They called it the happiest place on the high desert, home to a tight knit group of 30 somethings who like to party.
It starts as a Playboy channel fantasy, but this is real life.
Where passion leads to murder and a killer seeks God's help with the coverup.
I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, an all new podcast from Dateline.
Listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy ad -free listening by subscribing to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Datelinepremium .com.
A true crime story never really ends.
Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning.
Since our Dateline story aired, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission.
I had no other option.
I had to do something.
Catch up with families, friends and investigators on our bonus series, After the Verdict.
Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage.
It does just change your life, but speaking up for these issues helps me keep going.
To listen to After the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or at Datelinepremium .com.
Hey, it's Josh Mankiewicz.
Before you listen to Andrea's episode, I wanted to let you know I have a brand new original podcast series out.
It's called Deadly Mirage, and it is the story of a couple living what seems to be a picture perfect life in a beautiful manmade desert oasis.
Well, actually it's the story of two couples.
Actually it's the story of two couples and another guy, kind of.
Anyway, that's where the trouble comes in.
And the trouble, it's also manmade.
And it involves murder.
So please follow it, Deadly Mirage.
You can get it wherever you get your podcasts.
And the first two episodes are out now for everyone.
To get early and add free access, subscribe to Dateline Premium.
I hope you'll listen.
Tonight on Dateline.
If the police were right, this was a diabolical murder plot carried out on your brother.
He did it that night.
And he was still out there, and who else would he hurt?
The back of the house is on fire.
Okay, get everybody out.
My sister -in -law told me that Rob had died in a fire.
Right away I knew there's something suspicious.
It was actually a murder.
He had been murdered.
Why would someone bring Rob Cantor down into a basement bedroom and then murder him execution style?
We focused on motive.
His relationship with Sophie, that was very important.
She was head over heels for Rob.
Yeah, he adored her.
I don't think anybody imagined that this is something we should be wary of.
Evidence of stalking, fake email accounts.
You could see the evil, you could just see it.
You were scared for yourself.
Absolutely. Obsession, anger, desire for vengeance.
It's really only pointing to one person.
Jealousy, betrayal, revenge.
Who had a motive to kill?
A new turn in this spellbinding mystery.
I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
Here's Andrea Canning with The Room Downstairs.
Love, at first it's all blue skies.
A lovely day that promises to never end.
He was crazy for her, I don't know.
I can't explain it, where the attraction came from.
But just as the weather changes, so too can love.
I never even dreamed of them getting divorced.
What happened? They just grew apart.
Leaving sadness in its wake, or worse, something darker.
Something that gains power as it churns.
And finally strikes the only way it can, with lethal force.
Forever those people, forever, their souls will be marred and torn by these events.
It wasn't a night to be out.
March 6, 2011. A raw and rainy Sunday in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Minutes from New York City.
Henry Rodzen's car had broken down.
What was happening that night?
I had a flat tire earlier than day, and I had to come back to fix it.
You know, it was raining, it was windy, it was just very miserable.
I started putting all my tools away.
For some reason I just happened to look up and I was like, I saw smoke going across the street.
From the corner house?
From going across from the corner house, going across to the right.
A former volunteer firefighter, Henry thought he should at least check it out.
As soon as I saw that there was a bright amber glow, I knew that was a definite fire.
So I decided to just quickly run back to my girlfriend, said, Listen, call 911, there's a house that's on fire.
On the street, instrument, and it's a back of the house, it's on fire.
Okay, get everybody out of the house.
You're a former volunteer firefighter.
Yes. Are you thinking, I've got to spring into action here.
In case someone needs to be rescued.
I started yelling, I started pounding on the door as hard as I could, just to see if there was any activity, see if anybody was home.
Anything? All the lights were off, everything was quiet.
When I went around to the side, the amount of smoke and the amount of flames, the basement was fully engulfed.
You have no gear? Nothing.
I also noticed that the neighbor had a spigot nearby.
I was pouring water on the windowsill, but that fire inside was rolling.
Once inside the house, firefighters looked to see where the fire began.
A blackened trail led them to the basement, into what looked like a bedroom, and there it was, unmistakable, a badly burned body.
Bergen County arson investigator, Sergeant Terry Lawler, said by the time he arrived, the body had been removed from the house.
The body had suffered severe burns, the front of the body, more so than the back, which wasn't as badly burned.
