Transcript of Arson and alleged fratricide in New Jersey. New 911 calls in Microsoft employee murder. And sentencing murderers.

Hey, how are you guys? It's time for the Dateland morning meeting. I'm covering another sentencing today. There you are on the scene. Our producers are swapping tips and story ideas. Let's keep track of it.

They're finding traces of blood in his car. They're finding a knife. They're finding a receipt for that gorilla mask.

Welcome to Dateland True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's September 18th, and here's what's on our docket. Three years after a Microsoft employee was gunned down in an alleged murder for hire plot, Florida prosecutors released interview tapes and 911 calls never heard by the public before. He has a little kid in the car. She was crying. In Dateline Roundup, I'll take you inside the courtroom for the sentencing in the Crystal Rogers murder trial, dubbed Kentucky's Trial of the Decade, and the latest on the jailhouse attack of a Massachusetts man accused of murdering his wife.

On Thursday night, Brian Walsh was stabbed in jail.

Plus, sentencing a murder might be more difficult than you think. Nbc news legal analyst and defense attorney Danny Savalos explains why. But before all that, we're heading to New Jersey, where a man has been behind bars for nearly seven years awaiting trial for the murder of his brother and his brother's entire family. November 2018, just a couple of days before Thanksgiving, firefighters responded to a house fire in the affluent community community of Colts Neck, New Jersey. They found a million-dollar mansion engulfed in flames, and the body of 50-year-old Keith Canero shot dead on the front lawn. Inside, his wife and two young children were also found murdered in what appeared to be a targeted attack. And the tragedy didn't end there. Earlier that morning, a fire had broken out at Keith's Brother's house in nearby Ocean Township. Paul Canero and his loved one survived, but investigators couldn't ignore the question, were the two incidents linked? They had a surprising answer. The next day, Paul, the surviving brother, was arrested and accused of setting his own house on fire. Then, days later, a local prosecutor announced additional charges against Paul for the murder of his brother and his brother's family.

We allege that after murdering the Canaro family, the defendant then set fire to the house in an effort to conceal and disguise his earlier committed crimes. That was nearly seven years ago, and Paul Canaro still Still has not faced trial for the alleged quadruple homicide. He pleaded not guilty and was expected to face a jury earlier this month, but an unexpected move by the New Jersey Supreme Court stopped the trial in its tracks. Late last week, Paul's defense team said enough was enough. They went before a judge and demanded his release. Here to tell us why prosecutors believe Paul allegedly turned on his brother and why the case has taken so long to head to trial is senior reporter for nj. Com, Sean Sullivan. Sean, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Okay, so, Sean, to start, what do we know about these two brothers and their relationship?

Yes, so Paul was the older brother by about a year. These were not just brothers, they were business partners who had been in what was essentially a family business for a long time. Keith had founded a tech company and then had also spun off a side business that involved pest control.

And by all accounts, these two brothers had once been close. Keith was the best man at Paul's Wedding.

Yeah, they lived about 13 miles apart. And from outward appearances, there wasn't really anything amiss. These guys were living the American dream.

Yeah. Sean, I've been to Colts Neck in New Jersey, a lot of beautiful homes A lot of beautiful homes, a lot of horse farms. Bruce Springsteen house. Yeah. Well, it's nice when Bruce Springsteen lives there. Keith owned this mansion. He seemed to have the picture of perfect life, right? Yeah, though.

It seemed like he was under an enormous amount of stress based on the stuff that's come out pre-trial.

Yeah. Paul, as far as he goes, was he living as large as Keith?

Not outwardly. I mean, Paul lived in nearby Ocean Township, and his house was by no means modest, but it wasn't a mansion. But he did own three Porsias. It's a lot. According to prosecutors, he had allegedly a mistress for whom he was also making car payments on, I think, an Audi. This was a guy who had expensive tastes and may have been dipping into the company till in order to keep up with that.

So, Sean, take us to the day of the fires.

So on the night in question, we're talking middle of the night, he sends a couple of text messages to his brother and says, There's an issue, the power's out, and Keith goes outside to check on it. And what we know now is that the next morning, a neighbor sees smoke coming from the house, wanders over and finds Keith dead outside.

There's a person laying down. Where are they laying down? On this property. Oh, my God, there's blood here.

