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Dateline NBC S32E21 The Room Downstairs H 264
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00:09tonight on dateline if the police were right this was a diabolical murder plot carried out
00:16on your brother he did it that night and he was still out there and who else would he hurt
00:22the back of the house is on fire okay get everybody out my sister-in-law told me that
00:29rob had died in the fire right away i knew there was something suspicious it was actually a murder
00:36he had been murdered why would someone bring rob canter down into a basement bedroom and then
00:43murder him execution style we focused on motive his relationship with sophie that was very important
00:50she was head over heels for rob yeah he adored her i don't think anybody imagined that this is
00:57something we should be wary of evidence of stalking fake email accounts you could see the evil you
01:04could just see it you weren't scared for yourself absolutely obsession anger desire for vengeance
01:15it's really only pointing to one person jealousy betrayal revenge who had a motive to kill
01:21a new turn in this spellbinding mystery i'm lester holt and this is date live
01:35here's andrea canning with the room downstairs
01:44love at first it's all blue skies a lovely day that promises to never end
01:53he was crazy for her i don't know i can't explain it where the attraction came from
01:59but just as the weather changes so too can love i never even dreamed of them getting divorced
02:07what happened they just grew apart
02:12leaving sadness in its wake or worse something darker something that gains power as it churns
02:22and finally strikes the only way it can with lethal force
02:29forever those people forever their souls will be marred and torn by these events
02:45it wasn't a night to be out march 6 2011 a raw and rainy sunday in teaneck new jersey
02:51minutes from new york city henry rodzen's car had broken down what was happening that night
02:57i had a flat tire earlier than day and i had to come back to fix it you know it
03:02was raining it was
03:03windy it was just very miserable so i put all my tools away for some reason i just happened to
03:09look up
03:10and i saw smoke going across the street from the corner house from going across from the corner house
03:16going across to the right a former volunteer firefighter henry thought he should at least
03:21check it out as soon as i saw that there was a bright amber glow i knew that was a
03:26definite fire
03:27so i decided to just quickly run back to my girlfriend said listen call 9-1-1 there's a house
03:33that's on fire on the street and the back of the house is on fire okay get everybody out of
03:38the house
03:38you're a former volunteer firefighter are you thinking i've got to spring into action here
03:43in case someone needs to be rescued i started yelling i started pounding on the door as hard as i
03:48could just to see if there was any activity see if anybody was home anything all the lights were
03:53off everything was quiet when i went around to the side the amount of smoke and the amount of flames
04:00the
04:01basement was fully engulfed you have no gear nothing i also noticed that the neighbor had a spigot
04:06nearby i was pouring water on the windowsill but that fire inside was rolling once inside the house
04:14firefighters looked to see where the fire began a blackened trail led them to the basement into what
04:20looked like a bedroom and there it was unmistakable a badly burned body bergen county arson investigator
04:28sergeant terry lawler said by the time he arrived the body had been removed from the house
04:34the body had suffered severe burns the front of the body more so than uh the back which wasn't
04:41bail as badly burned the victim was the owner of the house 59 year old rob canter he'd been a
04:49software
04:50engineer a father a husband a runner lawler thought it was strange that rob died so close to where the
04:57fire
04:57started in that basement bedroom usually you see healthy middle-aged males and they're trying to
05:03get away from the fire so maybe they're overcome by smoke it just had no reality to me at all
05:11when rob's sister leslie padron got word her brother was dead her first thought heart attack
05:18then she heard the word fire and didn't know what to think
05:22i said something's not right he couldn't have died in a fire why didn't you think he could die in
05:28a
05:28fire people die in fires well he could have only if he had like a major heart attack or if
05:35something
05:36exploded in the basement and my brother was a triathlete there's no way i could imagine he would
05:41have died in a fire finally we made our way to teaneck to the house and it was horrible the
05:49story
05:50didn't make sense to rob's friend mayor dodd sanai either he couldn't see rob rushing to the basement
05:55to put out a raging fire he was intelligent he was not stupid he wouldn't risk his life
06:01right unless he committed suicide he set himself on fire he was not no you could see some indication