The victim was the owner of the house, 59 -year -old Rob Cantor.
He'd been a software engineer, a father, a husband, a runner.
Lawler thought it was strange that Rob died so close to where the fire started in that basement bedroom.
Usually, you see healthy middle -aged males, and they're trying to get away from the fire.
So maybe they're overcome by smoke.
It just had no reality to me at all.
When Rob's sister, Leslie Padron, got word her brother was dead, her first thought?
Heart attack. Then she heard the word fire and didn't know what to think.
I said, if something's not right, he couldn't have died in a fire.
Why didn't you think he could die in a fire?
People die in fires.
Well, he could have only if he had like a major heart attack or if something exploded in the basement.
And my brother was a triathlete.
There's no way I could imagine he would have died in a fire.
Finally, we made our way to Tinek, to the house, and it was horrible.
The story didn't make sense to Rob's friend, Merdad Sanay, either.
He couldn't see Rob rushing to the basement to put out a raging fire.
He was intelligent.
He was not stupid. He wouldn't risk his life, right?
Unless he committed suicide, he set himself on fire.
He was not... You could see some indication that this wasn't just somebody that was smoking in his bed in the bedlit fire.
After county prosecutor John Mullinelli examined the scene, he was all but certain the fire had been intentionally set.
What was your gut telling you as to what this could be?
What you're looking at?
The first thought was, whoever did this act lit the crime scene in an effort to frustrate law enforcement because DNA evidence is always important.
Which is why he asked the medical examiner to fast -track an autopsy.
Which is when this case got really complicated.
The post -mortem examination by the medical examiner found that he had a bullet in his head.
They found Rob Canner's body in his burned -out basement.
Only, it wasn't the fire that killed him.
And I think it was the next day the detectives came back and told us that he was shot.
Somebody killed him?
And you know, they don't give you a lot of information.
Like, we didn't know did someone break in.
Was anything tampered with?
It's very hard. It's awful because no one's allowed to say anything about anything.
It wasn't just a shooting, it was an execution.
Shot him from behind, execution style.
Diabolical? Yeah, despicable.
Despicable. Back at the scene of the fire, investigators found a casing for a .380 -caliber handgun in that basement bedroom where Rob died.
A comforter in the same room yielded another valuable piece of evidence.
The forensic scientist was able to determine that ethanol was on the comforter.
It appeared someone had shot Rob, then used an accelerant to start the fire.
Prosecutor John Mullinelli wondered if Rob's murder was connected to two others in the county that year, both involving house fires.
Are those two other murders the first thing that come to your mind when you see this crime scene?
There was certainly a discussion and deliberation on the topic.
Certainly within the first few weeks of the Cantor murder.
The community was kind of very taken aback and very concerned about this.
There was talk of a possible serial killer, arsonist.
Definitely. That would have been the case.
They didn't have much crime in the area at all.
Investigators were also looking into the possibility of a more personal motive for Rob's murder.
They wanted to know everything about him.
They took us in separately.
Rob's friend, Meredad.
He was wonderful. He was kind.
He was loving. He always saw the other point of view.
Meredad told police he and Rob met as software engineers in telecom.
They bonded over work and running.
Meredad nicknamed Rob Roberto.
Rob nicknamed him Meredoc.
Food was a shared obsession.
She says, Meredoc, why do we make sandwiches?
He was a kid at heart.
The bromance began.
He said Rob could be lighthearted.
Silly even. Like the time Rob skipped out of work early, leaving this teasing message for his friend.
Nice sense of humour.
It wasn't all laughs.
On their runs, Rob confided in Meredad about life.
Fatherhood. His 27 -year marriage to his wife, Susan.
They were splitting up.
Obviously, I mean, they tried very hard, both of them, to save the marriage.
They went through therapy and all that stuff.
But it's unfortunate, you know.
People go their own separate ways.
I never even dreamed of them getting divorced.
My brother was afraid to tell me, Susan.
His wife actually called to tell me.
What happened? They just grew apart.
No rancour, no bitterness.
That's what family and friends said.
But investigators wanted to judge for themselves.
It's Sergeant Love.
Homicide detective Cecilia Love.
What was going on in their lives at this time?
Susan and Rob. They still had a relationship because they had the two daughters together.
Susan told investigators the decision to separate was mutual.
For a time, they remained under the same roof.
Rob moved into the basement bedroom.
