The Room Downstairs

Speaker 2 the creator of homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 2 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 4 Grand Canyon University is one of the largest universities in the country.

Speaker 4 Praised for its community and impact, GCU integrates a welcoming Christian worldview and open discourse into over 300 online programs.

Speaker 4 Redefine your online education through GCU's industry-driven, academically rigorous programs. In 2024, online students received over $161 million in institutional scholarships.
Find your purpose.

Speaker 4 Private, Christian, affordable. Discover available scholarships at gcu.edu/slash myoffer.

Speaker 5 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 6 If the police were were right, this was a diabolical murder plot carried out on your brother.

Speaker 7 He did it that night. And he was still out there, and who else would he hurt?

Speaker 8 The back of the house is on fire. Okay, get everybody out.

Speaker 7 My sister-in-law told me that Rob had died in a fire.

Speaker 9 Right away, I knew there was something suspicious.

Speaker 10 It was actually a murder. He had been murdered.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 6 She was head over heels for Rob.

Speaker 7 Yeah, he adored her. I don't think anybody imagined that this is something we should be wary of.

Speaker 11 Evidence of stalking, fake email accounts.

Speaker 12 You could see the evil, you could just see it.

Speaker 6 You were scared for yourself. Absolutely.

Speaker 11 Obsession, anger, desire for vengeance.

Speaker 11 It's really only pointing to one person.

Speaker 5 Jealousy, betrayal, revenge. Who had a motive to kill? A new turn in the spellbinding mystery.

Speaker 3 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 5 Here's Andrea Canning with The Room Downstairs.

Speaker 1 Love.

Speaker 6 At first, it's all blue skies.

Speaker 6 A lovely day that promises to never end.

Speaker 9 He was crazy for her. I don't know.
I can't explain where the attraction came from.

Speaker 6 But just as the weather changes,

Speaker 6 so too can love.

Speaker 7 I never even dreamed of them getting divorced.

Speaker 6 What happened?

Speaker 7 They just grew apart.

Speaker 6 Leaving sadness in its wake. Or worse, something darker.

Speaker 6 Something that gains power as it churns

Speaker 6 and finally strikes the only way it can. With lethal force.

Speaker 17 Forever, those people, forever.

Speaker 17 Their souls will be marred.

Speaker 17 and torn by these events.

Speaker 6 It wasn't a night to be out. March 6th, 2011.
A raw and rainy Sunday in Teaneck, New Jersey, minutes from New York City. Henry Rodson's car had broken down.
What was happening that night?

Speaker 18 I had a flat tire earlier than the day and I had to come back to fix it. You know, it was raining.
It was windy. It was just very miserable.
Started to put all my tools away.

Speaker 18 For some reason, I just happened to look up and I saw smoke going across across the street.

Speaker 6 From the corner house?

Speaker 18 From going across from the corner of the house, going across to the right.

Speaker 6 A former volunteer firefighter. Henry thought he should at least check it out.

Speaker 18 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 and say, listen, call 911.
There's a house that's on fire.

Speaker 8 Adam Street, instant, and it's the back of the house is on fire. Okay, get everybody out of the house.

Speaker 6 You're a former volunteer firefighter. Are you thinking, I've got to spring into action here in case someone needs to be rescued?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 1 Anything?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 6 You have no gear.

Speaker 2 Nothing.

Speaker 18 I also noticed that the neighbor had a spigot nearby. I was pouring water on the windowsill, but that fire inside was rolling.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 13 The body had suffered severe burns, the front of the body, more so than the back, which wasn't as badly burned.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 Lawler thought it was strange that Rob died so close to where the fire started in that basement bedroom.

Speaker 13 Usually, you see healthy middle-aged males, and they're trying to get away from the fire. So maybe they're overcome by smoke.

Speaker 7 It just had no reality to me at all.

Speaker 6 When Rob's sister, Leslie Padron, got word her brother was dead, her first thought?

Speaker 9 Heart attack.

Speaker 6 Then she heard the word fire and didn't know what to think.

Speaker 7 I said, something's not right. He couldn't have died in a fire.

Speaker 6 Why didn't you think he could die in a fire? People die in fires.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 9 Finally, we made our way to Tina to the house, and

Speaker 9 it was horrible.