06:09that this wasn't just somebody that was smoking in his bed in the bedlit fire after county prosecutor
06:14john malinelli examined the scene he was all but certain the fire had been intentionally set
06:19what was your gut telling you as to what this could be what you're looking at the first thought was
06:26well whoever did this act lit the crime scene in an effort to uh to frustrate law enforcement because dna
06:33evidence is always important which is why he asked the medical examiner to fast track an autopsy
06:39which is when this case got really complicated the post mortem examination by the medical examiner found
06:46that he had a bullet in his head they found rob canner's body in his burned out basement
07:05only it wasn't the fire that killed him and i think it was the next day the detectives came back
07:12and
07:13told us that he was shot somebody killed him and you know they don't give you a lot of information
07:21like we didn't know did someone break in was anything tampered with it's very hard it's awful
07:28because no one's allowed to say anything about anything it wasn't just a shooting it was an
07:33execution shot him from behind execution style diabolical yeah despicable despicable back at the
07:42scene of the fire investigators found a casing for a 380 caliber handgun in that basement bedroom where rob
07:48died a comforter in the same room yielded another valuable piece of evidence the forensic scientist was
07:55able to determine that ethanol was on the comforter it appeared someone had shot rob then used an
08:02accelerant to start the fire prosecutor john mullinelli wondered if rob's murder was connected
08:08to two others in the county that year both involving house fires are those two other murders the
08:14first thing that come to your mind when you see this crime scene there was certainly a discussion
08:19and deliberation on the topic certainly within the first few weeks of the canter murder the community
08:26was kind of very taken aback and very concerned about this there was talk of a possible serial
08:33killer arsonist definitely that would have been the case they didn't have much crime in that and the area
08:39at all investigators were also looking into the possibility of a more personal motive for rob's
08:45murder they wanted to know everything about him they took us in separately rob's friend mayor dodd he was
08:53wonderful he was kind he was loving he always saw the other point of view mayor dodd told police he
09:01and rob
09:01met as software engineers in telecom they bonded over work and running mayor dodd nicknamed rob roberto rob
09:08nicknamed him mayor doc food was a shared obsession he says my doc why do we make sandwiches he was
09:15a kid
09:15at heart the bromance began absolutely he said rob could be light-hearted silly even like the time rob
09:23skipped out of work early leaving this teasing message for his friend i've always hated you i hate the day
09:30that
09:30they met you i laughed with somebody who's much better looking than you which isn't difficult to find
09:37and i curse you have a nice day nice sense of humor absolutely i hate you i hate you and
09:44he knew how to
09:45i said i left with somebody much better looking that is not difficult to find so that's who he was
09:52it wasn't all laughs on their runs rob confided in mayor dodd about life fatherhood his 27-year
09:59marriage to his wife susan they were splitting up obviously i mean they tried very hard both of them
10:06to save the marriage they went through therapy and all that stuff but it's unfortunate you know people
10:12go their own separate ways i never even dreamed of them getting divorced
10:18my brother was afraid to tell me susan his wife actually called to tell me what happened
10:26they just grew apart no rancor no bitterness that's what family and friends said but
10:33investigators wanted to judge for themselves it's such a lot homicide detective cecilia love
10:40what was going on in their lives at this time susan and rob
10:43they still had a relationship uh because they had the you know the two daughters together
10:50susan told investigators the decision to separate was mutual
10:54for a time they remained under the same roof rob moved into the basement bedroom eventually susan
11:00got her own place they were still hashing out the divorce when rob died they had been discussing
11:06selling the house um you know dividing up assets that can get tense even for the best of relationships
11:13absolutely did you need to take a close look at her in the beginning you know you always would think
11:20um it could be his his wife or his ex-wife was it or was it someone else entirely he
11:27was crazy for her i
11:29don't know i can't explain where the attraction came from we had no idea about the emails we had no
11:35reason
11:36to believe anything would happen
11:52investigators were approaching rob canter's murder from two angles
11:56was it personal or wasn't an arsonist at work they searched for a link between his and two