Eventually, Susan got her own place.
They were still hashing out the divorce when Rob died.
They had been discussing selling the house, you know, dividing up assets.
That can get tense, even for the best of relationships.
Absolutely. Did you need to take a close look at her?
In the beginning, you know, you always would think it could be his wife or his ex -wife.
Was it? Or was it someone else entirely?
He was crazy for her.
I don't know. I can't explain where the attraction came from.
We had no idea about the emails.
We had no reason to believe anything would happen.
I'm Keith Morrison from Dateline NBC.
If you're not already hooked on Peacock's dark comedy called Based on a True Story, now's the perfect time to dive in.
A new season is out now, and it's an unbelievable, unpredictable ride.
Based on a True Story stars Kaylee Cuoco and Chris Messina, his new parents, Eva and Nathan, who are eager to be done with the world of true crime and their friendly neighborhood serial killer.
But when new bodies start turning up, it seems the world of true crime isn't done with them.
Based on a True Story is streaming now only on Peacock.
They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart.
But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.
When TV producer Roy Raden was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death.
The last person seen with him was Laini Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite.
Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.
But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.
From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show, Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.
Follow Hollywood and Crime, the Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery App, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can binge all episodes of the Cotton Club Murder early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
Again, listen to Mommy Doomsday and a dozen other riveting series when you follow the Dateline Originals podcast.
Investigators were approaching Rob Cantor's murder from two angles.
Was it personal or wasn't an arsonist at work?
They searched for a link between his and two similar homicides in Bergen County They couldn't find one.
I know our detectives took weeks and months checking everything.
And we just didn't see anything that would bring us to try and tie the three of them together.
Meanwhile, Detective Cecilia Love intensified her focus on Rob's world.
We interviewed the friends and family members.
Lots of people to talk to.
Yes. At the top of the list, Rob's soon to be ex -Susan.
We did bring her in and speak to her.
Who wanted this divorce, Rob or Susan?
I think they both wanted it.
It was a mutual decision.
She said Susan seemed devastated by Rob's death.
Even so, Love wanted to hear an alibi.
Susan explained she'd been alone in her new home on the phone with a friend.
Nothing really led us to believe that she had any involvement in this.
So, if not Susan, who?
Rob's friends told investigators they needed to speak to another woman right away.
Her name was Sophie Manoux.
Rob and Sophie were involved in this relationship.
So, a day after Rob's murder, the detective called Sophie, who described how she and Rob met more than a year earlier at a science lecture.
The French -born Sophie was 40, 19 years younger than Rob.
She lived just across the river in Manhattan.
They shared interests, running, philosophy and science.
But there was one problem.
Sophie was married and raising three daughters, roughly ages four to nine, with her husband, Tony Tong.
Sophie was living a bit of a secret life.
Initially, yes, but it wasn't too long before it all came out.
She thought the woman's grief was genuine.
She was crying. She knew that he was deceased.
Did you tell her that he had been murdered?
Later on in the interview, yes.
What was her reaction?
She was shocked, like anyone would be if you found out that information.
Sophie told the detective she'd seen Rob hours before he died.
Rob, with his two friends, had gone to New York City to meet Sophie and her daughter, her eight -year -old daughter, at a museum.
How open is Sophie to you?
She was a very open person.
When I asked her why would Rob Cantor be found in the basement bedroom, she broke down and she began to cry.
What was significant about the basement bedroom?
That was the place that she and Rob had consummated their relationship.
That was huge for us because we thought that it had to be something personal.
Rob's friends couldn't see Sophie as a killer, and yet Merdade says the relationship always troubled him.
He thought Rob wasn't being careful.
After all, Sophie was still married.
What did Rob tell you about her husband, Tony?
What did he learn about him?
He felt sorry for him.
In fact, he told Merdade he actually met Tony.
It was about a year before the murder.
There was a situation where Tony, tongue actually shows up at Rob's house.
Knocks at the door, and Rob, a good person, he let him in.
Rob said the two discussed Sophie.
It was all very civil.
That's when I got angry at him.
I said, first of all, you don't do this.
I said, you would beat him up?
I said no. I called the police.
And he said, oh, Merdade, you're too tough.
His life is falling apart, his wife is leaving him.
And when I got mad at him, you know, I was like a father figure.
I told him, I bet you offered him a cup of coffee too.
Merdade, as a matter of fact, I did.