Speaker 6 The story didn't make sense to Rob's friend, Mehrdad Sinai, either. He couldn't see Rob rushing to the basement to put out a raging fire.

Speaker 9 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.
No.

Speaker 12 You could

Speaker 12 see some indication that this wasn't just somebody that was smoking in his bed in the lit fire.

Speaker 6 After County Prosecutor John Malinelli 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?

Speaker 12 The first thought was, well, whoever did this act lit the crime scene in an effort to frustrate law enforcement because DNA evidence is always important.

Speaker 6 Which is why he asked the medical examiner to fast-track an autopsy, which is when this case got really complicated.

Speaker 13 The post-mortem examination by the medical examiner found that he had a bullet in his head.

Speaker 6 They found Rob Canner's body in his burned-out basement. Only it wasn't the fire that killed him.

Speaker 7 And I think it was the next day the detectives came back and told us that he was shot.

Speaker 19 Somebody killed him?

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 It's awful because no one's allowed to say anything about anything.

Speaker 12 It wasn't just a shooting, it was an execution. Shot him from behind, execution style.

Speaker 6 Diabolical.

Speaker 19 Yeah, despicable. Despicable.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 13 The forensic scientist was able to determine that ethanol was on the comforter.

Speaker 6 It appeared someone had shot Rob, then used an accelerant to start the fire.

Speaker 6 Prosecutor John Malinelli wondered if Rob's murder was connected to two others in the county that year, both involving house fires.

Speaker 6 Are those two other murders the first thing that come to your mind when you see this crime scene?

Speaker 12 There was certainly a discussion and deliberation on the topic. Certainly within the first few weeks of the Cantor murder.

Speaker 7 The community was kind of very taken aback and very concerned about this.

Speaker 6 There was talk of a possible serial killer, arsonist.

Speaker 7 Definitely. That would have been the case.
They didn't have much crime in the area at all.

Speaker 6 Investigators were also looking into the possibility of a more personal motive for Rob's murder. They wanted to know everything about him.

Speaker 9 They took us in separately.

Speaker 6 Rob's friend, Mare Dodd.

Speaker 9 He was wonderful. He was kind.
He was loving. He always saw the other point of view.

Speaker 6 Mare Dodd told police he and Rob met as software engineers in telecom. They bonded over work and running.
Mare Dodd nicknamed Rob Roberto. Rob nicknamed him Mer Doc.

Speaker 6 Food was a shared obsession.

Speaker 9 She was Merdak,

Speaker 6 The bromance began.

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 He said Rob could be lighthearted, silly even. Like the time Rob skipped out of work early, leaving this teasing message for his friend.

Speaker 15 I've always hated you.

Speaker 15 I hate the day that I met you. I left

Speaker 15 with somebody who's much better looking than you, which isn't difficult to find, and I curse you.

Speaker 6 Have a nice day. Nice sense of humor.

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 And he knew how to say, I'm left with somebody much better looking that is not difficult to find.

Speaker 9 So that's who he was.

Speaker 6 It wasn't all laughs. On their runs, Rob confided in Merdad about life, fatherhood, his 27-year marriage to his wife, Susan.
They were splitting up.

Speaker 9 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

Speaker 9 go their own separate ways.

Speaker 7 I never even dreamed of them getting divorced. My brother was afraid to tell me, Susan, his wife actually called to tell me.

Speaker 6 What happened?

Speaker 7 They just grew apart.

Speaker 6 No rancor, no bitterness. That's what family and friends said.
But investigators wanted to judge for themselves. It's Sergeant Love.
Homicide detective Cecilia Love.

Speaker 6 What was going on in their lives at this time, Susan and Rob?

Speaker 10 They still had a relationship because they had the, you know, the two daughters together.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 They were still hashing out the divorce when Rob died.

Speaker 10 They had been discussing selling the house,

Speaker 10 you know, dividing up assets.

Speaker 6 That can get tense, even for the best of relationships. Absolutely.
Did you need to take a close look at her?

Speaker 10 In the beginning, you know, you always would think it could be his wife or his ex-wife.

Speaker 6 Was it? Or was it someone else entirely?

Speaker 9 He was crazy for her. I don't know.
I can't explain where the attraction came from.

Speaker 7 We had no idea about the emails. We had no reason to believe anything would happen.