According to prosecutors, what Paul had done that evening was he had gotten into one of those Porschas, and he drove the 13 miles from his house over to Coltsnack and cut the power. Then when Keith came out to inspect it, shot him dead before it even went into the house.

According to prosecutors, that's when Paul murdered Keith's wife and children, too, and set the house on fire. After that, they allege he headed back to his own house and set that on fire, too, with his wife and children inside. They got out unharmed. What do we know, Sean, about his alleged motive?

Prosecutors laid two tracks on this here The first is a fairly straightforward cover-up story where Paul had gotten caught by his brother taking money from the company till. Specifically, he was in charge of making payments to a trust fund that was related to Keith's life insurance policy, and he was allegedly diverting those payments. The cover-up motive is just that he got caught and he panicked. The added layer here is this life insurance policy, which Paul was a beneficiary of, but Keith's children and wife were primary beneficiaries. If they all went away, that solved his cover-up problem. It also gave him a financial windfall. Basically, the prosecutor's version of events is that he eliminated everybody who was in his way of an insurance payout.

So seven years ago that all this took place, why has it taken so long for Paul Canero to go to trial?

It starts with COVID. The fact that the pandemic made criminal trials impossible for a number of years. On top of that, New Jersey had a judicial shortage for a number of years, still has a judicial shortage. There's literally not enough judges on the bench, and that has caused delays. Then it's just the evidence in this trial. There's the issue of involving security camera at Paul's house and how that was obtained by police. The judge ruled that that security footage was not going to be admissible. Prosecutors appealed, and actually the Supreme Court took that up. That's now why we see another delay in this case.

Yeah. This is, as of now, is delayed until the new year. Paul's defense team demanded a hearing saying that it's unacceptable that Paul should remain behind bars since he's been in custody for nearly seven years. Let's take a listen to what his attorney had to say during this hearing. It is simply not just to hold someone in jail seven years without having the opportunity to have their case tried. The judge's decision, not so good for Paul Canero about remaining behind bars.

Yeah, the judge ruled that he still presented too much of a risk to the public, and so he is going to remain locked up indefinitely until he gets that trial.

Okay, we'll see if it happens in 2026 as expected, and we will certainly be keeping an eye on if there's any more delays in this. Thank you, Sean, so much for breaking this down for us. We appreciate it.

Thank you for having me anytime.

Coming up, prosecutors release never before seen audio and video in an alleged murder for hire plot of a Microsoft employee and father of four. For our next story, we're heading to a quiet stretch of road in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. In February of 2022, Microsoft employee 33-year-old Jared Bridigan was driving his daughter home when he noticed a tire in the road. When he got out to move it, a gunman ambushed him. Bullets flew into the SUV where his two-year-old was buckled into her car seat. She survived, but Bridigan was declared dead at the scene. Detectives say they uncovered a murder for higher plot, allegedly orchestrated by Bridigan's ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, and her new husband. Their alleged motive, an ongoing court battle over Gardner and Bridigan's children. After their arrest, both Gardner and her husband, Mario Fernandez-Saldana pleaded not guilty. Last week, prosecutors some never before seen video and audio from the investigator's case file, including 911 calls from the crime scene. You might want to get somebody out here because I was 100% gunshot. And a bombshell interview with a friend of Breitigan's ex-wife. He said, I'm In the military, I've killed people before. Here to give us the latest on the case and this new evidence is Dateline producer Mike Nardi, who has been covering this since the beginning.

Welcome back, Mike.

Thanks, Andrea.

Mike, remind us who Jared Bright again was and what happened to him?

Jared was a Microsoft employee and a father of four. He shared twins, a boy and a girl, with his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, after a bitter divorce. Jared later remarried and had two more children with his new wife. As I said, they had joint custody of the twins with his ex-wife. And part of the agreement was that on the weeks he didn't have the kids, Jared got to take them out for dinner one night. And so in February of 2022, Jared had that dinner with the twins and then dropped them off at Shanna's house, and he was on his way home with his two-year-old in the back seat when the gunman struck.

Mike, a year later, police arrested a man named Henry Tenon, who admitted that he was, in fact, the gunman. But Tenon was a total stranger to Brightigan. How did the authorities connect him to the case?