The men had things in common.
Rob was a computer scientist.
Tony had recently opened a computer store.
They were also foodies.
Loved to eat. I'm sure my brother thought that eventually they'd become friends.
Yeah, because that's what happened with everyone in his life.
The New Jersey investigators wanted to talk to Tony Tong.
He agreed to meet at a precinct in Manhattan where he lived.
The reason we're here is because there's been an incident that happened in New Jersey, OK?
At first, they played it cool.
They didn't mention Rob's murder.
But they did ask how Tony and Rob knew each other.
Don't take this the wrong way.
Was your wife cheating on you with Rob?
Yeah. Tony admitted he'd been upset about the affair, but said he came to terms with it.
He knew the marriage was over.
Sophie had recently moved to a new apartment with their girls.
I'll tell you, if my wife was seeing somebody else, I know I wouldn't be too happy.
I don't know what my pain is, Tonya.
They asked where he'd been the night of March 6.
Tony said he'd been home alone in New York, mostly doing the dishes and relaxing.
I was doing dishes for a couple hours, but I was watching you guys come forth.
It was an alibi that couldn't be corroborated.
And the detectives were skeptical.
But it turned out Tony would have a lot more to say about Rob Cantor.
To us. Including about that strange day when he first showed up on Rob's doorstep.
This sounds crazy. No one would believe it.
Tony Tong spoke to police for hours, explaining where he was the night Rob Cantor was murdered.
According to him, he was at home.
He had dropped off his daughter, and he got home at 9 p .m.
on March 6. You're saying basically you were home on the computer, between the Raiders of the Lost Ark and certainly on Facebook and different things, OK?
I was doing this just right.
The only time he left his apartment again, he said, was around 1 a .m.
to buy some beer. Investigators believed Tony was their man, the only one with motive to kill Rob.
They hoped he'd finally break down and admit it.
He didn't. Why let him go?
Because at that time, we didn't feel we had enough probable cause to make an arrest.
And we needed to continue the investigation.
Still, when months passed with no arrest, Rob's friends became impatient.
Outrage today in New Jersey over a perceived lack of progress solving a murder case.
They keep telling us, give him time or don't interfere.
We hired our own world class private detective.
They said, he's not doing a good job.
Who is doing it? Everything we do.
They said, don't do it.
We were so frustrated.
Was it moving slowly as they claimed?
Well, I'm sure for them, it was moving slowly, but, you know, every investigation is different.
In this one, investigators were having a hard time finding evidence that Tony had crossed the river from Manhattan to New Jersey that night.
You had no bridge video, you had no taxi receipts, you had no witnesses, you had nothing actually physically placing Tony Tong in T -neck.
You're right. We didn't have him at the George Washington Bridge.
We didn't. But cameras elsewhere did punch a hole in Tony's story that he came home at 9 p .m.
and stayed put until 1 a .m.
What did that video show you?
We see him going to his residence.
We see him remaining in his residence for approximately 20 minutes, exiting his residence at 10 30 with bags in his hand.
And we see him walking on East 76th Street, entering his car, which remained parked.
One of the things that you think you'll find in every case is that people make mistakes.
Assistant prosecutor Brian Sinclair said when investigators searched Tony's apartment, they found evidence on his computer from the hours after Rob was killed.
What Mr. Tong was doing, less than three hours after the murder, was obliterating data.
He was doing the digital equivalent of lighting it on fire.
Tony ran a program destroying files.
That was suspicious.
So was this. Sophie told investigators that a year earlier, he'd been spying on her.
There was spyware that was installed on Sophie Manou's laptop computer by Mr.
Tong. And he was able to unlock every single email and found out that in fact she was having an affair.
Records subpoenaed from Google also showed anonymous emails sent from Tony's computer to Rob and his ex -wife Susan.
He would say, you know, I saw you walking around the Upper West Side.
She's French, no? So I imagine that Rob was getting these emails being quite troubled that somebody knew where he was at a particular time, you know, who he was with.
What is it that you finally say it's go time?
We're going to arrest Tony Tong?
Just the totality of the case.
You know, we felt that this was going to be as much as we're ever going to get.
So in May 2012, 14 months after Rob's murder, investigators knocked on Tony's door.
I answered the door in my boxes and my T -shirt.
When we spoke to Tony, he vividly recalled the day he was arrested.