Speaker 1 Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one.
Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 1 That's their best deal of the year, aka a holiday gift you'll actually use every single day. Don't get them socks.
Get them premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 1 Shop Mint Unlimited plans at mintmobile.com slash dateline. That's mintmobile.com slash dateline.
Limited time offer. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for 6 months, or $180 for 12 months.

Speaker 1 Plan required, $15 per month equivalent.

Speaker 21 Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 1 Initial plan term only.

Speaker 1 Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy. Capable device required.
Availability, speed, and coverage vary. See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 14 If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Granger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible.

Speaker 14 So when a conveyor motor falters, Granger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem.

Speaker 14 With Granger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly. Call 1-800GRANGER, ClickRanger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 23 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 23 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 23 Check out Zen.com/slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 23 Warning: this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 6 Investigators were approaching Rob Cantor's murder from two angles. Was it personal or was it an arsonist at work? They searched for a link between his and two similar homicides in Bergen County.

Speaker 6 They couldn't find one.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 6 Meanwhile, Detective Cecilia Love intensified her focus on Rob's world.

Speaker 10 We interviewed the friends and family members.

Speaker 6 Lots of people to talk to.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 6 At the top of the list, Rob's soon-to-be ex, Susan.

Speaker 10 We did bring her in and speak to her.

Speaker 6 Who wanted this divorce, Rob or Susan?

Speaker 10 I think they both wanted it. It was a mutual decision.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 10 Nothing really led us to believe that she had any involvement in this.

Speaker 6 So if not Susan, who? Rob's friends told investigators they needed to speak to another woman right away. Her name was Sophie Manu.

Speaker 10 Rob and Sophie were involved in this relationship.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 She lived just across the river in Manhattan. They shared interests, running, philosophy, and science.
But there was one problem.

Speaker 6 Sophie was married and raising three daughters, roughly ages four to nine, with her husband, Tony Tongue. Sophie was living a bit of a secret life.

Speaker 10 Initially, yes. But it wasn't too long before it, you know, it all came out.

Speaker 6 She thought the woman's grief was genuine.

Speaker 10 She was crying. She knew that he was deceased.

Speaker 6 Did you tell her that he had been murdered?

Speaker 10 Later on

Speaker 10 in

Speaker 10 the interview, yes. What was her reaction? She was shocked.

Speaker 10 Like anyone would be if you found out that information.

Speaker 6 Sophie told the detective she'd seen Rob hours before he died.

Speaker 10 Rob, with his two friends, had gone to New York City to

Speaker 10 meet Sophie and her daughter, her eight-year-old daughter, at a museum.

Speaker 6 How open is Sophie to you?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 6 What was significant about the basement bedroom?

Speaker 10 That was the place that

Speaker 10 she and Rob had consummated their relationship. That was huge for us because we thought that it had to be something personal.

Speaker 6 Rob's friends couldn't see Sophie as a killer. And yet Mare Dodd says the relationship always troubled him.
He thought Rob wasn't being careful. After all, Sophie was still married.

Speaker 6 What did Rob tell you about her husband, Tony?

Speaker 23 What did he learn about him?

Speaker 9 He felt sorry for him.

Speaker 6 In fact, he told Mayor Dodd 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.

Speaker 9 Knocks at the door and Rob, a good person he is, he let him in.

Speaker 6 Rob said the two discussed Sophie. It was all very civil.

Speaker 1 That's when I got angry at him.

Speaker 9 I said, first of all, you don't do this.

Speaker 1 He said, you would beat him up. I said, no.

Speaker 9 I called the police. And he said, oh, Murdak,

Speaker 9 you're too tough. His life is falling apart.

Speaker 9 His wife is leaving him.

Speaker 9 And when I got mad at him, you know, I was like a father figure.

Speaker 9 I told him, I bet you offered him a cup of coffee too. Murdak, as a matter of fact, I did.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 7 I'm sure my brother thought that eventually they'd become friends. Yeah, because that's what happened with everyone in his life.

Speaker 6 The New Jersey investigators wanted to talk to Tony Tong. He agreed to meet at a precinct in Manhattan where he lived.

Speaker 24 The reason we're here is because there's been an incident that happened in New Jersey.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 6 At first, they played it cool. They didn't mention Rob's murder, but they did ask how Tony and Rob knew each other.