12:02similar homicides in bergen county they couldn't find one i know our detectives took weeks and months
12:10checking everything and we just didn't see anything that would bring us to try and tie the three of them
12:18together meanwhile detective cecilia love intensified her focus on rob's world
12:23we interviewed the friends and uh family members lots of people to talk to yes
12:30at the top of the list rob's soon-to-be ex susan we did bring her in and speak to
12:37her who wanted this
12:38divorce rob or susan i think they both wanted it it was a mutual decision she said susan seemed devastated
12:45by rob's death even so love wanted to hear an alibi susan explained she'd been alone in her new home
12:52on the phone with a friend nothing really led us to believe that that she had any involvement
12:58in this so if not susan who rob's friends told investigators they needed to speak to another
13:05woman right away her name was sophie manu rob and sophie were involved in this relationship
13:13so a day after rob's murder the detective called sophie who described how she and rob met more than
13:19a year earlier at a science lecture the french-born sophie was 40 19 years younger than rob she lived
13:26just
13:26across the river in manhattan they shared interests running philosophy and science but there was one
13:33problem sophie was married and raising three daughters roughly ages four to nine with her husband tony tongue
13:41sophie was living a bit of a secret life initially yes but it wasn't too long before it you know
13:50it all came
13:51out she thought the woman's grief was genuine she was crying she knew that he uh was deceased did you
13:58tell
13:59her that he had been murdered later on um in the interview yes what was her reaction she was shocked
14:07like anyone would be if you found out that information sophie told the detective she'd seen rob
14:14hours before he died rob with his two friends had gone to um new york city to uh meet sophie
14:24and uh
14:25her daughter her eight-year-old daughter at a museum how open is sophie to you she was a very
14:30open person
14:31when i asked her why would rob canter be found in in the basement bedroom she broke down and she
14:39began
14:39to cry what was significant about the basement bedroom that was the place that um she and rob had
14:48consummated their relationship that was huge for us because we thought that it had to be something
14:56personal rob's friends couldn't see sophie as a killer and yet mayor dodd says the relationship
15:02always troubled him he thought rob wasn't being careful after all sophie was still married what did
15:09rob tell you about her husband tony yeah what did he learn about him he felt sorry for him in
15:15fact he
15:15told mayor dodd he actually met tony it was about a year before the murder there was a situation where
15:22tony tongue actually shows up at rob's house knocks at the door and rob a good person he is he
15:29let him
15:29in rob said the two discussed sophie it was all very civil that's when i got angry at him i
15:36said that's
15:36first of all you don't do this he said you would beat him up i said no i called the
15:41police and he said
15:42oh murdoch you you're too tough his life is falling apart his family his wife is leaving him and when
15:49i
15:50got mad at him you know i was like a father figure now i told him i bet you offered
15:55him a cup of coffee
15:55too murdoch as a matter of fact i did the men had things in common rob was a computer scientist
16:01tony
16:02had recently opened a computer store they were also foodies love to eat i'm sure my brother thought
16:09that eventually they become friends yeah because that's what happened with everyone in his life
16:16the new jersey investigators wanted to talk to tony tongue he agreed to meet at a precinct in manhattan
16:22where he lived the reason we're here is because there's been an incident that happened in new
16:28jersey okay okay at first they played it cool they didn't mention rob's murder but they did ask how
16:35tony and rob knew each other don't take this the wrong way well was your wife cheating on you with
16:41rob yeah tony admitted he'd been upset about the affair but said he came to terms with it
16:47he knew the marriage was over sophie had recently moved to a new apartment with their girls
16:52i tell you if my wife was seeing somebody else i know i wouldn't be too happy
16:58they asked where he'd been the night of march 6. tony said he'd been home alone in new york
17:03mostly doing the dishes and relaxing it was an alibi that couldn't be corroborated and the
17:13detectives were skeptical but it turned out tony would have a lot more to say about rob canter
17:18to us including about that strange day when he first showed up on rob's doorstep this sounds crazy
17:26no one will believe it
17:33no one will believe it
17:41tony tongue spoke to police for hours explaining where he was the night rob canter was murdered
17:47according to him he was at home he had dropped off his daughter and he got home at 9 p
17:54.m on march 6.
