Hear The 911 Call Neighbor Made In Caneiro Colts Neck Murders

COLTS NECK, NJ — The discovery of the horrific Colts Neck murders began with a chilling Nov. 20 911 call made by neighbor Boris Volshteyn, who first discovered the quadruple murder of Keith Caneiro and his family at 15 Willow Broad Road in Colts Neck.

Audio of the call, which Patch has obtained from prosecutors, is included below. The 911 call was first obtained by NJ Advance Media/NJ.com and other news outlets, which filed requests through the Open Public Records Act.

It was a landscaper working nearby who first noticed smoke coming from 15 Willow Brook Road just past 12:30 p.m. that day, and ran inside and told his employer. This call was made by neighbor Volshteyn, who ran over to the home, found a dead body inside and called 911.

"OK, fire. Willow Brook Lane, Willow Brook Road. Colts Neck. I don't know, I think it's 44 Willow Brook. The house. I see ... I see ... the smoke from behind my neighbors," Volshteyn said on the call.

"I opened the door and there is a ... uh .... smoke coming out and there's a person laying down ... on the property ... in front of the house. Oh my God. There's blood here. It's .... it's a corpse. It's dead! There is somebody dead here," he says, clearly upset in the call.

"Sir, you need to get to safe area," the 911 operator tells him. "Sir, are you getting to a safe area?"

"I'm leaving the property," he said. Volshteyn later told the Associated Press he and Keith Caneiro had been friends.

Here is the call:

Keith's older brother, Paul Caniero, was charged with shooting his brother multiple times, leaving his dead body on the home's front lawn, and then going inside the home, where police say he shot and stabbed Keith's wife and stabbed their two children, killing them all. He then allegedly set a slow-burn fire in the basement of the home, which eventually consumed the entire $1.5-million modern estate in flames.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are saying the Caneiro murder case is an example of why New Jersey should bring back the death penalty. New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007 under then Gov. Jon Corzine.

On Wednesday, three Republican lawmakers from the northwest corner of New Jersey, Senator Steven Oroho and Assemblymen Parker Space and Harold "Hal" Wirths, called for New Jersey to reinstate the death penalty in the wake of the Caneiro case.

“As lawmakers, our number-one responsibility is to safeguard innocent people from harm,” said Assemblyman Wirths on Wednesday. Wirths is a former member of the State Parole Board. “The gruesome murder of the Caneiro family is proof that we must reinstate the death penalty. We should listen to officials like Prosecutor Gramiccioni, who have plainly said that this is a punishment we should be able to hand down in extreme cases of violence. We owe it to the loved ones who are grieving this tremendous loss. They deserve the ultimate form of justice. By reinstating the death penalty, we can give it to them.”

As Patch reported, Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni was asked by a reporter a few weeks ago during a press conference if he thinks this case deserves the death penalty. Gramiccioni said he would personally consider the Caneiro murders a capital case, meaning he thinks Paul Caneiro should be considered for the death penalty, if found guilty.

Gramiccioni acknowledged those were only his personal feelings, saying, "Obviously I only enforce the law, I don't make it. But if that was a possible sentence in the state of New Jersey, I would have certified this case as a capital case ... This is one of the most brutal cases that I've ever seen," he added.

The three lawmakers have long sponsored legislation to reinstate the death penalty in New Jersey.

“The Colts Neck murderer deserves nothing less than the death penalty,” Sen. Steven Oroho said. “We can no longer ignore the public calls for action in gruesome cases like these. In 1992, New Jersey voters overwhelming enshrined the death penalty into the state constitution. However, Democrats overruled the will of the voters by banning the death penalty in 2017. Eliminating capital punishment has placed countless residents at risk. The horrible truth is that unless killers know the death penalty is on the table, there are monsters out there that will kill.”

Ongoing Patch coverage of Caneiro Colts Neck murder case:

Motive Was Financial In Colts Neck Murders, Prosecutor Says

Picture Emerges Of One Caneiro Brother Thriving, Another In Pain

Colts Neck Murder Case Won't Go To Trial Until 2020

Photos from the scene provided to Patch.