Speaker 24 Don't take this the wrong way. Well, was your wife cheating on you with Rob?

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 15 I tell you, if my wife was seeing somebody else sign on when things were happening.

Speaker 3 Hello, hello, Penny's talking.

Speaker 6 They asked where he'd been the night of March 6th. Tony said he'd been home alone in New York, mostly doing the dishes and relaxing.

Speaker 15 I was doing dishes for a couple hours, but I was watching back and forth.

Speaker 6 It was an alibi that couldn't be corroborated, and the detectives were skeptical.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 3 No one will believe it.

Speaker 6 Tony Tongue spoke to police for hours, explaining where he was the night Rob Cantor was murdered.

Speaker 10 According to him, he was at home. He had dropped off his daughter, and he got home at 9 p.m.
on March 6th.

Speaker 15 You're saying basically, you were home on the computer between the Raiders of the Lost Arc and surfing the internet, Facebook, and different things. Okay.
Talk to me with your sister.

Speaker 6 The only time he left his apartment again, he said, was around 1 a.m. to buy some beer.

Speaker 24 You don't go anywhere else other than at 1 1 a.m.

Speaker 15 You go out and you pick up a six-pack

Speaker 24 at the store and then you go back home.

Speaker 15 Thus

Speaker 15 putting us by the LGBTQ day.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 Why let him go?

Speaker 10 Because at that time we didn't feel we had enough probable cause to make an arrest and we needed to continue the investigation.

Speaker 6 Still, when months passed with no arrest, Rob's friends became impatient.

Speaker 3 Outraged today in New Jersey over a perceived lack of progress solving a murder case.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 We were so frustrated.

Speaker 6 Was it moving slowly, as they claimed?

Speaker 10 Well, I'm sure for them it was moving slowly.

Speaker 10 But, you know, every investigation is different. different.

Speaker 6 In this one, investigators were having a hard time finding evidence that Tony had crossed the river from Manhattan to New Jersey that night.

Speaker 6 You had no bridge video, you had no taxi receipts, you had no witnesses, you had nothing actually physically placing Tony Tongue in T-Neck. You're right.

Speaker 12 We didn't have him at the George Washington Bridge. We didn't.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And we see him walking on East 76th Street, entering his car, which remained parked.

Speaker 13 One of the things that you think you'll find in every case is that people make mistakes.

Speaker 6 Assistant Prosecutor Brian Sinclair said when investigators searched Tony's apartment, they found evidence on his computer from the hours after Rob was killed.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 13 There was spyware that was installed on Sophie Manu'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.

Speaker 6 Records subpoenaed from Google also showed anonymous emails sent from Tony's computer to Rob and his ex-wife Susan.

Speaker 13 He would say, you know,

Speaker 13 I saw you walking around the Upper West Side. She's French, no?

Speaker 11 So

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 6 What is it that you finally say it's go time, we're going to arrest Tony Tongue?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 6 So in May 2012, 14 months after Rob's murder, investigators knocked on Tony's door.

Speaker 19 I answered the door in my boxers, my t-shirt.

Speaker 6 When we spoke to Tony, he vividly recalled the day he was arrested.

Speaker 19 The detective yanked me out of there, got into my temples, slammed me against the wall. What the heck?

Speaker 6 And now you're accused of murder.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 19 And burning the house down.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 19 I introduced myself, say,

Speaker 19 Bobby. Hi, I am Tony.
Yeah.

Speaker 21 You're sleeping with my wife?

Speaker 19 No, he said that. I just say, you know, I'm not that

Speaker 15 rude.

Speaker 6 Tony said he wasn't looking to to menace Rob or fight him. He just wanted to understand.

Speaker 19 I want to know who that person is.

Speaker 6 What do you two talk about?

Speaker 19 First, we were like small talk, this family stuff.

Speaker 6 This sounds crazy.

Speaker 3 No one will believe it.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 13 Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 21 He told me about his...

Speaker 19 I made a comment by his stove. We had a lot in common.

Speaker 17 We both like foods.

Speaker 19 Obviously,

Speaker 17 we both love Sophies.

Speaker 6 For several hours, he said the conversation was mostly light.

Speaker 22 Then a little awkward.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 19 I'm confronting someone's having an affair with my wife.