They learned Tenon, who was a longtime felon, was actually a former tenant of Mario Fernandez Saldana, who is the new husband of Shanna Gardner, Brightigan's ex-wife. The The biggest clue, the way they were able to find Tenon was video of a Ford truck in the neighborhood, and authorities were able to trace that back to Tenon. Tenon told prosecutors he was hired by Fernandez to carry out the hit. In March 2023, investigators arrested Fernandez and charged him with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and child abuse. Because remember, Bridigan's young daughter was in the car with him when he was killed.

They arrested Bridigan's ex-wife, Shanna, not too long after that.

That's right. What What we know about Shanna is she was from a respectable Norman family with a lot of money. She's been described as a trust fund baby. Even though Shanna and Jared had a custody arrangement settled, they were constantly going back and forth in court over finances, over the kids' futures, and what they should or should not be doing. So prosecutors believe that Shanna wanted Jared killed so she could get full custody of the kids, plus she could also protect the trust fund.

Here We are now, 2025, and the State Attorney's office has released a trove of material. Mike, you don't always see this, where State's attorneys release information before trial. Why do you think they did that?

There's been so much media attention and interest in this case that they had made a decision to start to release documents, release evidence. There's just so much of it that they can't do it all at once. They've been slowly, over the last several months, last year, releasing bits and pieces of the case. That's where this latest dump came from.

As we mentioned, some of that material was a chilling selection of 911 calls from the night of the murder.

That's right. What's interesting about these calls is they paint a picture of what happened in the moments after Jared was killed. Jacksonville Beach, 911.

I'm pretty sure I just heard three or four gunshots, and now there's a bunch of cars that are back there.

There appears to be, it seems like a lot of confusion from the people who are calling in. 911.

Hey, I'm calling.

There's a guy in the middle of the road on America Avenue. What's he doing?

He's just laying there. I'm not sure. He's having a heart attack or something. He has a little kid in the car. My husband right now is holding her. She was crying. Is he conscious? He's unconscious.

So the dispatchers had to figure out what was going on. Was it a car accident, a medical emergency, or something much worse?

Yeah. What makes this... The murder is sad enough, but then when you think about such a small child in the car while all of this is happening, it's heartbreaking. Oh, absolutely. So the next piece of audio in the materials released by the prosecutor was an interview they conducted with one of Shanna's former friends, a woman named Elizabeth Smith. She approached investigators after the murder and said she had information.

That's right. She told investigators that she and Shanna had met in 2016. They had actually worked together as teachers, and they became very close friends. Smith said Garner was constantly complaining to her about Jared and about her court fights with him. She told her things had been getting really heated. They'd been going to court. And from what Smith said, Garner really seemed fed up.

And she told you something along the lines of, Mario has a military background. He said he could get four people and break into his house in the middle of the night and, take care of him and no one would ever know. Is that right? Yes. Shanna said, Mario said that in reference to Jared. Yes. And when she told you this, you found that very odd. Yes. What was her demeanor when she was telling you this? Very casual. There was nothing concerning from her. I mean, she laughed it off. This friend also discussed an exchange she had with Mario Fernandez at a dinner party?

Yeah, that's right. She said he did something that made her very uncomfortable.

You said at some point, you looked at you and you caught a stare down? Yes. What did he say? He said, I'm in the military. I've killed people before. Just a reminder, Shanna Gardner and Fernandez have said that they are innocent and have pleaded not guilty. Have there been any comments, Mike, from the defendants now that these tapes have been released?

Not that we've seen, no.

They are heading to court later this week for a preliminary hearing, and we'll be following this case as things move along. Thanks so much for the updates, Mike.

Thanks for having me, Andrea.

Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. A Massachusetts man accused of murder is attacked behind bars, and convicted killer and self-proclaimed doomsday prophet Chad Daybell is speaking out from Death Row. Plus, NBC news legal analyst Danny Savalos on why sentencing murderers isn't always straightforward. Welcome back. Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline associate producer, Alex Leray. Alex, welcome back to the podcast.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Alex, for our first story, we're heading back to the scene of Karen Reid's murder trial, Norfolk Superior Court in Massachusetts, where next month, another trial we've been following is expected to begin in that same courthouse. In this case, Brian Walsh is accused of killing his wife, Anna. He has pleaded not guilty. Alex, remind us what we know about this case so far.

