Talking Dateline: The Room Downstairs
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Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we are talking Dateline today with Andrea. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Josh. This episode of yours is called The Room Downstairs, and if you in the audience have not listened to it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed, so go there and listen. Now, for this talking Dateline, Andrea has two extra interview clips that did not make it into the broadcast. The first one is called The Room Downstairs, and it's a podcast about the room downstairs.

So to recap, this was March 2011 in suburban New Jersey, just across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan in New York City. A house was engulfed in flames. Firefighters found a body in a basement bedroom, belonged to a 59-year-old guy named Robert Cantor. And police did have a feeling that it was more than a standard house fire. Turned out they were right because he had been shot in the head and that the fire was a kind of a cover-up.

So this case sort of takes us to the oldest motive in the book, which is jealousy, passion, revenge, and a love triangle, familiar shape to anybody who watches Dateline, that went very, very wrong. So let's talk Dateline. You know, uh,

Everything about this from the beginning, from when you first, you know, the guy first sees the smoke coming from across the street, the guy who's fixing his tire, like you immediately think, yeah, there's going to be more to it than just somebody dies in a fire. And I thought it was very interesting what the fire investigators said, that when you see a healthy person, not somebody who's, you know, confined to their bed or something, but a guy who's 59 years old,

They don't stay in the bed. They're trying to get out. You find them near the door, or they're clearly trying to get out of the place where the fire is happening, and that that didn't happen in this case. And that was in itself suspicious. It sure didn't. And of course, Rob had been shot. So, you know, once they got a closer look at the body, this was not a death by fire, not a death by burning or smoke inhalation or anything like that. It was cold-blooded murder. This reminds me of...

of Dawn Hackney, the woman who was killed in, uh, Bremerton, Washington in a podcast I did called mortal sin, uh, in which it was thought that she died in a fire. It turned out that, that, that her husband had strangled her before the, the, the fire began. Um,

So, you know, there were two other kind of similar murders, arsons in that Teaneck, New Jersey area. I know, strange, right? Around the time of Rob's death. And so police clearly were at least wondering whether this had to do with one of those. It certainly does leap out at you from the beginning. What do you think? You think Tony Tung knew about those?

Oh, that's a good question I never thought of. It's possible that he, you know, did it that way because he had researched crime in the area. I mean, oh, that's a good observation, Josh. I mean, they'd been in the paper. Like, you know, you could have seen it. And they were so eerily similar. Right. You know, I don't know.

I have to believe that in this case, Tony Tongue was the main suspect sort of from the get-go. I mean, Rob had to tell people, you know, I'm having an affair with this woman, Sophie. And by the way, her husband was not happy. Like, that's not the kind of thing you keep to yourself. Yeah, I mean, the hardest part was proving it. You know, they suspected him very quickly, but they had all this circumstantial evidence that

And they had a hard time proving that he went over to New Jersey from Manhattan that night. That was the hard part. But things like him wiping his hard drive, I mean, it looks really bad. But where's the proof that he went over the bridge? This was in 2011. This was sort of...

When there were cameras in some places, but not every place, like sort of one imagines that if that murder were committed today, there would be video and there would be a way to place Tony at the scene more accurately. Absolutely.

New York City now must have a camera, multiple cameras, it seems, on every corner. And then that's not even including the business. I'm talking city cameras. And then there's the businesses. And then there's cars with cameras now. The license plate readers, you know, that they have now on taxi cabs and garbage trucks that are hired by insurance companies and law enforcement. And, I mean, there's so many ways to catch people now on camera, right?

doing something they shouldn't be doing, or at least providing a piece of the puzzle to a crime. The prosecutor was pretty clear with you, I thought, that he believed that somebody else had helped Tony Tong get from Manhattan to New Jersey to cover his tracks, that it wasn't just, you know, he took a cab and the cab driver didn't realize, you know, who he was taking or why he was taking it and didn't remember it later. Like, he makes it sound like it's an actual co-conspirator. And nobody ever got arrested for that. I mean, what...

The feeling you get is that whoever that was, if that person does exist, they're getting away with it. Yeah, there was some talk of, and this is all alleged, that some people in Tony's world, that he may have had some connections to a gang, some bad people. Tony Tung has denied any allegations that he's somehow connected to gang violence, and

You know, I

I mean, I've said this in the past, but there's this sense that, you know, out there in the public, as you know, that circumstantial evidence sort of is lesser, that it doesn't count as much. I mean, here's the thing about circumstantial evidence. It doesn't lie. Like, he did erase his hard drive at that time that night. He, you know, circumstantial evidence can't be accused of forgetting to put on its eyeglasses.