Speaker 19 Might as well see the rest of it.

Speaker 11 I don't ask you. Can you be killed?

Speaker 19 Like a certain way how he treat her.

Speaker 19 I remember I was

Speaker 12 a little upset.

Speaker 6 That it was a room in the basement? Yeah.

Speaker 19 You took Sophie down here? What the hell is wrong with you? You can't go to the hotel. Before I left, he said, what do you want?

Speaker 12 I was like,

Speaker 19 well, I'd like to just stop seeing my wife.

Speaker 6 What did he say?

Speaker 19 He said, I can't answer you right now.

Speaker 6 And get this. Tony went back two more times.

Speaker 19 And that time was like, you know, this is pointless.

Speaker 6 And he's he's still letting you in?

Speaker 19 No, that time we were on the patio.

Speaker 6 You're becoming a regular visitor at your wife's lover's house.

Speaker 19 He is who is more worried, but I think his wife is still living there.

Speaker 6 I mean, this sounds all very cordial.

Speaker 17 It is cordial.

Speaker 6 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 Canner then?

Speaker 19 How'd I know?

Speaker 1 How would I know?

Speaker 21 I'm in New York.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 20 He came back home with a brown paper bag,

Speaker 26 and he opened the paper bag and showed me a gun.

Speaker 23 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 23 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin.

Speaker 23 Check out zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you.

Speaker 23 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 22 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 27 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 27 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 27 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner? Start now at betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.

Speaker 6 I turned off news altogether.

Speaker 6 I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

Speaker 16 It's the rage bait.

Speaker 6 It feels like it's trying to divide people.

Speaker 11 We got clear facts.

Speaker 6 Maybe we could calm down a little.

Speaker 1 NBC News brings you clear reporting.

Speaker 19 Let's meet at the facts.

Speaker 17 Let's move forward from there.

Speaker 28 NBC News, reporting for America.

Speaker 6 In October 2015, Tony Tung stood trial for the murder of Rob Cantor.

Speaker 6 Rob's family and friends filled the gallery.

Speaker 9 He didn't look remorseful. He looked hurry and come out right, hello, like

Speaker 9 we were wasting his time.

Speaker 6 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,

Speaker 7 we definitely were concerned because it was all circumstantial.

Speaker 6 Veteran prosecutor Wayne Mellow opened for the state.

Speaker 17 This case was about

Speaker 17 perhaps the oldest motive.

Speaker 29 in the world. In this case, she and he

Speaker 5 done him wrong.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 Tony found out.

Speaker 21 This would be the first time that a child of tongue had met

Speaker 29 Mommy's friend.

Speaker 17 Rob.

Speaker 6 Prosecutors presented jurors with a timeline partially captured by security cameras.

Speaker 6 Earlier in the night, Tony Tung could be seen talking with his daughter Cleo in the lobby of Sophie's apartment building.

Speaker 31 Cleo will tell her father, oh yes, I had a lovely day today.

Speaker 31 Mommy and I went to a museum.

Speaker 30 I met her friend, Rob.

Speaker 29 Time is now

Speaker 30 8.20 p.m.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 6 About 20 minutes later, cameras picked him up a third time.

Speaker 31 You will see him walk to his car.

Speaker 31 You will see him enter his car.

Speaker 31 You will see him spend perhaps two minutes in his car.

Speaker 30 You will see him walk to the corner.

Speaker 31 Not his corner.

Speaker 21 He's not going back home.

Speaker 17 He's going to T-B.

Speaker 6 But Tony's car never moved again that night.

Speaker 6 How do you think he got to New Jersey?

Speaker 17 Oh, he definitely got to New Jersey by car.

Speaker 29 And he definitely had help in some form.

Speaker 17 What 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.

Speaker 6 The prosecutor argued that Tony had time to make the 13-mile trip to T-Neck and return to Manhattan to start destroying the computer files.

Speaker 32 Just hours later, as that body

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 6 Still, he said a critical piece of evidence was found in Tony's email account.

Speaker 6 November of 2010, just months before the murder, Tony wrote to a friend in Texas about getting a magazine for a.380 caliber handgun.

Speaker 32 You say today the records tell you last night.

Speaker 6 Though the friend never sent the magazine, the email was significant for the prosecutor.