Sure. Anna Walsh was a 39-year-old mother of three, and she was last seen New Year's Day, January 2023. Her husband, Brian, and colleagues reported her missing. Police said Brian, who was actually already under house arrest for selling counterfeit Andy Warhol paintings, was initially cooperative, but they did a search of the home and found blood in the basement. Police later discovered some Google searches about body decomposition on their six-year-old son's iPad. On his body has never been found. Ultimately, Brian was charged with first-degree murder, misleading police, and improper transport of a human body. He's pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Last week, Alex, there was some big news involving Brian Walsh.

That's right. On Thursday night, Brian Walsh was stabbed in jail. He was taken to a hospital for an injury that was described as non-life-threatening and superficial, and he was back in jail by Friday. In a statement, the Norfolk County Sheriff's office said the other individual involved in the incident was subdued and a makeshift blunt instrument was recovered.

Okay, so Monday, there was a status hearing in this case, and Alex, it actually involved a former detective I interviewed for the Karen Reid case. His name is Michael Proctor. He was ultimately fired for misconduct during that investigation, including sending a number of disparaging texts about Karen Reid. Turns out he was the lead investigator in Brian Walsh's case as well. Tell us how this is all tying together.

Right. As you've talked about on the podcast before, there's been a lot of back and forth about what Walsh's defense team can review from Proctor's phone, and there was more of that in the hearing. The prosecution said that they completed the review of materials and are in conversation with the US attorney's office following the review. It's still unclear exactly what will be turned over to the defense, but there will be another status hearing on September 25th.

Okay, and that trial is expected to begin October 20th. Up next, we are heading to Idaho, where convicted murderer Chad Daybell is making headlines again. Alex, remind us quickly who Chad Daybell is.

Yeah. Chad is the husband of Laurie Vall Daybell, also known as Mommy Doomsday, who will be very familiar to regular listeners of Dateland. Chad and Laurie were both charged and found guilty the murders of Laurie's kids, JJ and Tilly. Chad was also found guilty of the murder of his first wife, Tammy, while Laurie was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. Laurie was sentenced to life in prison, and Chad was sentenced to death.

Okay, and our listeners may remember, Laurie did that fascinating interview with our own Keith, and now Chad is speaking out from behind bars in his own way.

Yes, Andrea. Chad Dable is communicating through a new website called Letters from Chad. The site says it features writings from Chad, who is currently on death row.

Okay, I'm almost afraid to ask, what is he writing about?

Yeah. In his first letter, Chad thanked people who sent him cards and letters and said that he was writing because he wanted people to hear directly from him saying, I am not the man the media has created. I am not a cult member who should be feared. I am not a conspirator or a killer. Dabell expressed sadness over the deaths of Tammy, JJ, and Tilly, and said he would share a more complete story in his appeals process. He's also shared book and music recommendations in these letters.

Oh, so interesting, Alex. Thank you, and thank you for bringing us these stories this week.

Yeah, absolutely. Any time.

We've got one more update for you. It's currently Wednesday, and I just got out of court in Bardstown, Kentucky, after the final phase of what's been called Kentucky's Trial of the Decade. Over 10 years ago, Crystal Rogers car was found abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway. There was no trace of Crystal, and her body has never been found. Back in July, Brooks Hauke, Crystal's ex-boyfriend, was found guilty of her murder and tampering with evidence. Another man, Joseph Lawson, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence. Their sentencing took place Wednesday afternoon. It began with victim impact statements. Many members of Crystal's family spoke, including two of her daughters, was very emotional. Her sister and her brother and her aunt, her mother, Sherry, took the stand and spoke for nearly half an hour. She addressed Hauke, who looked at her as she spoke to him.

Did you ever think of how my daughter felt when you murdered her?

Sherry looked Hauke in the eye and said, Where is my daughter? There will be some forgiveness for you if you tell me where my daughter is. The judge then sentenced Hauke to life in prison. Joseph Lawson was sentenced 25 years for his role in the crime. I'll be staying on this story for a future Dateland episode, so stay tuned for that. Last week on the podcast, we talked about the sentencing of Katherine Rostelli, a Utah mom who pleaded guilty to charges in connection to the 2024 murder of her husband, Matthew. Katherine gave a brief statement. I'm so very deeply sorry for the pain that I've caused. Then, the judge handed Katherine her sentence, and it was by no means straightforward. For conspiring to murder her husband and the murder itself, her sentence was 1-15 years in prison. You heard that right. In theory, Rastelli could serve as little as one year in prison for committing murder. It made us wonder how often judges hand out such wide sentencing ranges to convicted killers and what else we don't know about sentencing a murderer. We asked NBC news legal analyst and defense attorney, Danny Svevallos, to give us the breakdown.

