial.”
Caneiro’s sentencing comes years after the deaths of his brother, sister-in-law and their two children, who were found dead at their Colts Neck home on Nov. 20, 2018, following a fire that broke out at the house.
The fire at Keith’s home was discovered a few hours after two fires started at Paul Caneiro’s home in Ocean Township. Paul Caneiro, his wife, and their two daughters escaped uninjured.
When authorities arrived at Keith Caneiro’s home, they found him shot to death on the front lawn.
A day after the fire broke out at Keith Caneiro’s home in Colts Neck, Paul Caneiro was arrested and accused of setting his own home on fire.
He was then charged with four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree felony murder, in connection with the deaths of his brother and his brother’s family.
In July 2019, he was also indicted on a charge of insurance fraud, as prosecutors said Caneiro stole $78,000 from his and Keith’s businesses over the course of two years.
Prosecutors argued that Paul Caneiro killed Keith, Jennifer and the children in part because of the theft from the business. They also alleged Paul stood to inherit half of a $3 million life insurance policy that was only payable if Keith’s entire family died.
The defense tried to point suspicion at the third brother, Corey, repeatedly during the trial, but the jury apparently rejected that, coming to a guilty verdict after less than six hours of deliberation.
Caneiro has 45 days from the date of his sentencing to file an appeal of the sentence. If the 45-day deadline is missed, he can receive a 30-day good cause extension if he can show good cause.
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