Speaker 17 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?

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 21 Something was taken from that car. That's something I suggest to you, is the gun.

Speaker 6 In one of the trial's most anticipated moments, the state called the woman at the center of it all, Sophie.

Speaker 32 Please state your name for the record and spell your last name.

Speaker 10 Sophie Manuf.

Speaker 6 Sophie told the court her marriage was already in trouble when she met Rob in the fall of 2009. I was wearing

Speaker 26 a t-shirt that had Paris marathon on it, so Rob was like, oh, you run?

Speaker 22 And I was like, yeah. And he said, oh, I run too.

Speaker 26 So we started talking about that.

Speaker 6 As the weeks passed, their friendship turned into something more.

Speaker 26 I knew that you know he had feelings for me

Speaker 26 and I started to develop feelings for him as well.

Speaker 6 On Valentine's weekend, 2010, she said the relationship became intimate at Rob's house in Teaneck.

Speaker 26 He said that there was a bedroom in his basement.

Speaker 26 It was a bedroom that the kids used when they were teenagers and so we went down in that bedroom

Speaker 22 and we met love.

Speaker 6 Days later, she found out Tony had hacked her private email account. He knew everything.

Speaker 14 Did Mr.

Speaker 21 Tong

Speaker 21 question you about intimacy between you and Rob?

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 21 Can you tell us about that part of the conversation?

Speaker 26 He wanted to know where we had slept together and I told him

Speaker 22 we slept together in the basement bedroom.

Speaker 26 Tony was really upset

Speaker 26 that I had slept with an older man in a basement.

Speaker 6 A few days after that, she said, Tony announced he was buying a gun.

Speaker 25 He came back home with a brown paper bag

Speaker 26 and he opened the paper bag and showed me a gun.

Speaker 31 Could you tell if it had a magazine?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 6 The prosecutor argued that roughly a year later, Tony shot and killed Rob.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 6 Sophie said she learned of Rob's death the next day. And there were

Speaker 26 voice messages on my voicemail and emails from

Speaker 24 Rob's friends.

Speaker 22 And he told me that

Speaker 9 there had been a fire

Speaker 22 in Rob's house

Speaker 26 and that he was dead.

Speaker 6 When she left the stand, the two women in Rob Cantor's life, his ex-wife Susan and lover Sophie, came together for the

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 And so they were two women who had like strong feelings about someone just embracing each other. That's really, you know.

Speaker 6 It's really nice.

Speaker 7 It was nice.

Speaker 6 In closing, Prosecutor Wayne Mellow said there was only one person who could have caused so much pain.

Speaker 5 This murder could have happened no other way, other than the murderer is seated before you.

Speaker 6 Now, the defense was ready to present its side. What Rob's family didn't count on? The wild turn this case would take.

Speaker 9 That made me angry. I questioned this crazy justice system.

Speaker 6 Day after day, Tony Tongue watched the prosecution portray him as a cold-blooded killer. It wasn't a pretty picture, and according to Tony, it wasn't true.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 21 Yeah, but

Speaker 21 I didn't kill him.

Speaker 6 Did you

Speaker 6 have someone drive you over

Speaker 6 to T-Neck? No.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 33 If he didn't kill him right there and then,

Speaker 33 he wasn't going to kill him at all.

Speaker 34 Because that was the time to do it with his bare hands.

Speaker 6 He said investigators never seriously considered that someone else else may have wanted Rob Cantor dead.

Speaker 33 They just let it slide. Let it slide because they got their man.
Tony was the only suspect.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 33 It's just a normal that he decided to

Speaker 33 do it at that time.

Speaker 6 What time did he delete the material?

Speaker 33 I believe it started at about two something in the morning and then went, but it ran for like five hours.

Speaker 6 So we're talking about two hours after the fire started.

Speaker 22 Yeah.

Speaker 6 It looks bad.

Speaker 17 Oh, sure.

Speaker 33 That's why Mr. Millo and the prosecutor's office have a case.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 But here's what he told us. Why do you need to ask a friend in Texas for that?

Speaker 19 It's like a conversation starter.

Speaker 6 He's in Texas. A conversation starter? I need a 380? No, this is something else.

Speaker 19 Like, oh, yeah, by the way, you're from Texas. Aren't these things a little cheaper over there?