17:56you're saying basically you were home on the computer between the raiders of the lost ark
18:02and certainly even at facebook and different things okay
18:05also with your sister the only time he left his apartment again he said was around 1 a.m
18:11to buy some beer you don't go anywhere else other than at 1 a.m you go out and you
18:16pick up the six
18:17back at the store and then you go back home that's putting us in my room every day investigators believe
18:24tony was their man the only one with motive to kill rob they hoped he'd finally break down and admit
18:30it
18:31he didn't why let him go because at that time we didn't feel we had enough probable cause to
18:39to make an arrest and we needed to continue the investigation still when months passed with no
18:46arrest rob's friends became impatient outrage today in new jersey over a perceived lack of progress
18:52solving a murder case they keep telling us give him time or don't interfere we hired our own
18:57world-class private detective they said he's not doing a good job who is doing it everything we do
19:03they said don't do it we were so frustrated was it moving slowly as they claimed well i'm sure for
19:09them it was moving slowly um but you know every investigation is different in this one investigators
19:17were having a hard time finding evidence that tony had crossed the river from manhattan to new jersey
19:21that night you had no bridge video you had no taxi receipts you had no witnesses you had nothing
19:27actually physically placing tony tongue in t-neck you're right we didn't have him at the at the
19:33george washington bridge we didn't but cameras elsewhere did punch a hole in tony's story that he
19:39came home at 9 p.m and stayed put until 1 a.m what did that video show you we
19:44see him going to his
19:45residence we see him remaining in his residence for approximately 20 minutes exiting his residence
19:52at 10 30 with you know bags in his hands and we see him walking on the east 76th street
19:59entering his
20:00car which remained parked one of the things that you think you'll find in every case is that people
20:05make mistakes assistant prosecutor brian sinclair said when investigators searched tony's apartment
20:11they found evidence on his computer from the hours after rob was killed what mr tongue was doing less
20:18than three hours after the murder was obliterating data he was doing the digital equivalent of lighting
20:26it on fire tony ran a program destroying files that was suspicious so was this sophie told investigators
20:34that a year earlier he'd been spying on her there was spyware that was installed on sophie menu's laptop
20:41computer um by mr tongue and he was able to unlock every single email and found out that in fact
20:49she
20:50was having an affair records subpoenaed from google also showed anonymous emails sent from tony's computer
20:55to rob and his ex-wife susan he would say you know uh i saw you walking around the upper
21:02west side
21:03she's french no so i imagine that rob was getting these emails being quite troubled that somebody
21:11knew where he was at a particular time you know who he was with what is it that you finally
21:17say
21:17it's go time we're going to arrest tony tongue just the totality of the case you know we felt that
21:23this was going to be as much as we're ever going to get so in may 2012 14 months after
21:30rob's murder
21:31investigators knocked on tony's door i answered the door in my boxers my t-shirt when we spoke to tony
21:38he vividly recalled the day he was arrested they took me out of there got into my temples
21:44slide me against the wall what the heck and now you're accused of murder yeah i'm burning the house
21:52down he told us about that time he showed up unannounced on rob's doorstep it was a year before
21:58the murder soon after tony discovered the affair i introduced myself like robbie hi i'm tony yeah
22:05you're sleeping with my wife no you know i'm not that
22:12rude tony said he wasn't looking to menace rob or fight him he just wanted to understand i want to
22:19know
22:19who that person is what do you two talk about first with like small talk just family stuff
22:26this sounds crazy no one will believe it to his amazement he said he found himself starting to
22:32like the man who'd stolen sophie's heart you're talking about cooking as well yeah a little bit he
22:38told us i made a comment by his stove we had a lot in common we both like foods obviously
22:46we both love
22:47sophie's for several hours he said the conversation was mostly light then a little awkward okay very
22:55awkward tony asked to see the room where rob first made love to sophie why go to the room where
23:01i mean
23:01that's almost like torture this is where he had sex with your wife i'm confronting someone's having