The tech yanked me out of there, got into my temples, slammed me against the wall.
What the heck? And now you're accused of murder?
I'm burning a house now.
He told us about that time he showed up unannounced on Rob's doorstep.
It was a year before the murder, soon after Tony discovered the affair.
I introduced myself, like, Robbie.
Hi, I'm Tony? Yeah.
You're sleeping with my wife?
No, you say that. You know, I'm not that rude.
Tony said he wasn't looking to menace Rob or fight him.
He just wanted to understand.
I want to know who that person is.
What do you two talk about?
First, it was like small talk, just family stuff.
This sounds crazy. No one would believe it.
To his amazement, he said he found himself starting to like the man who'd stolen Sophie's heart.
You're talking about cooking as well?
Yeah, a little bit.
He told me about his, I made a comment about his stove.
We had a lot of things in common.
We both like foods.
Obviously, we both love Sophie's.
For several hours, he said the conversation was mostly light.
Then, a little awkward.
Okay, very awkward.
Tony asked to see the room where Rob first made love to Sophie.
Why go to the room where – I mean, that's almost like torture.
This is where he had sex with your wife.
I'm confronting someone's having a affair with my wife.
Might as well see the rest of it.
I don't have any detail.
What can you be by seeing that room?
I guess in a way how he'd treat her.
I remember I was, well, upset.
That it was a room in the basement?
Yeah. He took Sophie down here.
What the hell's wrong with you?
You can't go to a hotel.
Before I left, he said, what do you want?
I was like, well, I'd like to see you stop seeing my wife.
What'd he say? He said, I can't answer you right now.
And get this, Tony went back two more times.
And those times, like, you know, this is pointless.
And he's still letting you in?
The other time we were on the patio.
You're becoming a regular visitor at your wife's lover's house?
Well, he is more worried because I think his wife is still living there.
I mean, this sounds all very cordial.
It is cordial. He said that was the last time he saw Rob.
By then, he knew his marriage was over.
Tony also said he did not kill him.
Who killed Rob Kanner then?
How would I know? How would I know?
I'm in New York. For three years, he waited in jail to tell that to a jury.
In the fall of 2015, he would finally get his chance.
And to many, it seemed luck would be on his side.
Prosecutors did not have physical evidence against Tony.
Getting a conviction would be an uphill battle.
But first, his ex -wife would have something to say about it.
He came back home with a brown paper bag.
And he opened the paper bag and showed me a gun.
In October 2015, Tony Tong stood trial for the murder of Rob Kanner.
Rob's family and friends filled the gallery.
He didn't look remorsefully, look arrogant, come out, you know.
Like, we were wasting his time.
Rob's sister was worried.
There was no murder weapon, no fingerprints or DNA linking Tony to the crime.
Were you concerned that this case might not be that easy to win for the prosecution?
Yes, we definitely were concerned, because it was all circumstantial.
Veteran prosecutor Wayne Mellow opened for the state.
This case was about perhaps the oldest motive in the world.
In this case, she and he done him wrong.
He said Tony's rage simmered until the week of Rob's death, when it exploded.
Sophie had just served him with divorce papers.
Then, the day of the murder, she introduced Rob to one of their daughters.
Tony found out. This would be the first time that a child of Tong had met Mami's friend, Rob.
Prosecutors presented jurors with a timeline partially captured by security cameras.
Earlier in the night, Tony Tong could be seen talking with his daughter, Cleo, in the lobby of Sophie's apartment building.
Cleo will tell her father, oh yes, I have a lovely day today.
Mami and I went to a museum.
I met her friend Rob.
Time is now 8 .20 p .m.
Tony told investigators he finally got home that night at around 9 p .m.
But the tape showed him arriving more than an hour after that.
Mr. Tong is seen on video parking his car at 10 .10 p .m.
We see him on that video, walk from his car to his residence.
About 20 minutes later, cameras picked him up a third time.
You will see him walk to his car.
You will see him enter his car.
You will see him spend perhaps two minutes in his car.
You will see him walk to the corner.
Not his corner. He's not going back home.
He's going to. But Tony's car never moved again that night.
How do you think he got to New Jersey?
Oh, he definitely got to New Jersey by car.
And he definitely had help in some form.
What's your theory?
That particular form of help took is unknown.
But there are many ways for an individual to get to New Jersey without having a record of that trip made.