Thanks for being here, Danny.

Thanks for having me to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is sentencing.

Sentencing, okay. In most of the cases, we see a dateland, convicted killers receive life sentences or life sentences without the possibility of parole. Very definitive. But is that as common as I think, Danny, or not?

The answer to that question is it depends. It depends on 50 plus different jurisdictions because all the states and the federal system have vastly different rules when it comes to not only the mandatory minimum and mandatory maximum sentences for a crime, but even the sentencing formula and the guidelines within.

Let's talk about Katherine Ristelli, who we mentioned off the top. She was sentenced on several charges, but what stood out to our team was that she was sentenced to as little as one year in prison on the murder charge, as we mentioned. Have you heard of anyone actually spending that little time in prison for murder?

Yes, possibly on a homicide. In Utah, the default position is that murder is first degree, but second degree murder is a lesser homicide, and the sentencing range is actually 1-15 years.

This always confuses me, Danny. When I sat through so many sentencings in courtrooms and to hear this range thing, and you're trying to figure out what that means when they say from this number to this number. Where does it fall?

Right. There are two different kinds of sentencing, determinate sentencing, which means the judge announced a specific time, and indeterminate, which means you get a range as part of your sentence, and it gives a dramatic amount of discretion to a parole board to decide whether or not their sentence should be completed. But you're right. Theoretically, her sentence could be as short as one year. Yeah, she could be let out. Although, statistically, it's probably unlikely, at least at her first parole board hearing.

And Katherine Ristelli, that was part of a plea deal. She's pleading guilty to this. She is expected to testify against her alleged co-conspirators, her mom and her brother, when they had to trial next year. As Josh Mankowitz likes to say, he who squiels gets the deal.

Absolutely. That is, nothing is truer or more correctly said. Unlikely, that is why this defendant got the deal of second-degree murder when the facts tended to show at least a deliberate intent to lure and then kill, but cooperation can get you quite a ways.

It's not just Utah that has some sentencing on the shorter side. Texas has something called Sudden Passion. I discovered that in a story I was working on about a woman named Frances Hall. She ran her husband off the road on his motorbike while they were in a chase with his paramour. Danny, her defense team argued Sudden Passion, and she got very little time behind bars. It was pretty amazing how short her sentence was.

Yeah, it's interesting we would have a provision that rewards explosive rage syndrome. But again, legislatures do what they do.

I mean, it's crazy when you think about these cases. If you put everything into a hat, the backgrounds of the people, the personalities, where they grew up, what state they're in, what the crime was. I mean, it's like a roulette table almost with so many things spinning around.

Yeah, and that's what's always fascinated me about sentencing is that there's probably no area of the law that tries so hard for uniformity. But the practical reality is no two crimes are exactly the same. There's always differences. When you combine that with the fact that the laws are so different in every state, and by the way, people's ideas about justice are dramatically different from state to state. Some states are arguably, and I hate to use this word, crueler or they're more stringent when it comes to punishment.

Wow, Danny, thank you so much for always breaking down the tough issues for us and helping us understand.

We appreciate Thank you.

That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium. Make sure to check out Josh's brand new original podcast series, Deadly Engagement. Announcement about the murder of a grad student in North Carolina. Did a love triangle lead to murder?

If we can ever prove who was stalking whom, I think we have our Kate Salt.

You can get the show wherever you listen now. Coming up this Friday on Dateline, I'm bringing you an all new episode. When police found her body, it appeared that 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore had died by suicide. But her friends and family say there was more to the story. It didn't add up at all. Could she actually do that, or did somebody have a part in this? Watch The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore this Friday at 10: 09 Central on NBC. And one last thing before we go, I'll be in Nashville with the rest of the Dateland crew on September 28th for the first ever Dateland Live event. There will be on-stage panels, audience Q&A's, and a VIP reception. We'd love to see you there. You can still get tickets at datelinenbc. Com/event. You can also find a link in the episode description. Thanks for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins and Katie Ferguson. Our associate producer is Caroline Casey. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Keroloff. Veronica Mzezeca is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Designer. Original music by Jessie McGinty, Bryson Barnes is head of audio production, Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.

Thanks, everybody. Bye.