23:07a fail with my wife might as well see the rest of it what did you gain by seeing that
23:12room i guess in
23:13way how he treat her i remember i was uh a little upset that it was a room in the
23:20basement yeah you
23:21took sophie down here what the hell's wrong with you you can't go to the hotel how angry are you
23:26when
23:27you leave i was like well i'd like to stop seeing my wife what'd he say he said i can't
23:36answer you right
23:37now and get this tony went back two more times and there are times like you know this is pointless
23:45and he's still letting you in no that time we were on the patio you're becoming a regular visitor at
23:52your your wife's lover's house who is more worried but i think his wife is still living there i mean
23:57this
23:57sounds all very cordial it is cordial he said that was the last time he saw rob by then he
24:04knew his
24:04marriage was over tony also said he did not kill him who killed rob canner then how i know how
24:12would
24:12i know i'm in new york for three years he waited in jail to tell that to a jury in
24:19the fall of 2015
24:20he would finally get his chance and to many it seemed luck would be on his side prosecutors did not
24:27have physical evidence against tony getting a conviction would be an uphill battle but first
24:33his ex-wife would have something to say about it he came back home with a brown paper bag
24:41and he opened the paper bag and showed me a gun
25:00in october 2015 tony tung stood trial for the murder of rob canter rob's family and friends filled the
25:08gallery he didn't look remorseful he looked arrogant come out right you know like we were wasting his
25:14time rob's sister was worried there was no murder weapon no fingerprints or dna linking tony to the crime
25:21were you concerned that this case might not be that easy to win for the prosecution yes
25:28we definitely were concerned because it was all circumstantial
25:32veteran prosecutor wayne mellow open for the state this case was about perhaps the oldest motive
25:40in the world in this case she and he done him wrong he said tony's rage simmered until the week
25:49of rob's
25:50death when it exploded sophie had just served him with divorce papers then the day of the murder she
25:57introduced rob to one of their daughters tony found out this would be the first time that a child of
26:05tongue
26:06had met mommy's friend
26:12prosecutors presented jurors with a timeline partially captured by security cameras earlier in the night
26:19tony tung could be seen talking with his daughter cleo in the lobby of sophie's apartment building
26:24cleo will tell her father oh yes i have a lovely day today mommy and i went to a museum
26:33i met her friend rob
26:38time is now
26:418 20 p.m tony told investigators he finally got home that night at around 9 p.m
26:48but the tape showed him arriving more than an hour after that mr tom is seen on video parking his
26:55car
26:55at 10 10 p.m we see him on that video walk from his car to his residence about 20
27:03minutes later cameras
27:04picked him up a third time you will see him walk to his car you will see him enter his
27:12car you will see
27:14him spend perhaps two minutes in his car you will see him walk to the corner not his corner he's
27:23not going
27:23back home but tony's car never moved again that night how do you think he got to new jersey oh
27:35he
27:35definitely got to new jersey by car and he definitely had help in some form what that particular theory form
27:43of help took is unknown but there are many ways for an individual to get to new jersey without having
27:52a record of that trip made the prosecutor argued that tony had time to make the 13 mile trip to
27:58teaneck
27:59and return to manhattan to start destroying the computer files just hours later as that body
28:07has been recovered from the embers of a horrible arson mr tongue just happens to be feverishly
28:16erasing 170 000 bits of information on his computer still he said a critical piece of evidence was found
28:27in tony's email account november of 2010 just months before the murder tony wrote to a friend in texas
28:33about getting a magazine for a 380 caliber handgun though the friend never sent the magazine the email
28:43was significant for the prosecutor mr tongue just happened to have an interest in the precise caliber
28:51weapon that was the killing weapon in our murder don't you find that remarkable the murder weapon was
29:01never recovered but the prosecutor said this video shows tony exiting his car that night with something
29:07in his right hand something was taken from that car that's something i suggest to you is the gun
29:15in one of the trial's most anticipated moments the state called the woman at the center of it all
