The Digital Noose: How Surveillance Footage Locks Paul Caneiro to the Murder Timeline

Let me walk you through what the jury saw today, because this is the kind of evidence that convicts people.

A Major Crimes detective spent hours showing the jury surveillance footage from the night Keith Caneiro, his wife Jennifer, and their two children were murdered. Not footage of the murders themselves. Something potentially more damning: footage of movement. Timestamps. A digital record of someone moving through the night at exactly the times and places the prosecution needs.

And that someone, according to the State, is Paul Caneiro.

The Timeline That Matters

Here's what the cameras captured:

1:28 a.m. Paul's own garage camera shows someone walking in, approaching the DVR system, and then the screen goes black. Power terminated. The detective confirmed this wasn't a glitch or a power outage. Someone turned it off.

1:31 a.m. Two Nest cameras in the basement go offline. The notification emails captured the last images: a figure standing in the unfinished section of the basement, near the workbench where police would later seize firearms and ammunition.

2:05 a.m. A neighbor's camera at 19 Oxford Drive captures vehicle lights in Paul's driveway. The vehicle backs out, does a K-turn, and leaves toward Tilton Drive.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Neighbors near Keith's mansion in Colts Neck reported hearing gunshots sometime between 2 and 4 in the morning. Keith Caneiro was shot five times. Four to the head. One in the back.

4:08 a.m. The neighbor's camera shows vehicle lights returning to Paul's driveway.

4:55 a.m. First visible signs of fire at 27 Tilton Drive.

4:57 a.m. A flash of fire visible from the rear of the house, consistent with where investigators found one of the fire's origin points.

Do you see what the prosecution is building here?

The Gap That Fills Itself

The prosecution doesn't have video of Paul pulling a trigger. They don't have footage of him at Keith's mansion. But they have something that might be just as effective: a two-hour window where a vehicle left Paul's house and returned, bracketed by the time frame when gunshots were heard eleven miles away.

That's circumstantial evidence, sure. But it's the kind of circumstantial evidence that's hard to explain away.

Someone disabled Paul's cameras at 1:28 a.m. Someone left at 2 a.m. Someone returned at 4 a.m. The gunshots happened in between. And the only person with a motive, according to the State, was the man facing financial ruin if his brother exposed his theft and cut off his salary.

The cameras didn't catch the crime. They caught the clock. And right now, that clock is pointing at Paul Caneiro.

What the Defense Will Say

Look, I have to be fair here. The defense scored some points today.

They revealed that the detective never saw a crash report showing Paul's DVR system went down at 10:54 p.m. the night before the fire. That's before the cameras were allegedly disabled. System issues? Maybe. The defense will argue there's an alternative explanation for the cameras going dark.

They also hammered on the 5:01 a.m. fire flash. About 90 seconds after Paul's family drove down the driveway in the Porsche Cayenne, surveillance captured a massive flash of fire at the garage. A gasoline can was found tipped over in that area. If Paul was already in the car with his family evacuating, who threw that gasoline can?

It's a fair question. And the prosecution will need to answer it.

But here's the thing: that question is about the fire at Paul's house, not the murders in Colts Neck. The surveillance timeline for the two-hour window when Paul allegedly drove to his brother's house, killed four people, and drove back? That timeline stands on its own.

What I'm Watching

Paul Caneiro is presumed innocent. The jury hasn't decided anything yet. But if I'm the defense, I'm worried about how clean this timeline looks.

Cameras disabled at 1:28 a.m. Vehicle leaves at 2 a.m. Gunshots heard between 2 and 4 a.m. Vehicle returns at 4 a.m. Fire starts at 4:55 a.m.

That's not a smoking gun. But it might be the next best thing: a smoking timeline.

The prosecution is showing this jury a picture. A picture of a man who allegedly disabled his own cameras, drove to his brother's mansion in the middle of the night, executed four people including two children, drove home, and then set fire to his own house to create the illusion that he was a victim too.

Whether that picture is accurate is for the jury to decide. But after today's testimony, they've got a lot of timestamps to think about.

📺 WATCH THE FULL TESTIMONY Detective Walks Caneiro Jury Through Surveillance Showing Night of Murders