Speaker 6 It just looks bad that you're asking a friend

Speaker 6 for a 380 caliber magazine, and a.380 is used to kill Rob Cantor.

Speaker 19 But I didn't kill Rob Cantor.

Speaker 6 Did you show

Speaker 6 Sophie a gun? Yeah.

Speaker 19 So I was holding them for somebody.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 25 How

Speaker 6 can you

Speaker 30 prove

Speaker 34 that a man

Speaker 28 committed a murder in New Jersey when you cannot even prove that he was in New Jersey?

Speaker 6 After a trial that lasted two months, the jury deliberated for hours, then days.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 But he was extremely nervous.

Speaker 6 On the fourth day, the jurors came back.

Speaker 23 Has the jury agreed upon a verdict?

Speaker 6 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 23 Is the verdict unanimous?

Speaker 6 Yes, Your Honor. Your verdict is?

Speaker 9 Guilty.

Speaker 6 It was an emotional moment for Rob Cantor's widow and daughters. Take us inside that courtroom in that moment with all of you when that verdict is read.

Speaker 9 It was a huge relief. You know, you got to pay for what you did.
You ruined

Speaker 25 life.

Speaker 9 You took their father away.

Speaker 9 You took a nice person. He didn't do anything wrong.

Speaker 6 You hear the word guilty

Speaker 15 on murder.

Speaker 19 Unbelievable.

Speaker 6 The judge sentenced Tony Tongue 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.

Speaker 6 An appeals court found that parts of a detective's testimony could have unfairly prejudiced the jury against Tony.

Speaker 6 Then, you get the news that no family wants to hear that an appeals court has overturned the conviction.

Speaker 7 That was horrific.

Speaker 7 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,

Speaker 7 was just horrible.

Speaker 9 That made me angry. I questioned this crazy justice system.
Him, you find out he needs a second chance? Are you guys kidding me?

Speaker 32 Tony, why don't you stand up and face it for a vacancy?

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 5 There is not one ounce of evidence in this case that will support that claim that Tony was in T-Neck on that night as the state is claiming.

Speaker 6 Another problem for prosecutors, pulling jurors even further into the past.

Speaker 11 We have to bring them back in time to 2011 because, you know, in 2011, there weren't ring cameras on every house. You know, smartphones weren't as prevalent.

Speaker 6 Assistant prosecutors Joseph Torrey and David Malfitano.

Speaker 11 We wanted to lower their expectations on the type of evidence they were going to seek.

Speaker 6 If prosecutors in the first trial focused on technology, here they seized on Tony's alibi for the night in question.

Speaker 32 If you're being questioned in the next day about a murder, why would you lie about simple things like the dishes to the police officer?

Speaker 32 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.

Speaker 32 Why would you lie about whether you left your apartment, what time you left? These are very simple things.

Speaker 11 The jurors were listening to his lies and the statement, and then they were seeing the objective evidence, which we argued was uncontestable. The forensic evidence, video surveillance, etc.

Speaker 6 For weeks, the two sides went back and forth. This time around, though, jurors didn't need days, only a few hours to decide.

Speaker 7 As soon as we heard that, we knew.

Speaker 6 Guilty.

Speaker 6 Sentenced to life again.

Speaker 6 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

Speaker 7 grandfather.

Speaker 7 Amazing. He would have loved it.

Speaker 7 I always have that moment of sadness of what he's missing, and that I hope he can see, you know,

Speaker 7 how happy his children are with their lives and his grandchildren.

Speaker 6 For Mer Dod, time hasn't quite filled the hole left by his old running buddy, the one he affectionately dubbed Roberto.

Speaker 6 But it has given him a deeper appreciation of the man and the price he paid for love.

Speaker 9 I think Roberto died so Sophie could be free.

Speaker 9 He really cared for this. He cared for all the human beings, but I don't know at that age he fell for this woman.
Obviously, there was something that clicked and i think he died so she could be free

Speaker 5 that's all for now i'm lester holt thanks for joining us

Speaker 1 this time of year many are checking off their holiday gift lists But identity thieves have lists too, and your personal information might be on them. Protect your identity with LifeLock.

Speaker 1 Lifelock monitors millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back.

Speaker 1 Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com/slash dateline. Terms apply.