29:21sophie please state your name for the record and spell your last name sophie manoe
29:26sophie told the court her marriage was already in trouble when she met rob in the fall of 2009 i
29:31was
29:31wearing a t-shirt that had paris marathon on it so rob was like oh you run and i was
29:38like yeah and
29:39he said oh i run too so we started talking about that as the weeks passed their friendship turned into
29:46something more i knew that you know he had feelings for me and i started to develop feelings for him
29:54as well
29:55on valentine's weekend 2010 she said the relationship became intimate at rob's house in teaneck
30:02he said that there was a bedroom in his basement it was a bedroom that the kids used when they
30:11were
30:11teenagers and uh so we went down in that bedroom and we made love days later she found out tony
30:22had
30:22hacked her private email account he knew everything did mr tongue question you about intimacy between you
30:31and rob and rob yes can you tell us about that part of the conversation he wanted to know where
30:42we had slept
30:44together and i told him we slept together in the basement bedroom tony was really upset
30:56that i had slept with an older man in a basement a few days after that she said tony announced
31:07he was buying a gun
31:08he came back home with a brown paper bag and he opened the paper bag and showed me a gun
31:18could you tell if
31:19it had a magazine no the prosecutor argued that roughly a year later tony shot and killed rob
31:29the body of robert canter was found in that basement bedroom on the remains of the bed where mr canter
31:38had sexual relations with mr tongue's wife sophie said she learned of rob's death the next day and there
31:46were voice messages on my voicemail and emails from uh from rob's friends and he told me that
31:58there had been a fire in rob's house
32:05that he was dead
32:08when she left the stand the two women in rob canter's life
32:12his ex-wife susan and lover sophie came together for the first time i think at the time susan felt
32:20compassion for her wasn't easy but she did certainly understand that rob had very strong feelings for
32:27her and that sophie had very strong feelings for him and so there were two women who had like strong
32:32feelings about someone just embracing each other that's really you know it's really nice it was nice
32:39in closing prosecutor wayne mellow said there was only one person who could have caused so much pain
32:45this murder could have happened no other way other than the murderer is seated before you
32:54now the defense was ready to present its side what rob's family didn't count on
32:59the wild turn this case would take that made me angry i questioned this crazy justice system
33:20day after day tony tongue watched the prosecution portray him as a cold-blooded killer
33:26it wasn't a pretty picture and according to tony it wasn't true there's a lot of bad things adding up
33:32here where he was killed you wiping your computer hours after the murder you going to visit him yeah but
33:42i didn't kill him did you have someone drive you over no to teaneck no defense attorney robert kalish
33:54asked jurors to use their common sense if tony wanted rob canter dead wouldn't he have killed him
33:59that day at rob's house roughly a year before the murder if he didn't kill him right there and then
34:07he wasn't gonna kill him at all because that was the time to do it with his bare hands he
34:14said
34:14investigators never seriously considered that someone else may have wanted rob canter dead
34:19they just let it slide let it slide because they got their man tony was the only suspect he argued
34:28tony was home alone the night of the murder as for the destruction of his computer files hours later
34:34that was an unfortunate coincidence he said it's just just a normal that he decided to to do it
34:42to do it at that time what time did he delete the material it's i believe it started at about
34:48two something in the morning and then went but it ran for like five hours so we're talking
34:55about two hours after the fire started yeah it looks bad oh sure that's that's why mr millow and
35:02the prosecutor's office have have a case equally bad for the defense tony asking his friend to buy
35:08him a magazine for the same caliber ammunition that killed rob tony didn't take the stand to rebut
35:14that or any of the prosecution's case but here's what he told us why do you need to ask a
35:19friend
35:20in texas for that it's like a conversation starter he's in texas a conversation starter i need a 380
35:25no this is something else like oh yeah by the way you and you from texas aren't these things a
35:29little