The prosecutor argued that Tony had time to make the 13 mile trip to Tienek and returned to Manhattan to start destroying the computer files.
Just hours later, as that body has been recovered from the embers of a horrible arson, Mr.
Tong just happens to be feverishly erasing 170 ,000 bits of information on his computer.
Still, he said a critical piece of evidence was found in Tony's email account.
November of 2010, just months before the murder, Tony wrote to a friend in Texas about getting a magazine for a .380 caliber handgun.
We stayed in the meeting for the records while you left.
Though the friend never sent the magazine, the email was significant for the prosecutor.
Mr. Tong just happened to have an interest in the precise caliber weapon that was the killing weapon in our murder.
Don't you find that remarkable?
The murder weapon was never recovered.
But the prosecutor said this video shows Tony exiting his car that night with something in his right hand.
Something was taken from that car.
That's something I suggest to you, is the gun.
In one of the trial's most anticipated moments, the state called the woman at the center of it all, Sophie.
Please state your name for the record and spell your last name.
Sophie Meineu. Sophie told the court her marriage was already in trouble when she met Rob in the fall of 2009.
I was wearing a t -shirt that had Paris Marathon on it so Rob was like, oh, you run?
And I was like, yeah.
And he said, oh, I run too.
So we started talking about that.
As the weeks passed, their friendship turned into something more.
I knew that, you know, he had feelings for me and I started to develop feelings for him as well.
On Valentine's weekend, 2010, she said the relationship became intimate at Rob's house in Teanak.
He said that there was a bedroom in his basement.
It was a bedroom that the kids used when they were teenagers.
And so we went down in that bedroom and we made love.
Days later, she found out Tony had hacked her private email account.
He knew everything.
Did Mr. Tong question you about intimacy between you and Rob?
Yes. Can you tell us about that part of the conversation?
He wanted to know where we had slept together.
And I told him we slept together in the basement bedroom.
Tony was really upset that I had slept with an older man in a basement.
A few days after that, she said, Tony announced he was buying a gun.
He came back home with a brown paper bag.
And he opened the paper bag and showed me a gun.
Could you tell if it had a magazine?
No. The prosecutor argued that roughly a year later, Tony shot and killed Rob.
The body of Robert Cantor was found in that basement bedroom, on the remains of the bed, where Mr.
Cantor had sexual relations with Mr.
Tong's wife. Sophie said she learned of Rob's death the next day.
And there were voice messages on my voicemail and emails from Rob's friends.
And he told me that there had been a fire in Rob's house that he was dead.
When she left the stand, the two women in Rob Cantor's life, his ex -wife Susan and lover Sophie, came together for the first time.
I think at the time Susan felt compassion for her wasn't easy, but she did certainly understand that Rob had very strong feelings for her and that Sophie had very strong feelings for him.
And so there were two women who had strong feelings about someone just embracing each other.
That's really nice.
It was nice. In closing, prosecutor Wayne Mello said there was only one person who could have caused so much pain.
This murder could have happened no other way, other than the murderer is seated before you.
Now the defense was ready to present its side.
What Rob's family didn't count on, the wild turn this case would take.
That made me angry.
I questioned this crazy justice system.
Day after day, Tony Tung watched the prosecution portray him as a cold -blooded killer.
It wasn't a pretty picture, and according to Tony, it wasn't true.
There's a lot of bad things adding up here.
Where he was killed, you wiping your computer hours after the murder, you going to visit him.
Yeah, but I didn't kill him.
Did you have someone drive you over to T -neck?
No. Defense attorney Robert Kalish asked jurors to use their common sense.
If Tony wanted Rob Cantor dead, wouldn't he have killed him that day at Rob's house roughly a year before the murder?
If he didn't kill him, right there and then, he wasn't going to kill him at all, because that was the time to do it with his bare hands.
He said investigators never seriously considered that someone else may have wanted Rob Cantor dead.
They just let it slide.
Let it slide because they got their man.
Tony was the only suspect.
He argued Tony was home alone the night of the murder.
As for the destruction of his computer files hours later, that was an unfortunate coincidence, he said.
It was just normal that he decided to do it at that time.
What time did he delete the material?
I believe it started at about two something in the morning, but it ran for like five hours.
So we're talking about two hours after the fire started?
Yeah. It looks bad.
Oh sure. That's why Mr.
Millow and the prosecutor's office have a case.
