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It was less than 24 hours before authorities say he slaughtered his brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew and then torched their Colts Neck, N.J. mansion, but for Paul Caneiro, it was just another ordinary Monday.
Caneiro, 51 — who last Friday pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder and other charges — was his “usual self” as he went about the mundane tasks of the day, an employee of his recalled to The Post.
“Paul was Paul,” said David Natelson, the business manager for Ecostar Pest Management, the pest-control company the two brothers owned.
Caneiro arrived at the Asbury Park office around 10 a.m. and left around 3 p.m., spending, as he often did, much of the day with his nose in his iPad, Natelson said.
“Nothing I saw on Monday was any different than anything I had seen any other day,” he recalled.
About 14 hours later, Caneiro was driving to his younger brother Keith Caneiro’s sprawling mansion, where he would fatally shoot the 50-year-old on his own front lawn, authorities contend.
Walking past his brother’s bullet-riddled corpse, Caneiro stormed inside, and shot and then fatally stabbed his brother’s wife, Jennifer Caneiro, and then turned the knife on the couple’s two kids, 8-year-old Sophia and 11-year-old Jesse, police said.
Caneiro then set the manse ablaze and retreated to his Ocean, NJ, home, where he ignited another fire in an attempt to create a ruse that they too were under attack, authorities allege.
Prosecutors said Caneiro’s motivation was “financial in nature, stemming from [Paul] and [Keith’s] joint business ventures,” but did not provide details about how money came between the two men, who both appeared to live quite comfortably.
But Natelson said there were no signs Ecostar was struggling.
“I wasn’t aware of any pressures or amounts of money that were sitting in an account,” he said, stressing that he was not privy to the inner financial workings of the company.
“It was no gold mine. We were growing our revenue and investing in additional expenses . . . It was a growing business that like any growing business has cash flow pressures, but nothing serious … no business-threatening pressures.”
Neither brother was intimately involved in operating the nine-employee company, which has been up and running since Paul’s arrest the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Natelson said.
The youngest Caneiro brother, Corey, 44, who was close to both older brothers, has been “carrying out administrative details” for the business, Natelson said.
“Our instructions are to operate as usual,” he added.
Keith oversaw the tech company, Square One, the brothers co-owned — and which shares the same second floor space as Ecostar— and he rarely came into the office, Natelson noted.
“Three and a half years ago, it seemed they were both more involved in both businesses, and over time, Paul became more the brother handling the pest control and Keith became the brother more involved in the technology business,” Natelson said. “I don’t think I’ve seen Keith probably in a year.”
On Saturday, a post-fire restoration company was spotted outside Caneiro’s charred two-story home. Orange evidence stickers and an order to vacate were pasted on the front door, as a worker carried out bags of clothes and loaded them into a van. Caneiro remains in a cell at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution. His next court date is Jan. 30.
About 2 miles from the jail, a makeshift memorial of homemade posters, flowers and toys lines the fence of Keith Caneiro’s Colts Neck mansion. A child’s drawing depicts the family, with the sun shining above them. It’s signed, “I miss you, love Adriana.”
Natelson, meanwhile, said he “can’t believe” his boss could be capable of such heinous acts, which Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said last week were some of the “most brutal” he’s ever seen.
“Only an animal could do what was described by the prosecutors, and I never thought of him as an animal,” he said.
Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya
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