35:29cheaper over there it just looks bad that you're asking a friend i understand that for a 380 caliber
35:34magazine and a 380 is used to kill rob canter but i didn't kill rob canter did you show
35:41sophia gun yeah so i was holding for somebody besides the defense said tony's friend never
35:47followed through on the request and more important tony was never at rob's house the night he died how
35:53how can you prove
36:01that a man committed a murder in new jersey when you cannot even prove that he was in new jersey
36:14after a trial that lasted two months the jury deliberated for hours then days
36:21there's no gun there is no no pun intended smoking gun you can't find anything there's no trace of
36:27him being in new jersey we thought maybe they call it mistrial this that but he was extremely nervous
36:35on the fourth day the jurors came back has the jury agreed upon a verdict yes your honor is the
36:43verdict
36:43unanimous yes your honor your verdict is guilty
36:50it was an emotional moment for rob canter's widow and daughters take us inside that courtroom in that
36:56moment with all of you when that verdict is read it was a huge relief you know you got to
37:02pay for
37:03what you remember what you did you ruined uh life you took their father away and you took a nice
37:10person
37:11he didn't do anything wrong you hear the word guilty unbelievable on murder unbelievable
37:18the judge sentenced tony tongue to life after that rob's family tried to put tony in the murder trial
37:24behind them but then three years later a stunning reversal an appeals court found that parts of a
37:31detective's testimony could have unfairly prejudiced the jury against tony then you get the news that no
37:38family wants to hear that an appeals court has overturned the conviction that was horrific we knew he
37:47knew he was guilty as hell we knew he was to put us through this again to draw this all
37:53up to the
37:53surface to make it so raw all over again was just horrible that made me angry i questioned this crazy
38:02justice system him you find out he needs a second chance are you guys kidding me don't want to stand
38:08up
38:09and face it for today by the time tony stood trial again rob had been dead for 12 years his
38:16new attorney
38:16ian silveira said the state still couldn't prove tony was the killer there is not one ounce of evidence
38:23in this case that will support that claim that tony was in cheneck on that night as the state is
38:34claiming
38:35another problem for prosecutors pulling jurors even further into the past we have to bring them back in
38:41time to 2011 because you know in 2011 there weren't ring cameras on every house you know smartphones weren't
38:47as prevalent assistant prosecutors joseph torrey and david molfitano we wanted to lower their
38:53expectations on the type of evidence they were going to see if prosecutors in the first trial focused
38:59on technology here they seized on tony's alibi for the night in question if you're being questioned
39:05in the next day about a murder you know why would you lie about simple things like the dishes to
39:09the
39:09police officer when you actually sit down and look at the photographs of his house i defy anybody to
39:15say that he's doing the dishes he had piles and piles and piles of dirty dishes why would you lie
39:20about whether you left your apartment what time you left these are very simple things the jurors were
39:25listening to his lies in the statement and then they were seeing the objective evidence which we
39:30argued was uncontestable the forensic evidence video surveillance etcetera for weeks the two sides
39:36went back and forth this time around the jurors didn't need days only a few hours to decide
39:43as soon as soon as we heard that we knew guilty sentenced to life again
39:55in the years since her brother's death leslie said much has changed in the canter clan rob would
40:00have been a grandfather by now he would have been a great a grandfather amazing he would have loved it
40:08i always have that moment of sadness of what he's missing and that i hope he can see you know
40:15his how
40:16happy his children are with their lives and the and his grandchildren for mayor dodd time hasn't quite
40:23filled the hole left by his old running buddy the one he affectionately dubbed roberto but it has given
40:30him a deeper appreciation of the man and the price he paid for love i think roberto died
40:36so sophie could be free he really cared for this he cared for all the human beings but i don't
40:44know
40:44at that day she fell for this woman obviously there was something that clicked and i think he died so
40:50she could be free that's all for now i'm lester holt thanks for joining us
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