Equally bad for the defense, Tony asking his friend to buy him a magazine for the same caliber ammunition that killed Rob.
Tony didn't take the stand to rebut that or any of the prosecution's case, but here's what he told us.
Why do you need to ask a friend in Texas for that?
It's like a conversation starter.
He's in Texas. A conversation starter?
I need a 380? No. This is something else.
Oh yeah, by the way, you and you from Texas, aren't these things a little cheaper over there?
It just looks bad that you're asking a friend.
I understand that. That's for a 380 caliber magazine and a 380 is used to kill Rob Canner.
I didn't kill Rob Canner.
Did you show Sophie a gun?
Yeah, I was holding for somebody.
Besides, the defense said, Tony's friend never followed through on the request.
And more important, Tony was never at Rob's house the night he died.
How can you prove that a man committed a murder in New Jersey when you cannot even prove that he was in New Jersey?
After a trial that lasted two months, the jury deliberated for hours, then days.
There is no gun. There is no pun intended smoking gun.
You can't find anything.
There is no trace of him being in New Jersey.
We thought maybe they call it mistrial, this, that.
But yeah, we're extremely nervous.
On the fourth day, the jurors came back.
Has the jury agreed upon a verdict?
Yes, your honor. Is the verdict unanimous?
Yes, your honor. Your verdict is?
Guilty. Shh. It was an emotional moment for Rob Canter's widow and daughters.
Take us inside that courtroom in that moment with all of you when that verdict is read.
It was a huge relief.
You know, you've got to pay for what you did.
You ruined life. You took their father away.
You took a nice person.
He didn't do anything wrong.
You hear the word guilty.
Unbelievable. Unmurder.
Unbelievable. The judge sentenced Tony Tong to life.
After that, Rob's family tried to put Tony in the murder trial behind them.
But then, three years later, a stunning reversal.
An appeals court found that parts of a detective's testimony could have unfairly prejudiced the jury against Tony.
Then you get the news that no family wants to hear that an appeals court has overturned the conviction.
That was horrific. We knew he knew he was guilty as hell.
We knew he was to put us through this again, to draw this all up to the surface, to make it so raw all over again.
It was just horrible.
That made me angry.
I questioned this crazy justice system.
Can you find out he needs a second chance?
Are you guys kidding me?
Tony, why don't you stand up and face your vacancy?
By the time Tony stood trial again, Rob had been dead for 12 years.
His new attorney, Ian Silvera, said the state still couldn't prove Tony was the killer.
There is not one ounce of evidence in this case that will support that claim.
That Tony was in china on that night as the state is claiming.
Another problem for prosecutors?
Pulling jurors even further into the past.
We have to bring them back in time to 2011, because in 2011 there weren't ring cameras on every house, smart phones weren't as prevalent.
Assistant prosecutors Joseph Torrey and David Malphitano.
We wanted to lower their expectations on the type of evidence they were going to see.
If prosecutors in the first trial focused on technology, here they seized on Tony's alibi for the night in question.
If you're being questioned the next day about a murder, why would you lie about simple things like the dishes?
When you actually sit down and look at the photographs of his house, I defy anybody to say that he's doing the dishes.
He had piles and piles and piles of dirty dishes.
Why would you lie about whether you left your apartment, what time you left, these are very simple things.
The jurors were listening to his lies in the statement and then they were seeing the objective evidence, which we argued was uncontestable.
The forensic evidence, video surveillance, etc.
For weeks the two sides went back and forth.
This time around though, jurors didn't need days, only a few hours to decide.
As soon as we heard that, we knew.
Guilty. Sentenced to life, again.
In the years since her brother's death, Leslie said much has changed in the Cantor clan.
Rob would have been a grandfather by now.
He would have been a great grandfather.
Amazing. He would have loved it.
I always have that moment of sadness of what he's missing.
And that I hope he can see how happy his children are with their lives and his grandchildren.
For Meredad, time hasn't quite filled the hole left by his old running buddy, the one he affectionately dubbed Roberto.
But it has given him a deeper appreciation of the man and the price he paid for love.
I think Roberto died so he could be free.
He really cared for this.
He cared for all the human beings, but I don't know how that is.
He fell for this woman.
Obviously there was something that clicked and I think he died so she could be free.
That's all for now.
I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.
Dateline Friday at 9 -8c.
Only on NBC.