Circumstantial evidence can't be accused of being angry at the defendant and slanting its testimony for that reason. Circumstantial evidence is whatever it is. You know, there's no other way to interpret that. So sometimes circumstantial evidence is much better than direct evidence. It is. And I mean, if all you had was that he erased his hard drive, that's it. Right. Okay. Well, that's not a great circumstantial case. But when you start adding up

All the pieces of circumstantial evidence. It gets to the point where, okay, who else would it be? Well, you know, he leaves the apartment at different times than he says. His timeline does not match up. Rob's wife, who got some insurance money as a result of this, she would be someone police would look at. She clearly was not involved. Those kind of things also sort of end up pointing law enforcement more and more and more

Toward Tony, who's a natural suspect. He's the husband whose wife is cheating on him with the person who ended up being killed. Yeah. He was angry. He didn't want his wife seeing this man, and he didn't want his daughters being around the man. And what was so interesting about Tony was he was sort of portrayed as this, like, you know, the great dad who, like, made the lunches and went to the school meetings and all that. But he...

Had an evil streak in him. Okay, when we come back, Andrea has a behind-the-scenes story about her interview with Tony Tongue.

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Let me ask you a couple things about Tony Tung, because when I see him in the interview and he's wearing that atrocious sweater, right, which is clearly not prison wear, I think to myself, oh, okay, he's either not the guy or he was acquitted. Now, for those of you who are listening who have not seen the episode, we have included a link to a photo from that interview in the episode description. Take a look.

So that jail was like so hot in there. And it was actually the producer...

who brought that sweater to the jail. And then I got there and the AP was there, Brittany, and she had told the producer, I could run over to Macy's and grab like a polo shirt or something. He's like, no, no, this is good. This is good. And Tony Tung is like, wanted to wear it. You know, that was his choice. And actually this producer, that was his own sweater. This was Tim Beacham? You can believe that.

Well, I wasn't going to name him, Josh. Oh, I'm absolutely going to name him. I didn't know if he'd really...

Okay. It was his sweater. That sweater is hideous. It was a Himalayan sweater. It was scratchy. Right. Right. And Tony Tung is like sweating, which, you know, when you're trying to defend yourself for murder, I guess you don't want to look like you're sweating during the interview. I noticed that. And then I thought to myself was that this is so crazy, this sweater, that people are going to think that he's not in jail because who the heck would wear that sweater? I don't know.

I'm surprised there's not like a jail rule, no itchy green Himalayan sweaters. Well, I'm pretty sure there is now. Well, anyway, the sweater has lived on. Yes. And the sweater almost is another character in the show. It is. And I totally bought it. I thought, well, either...

He beat the charges or he's not going to get charged and I'm wrong about him. So this case took a while. I mean, he was arrested like 14 months after the murder. Yeah, because they didn't have, you know, it was such a fact finding, right? Gathering and there's so many cases where...

It's not perfect, but it's kind of one of those now or never, right? Right. Like, let's go for it, you know? And honestly, sometimes that's all it is, is we're not going to get any better. We don't feel like we're going to—barring a witness coming forward or a confession, we're just not going to find anything else at this point. So let's just do it.

Clearly, some people were not expecting a guilty verdict because this was not some like overwhelming slam dunk case. And the jury was out for a while. Yeah. So they were clearly, they were struggling to reach a verdict. Three days, which is a long time. Yeah. And then his conviction is overturned. You know, there's this belief that when that verdict is entered and the jury comes back, like, well, that's it. You know, there's not going to be any more here.

And then turns out a couple of years later, you're back to square one, essentially. Yeah. And, but it didn't work for him. Guilty again. What do you think made the difference between the first trial and the second trial? Because the first trial, the jury was out for a long time. I think sort of,

A lot of people expected a mistrial. The second one, you know, it was a jury was only out for a couple of hours. I mean, I mean, who knows if it was the defense attorney or, you know, it's like with jurors. It's like a box of chocolates, right? You never know what you're going to get. I mean, it's all walks of life. It's like a game of roulette. After the break, Andrea is going to share two podcast exclusive clips that did not make it into the broadcast. One was Rob's best friend and the other from Rob's killer.

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I'm guessing you guys tried very hard to get Sophie to talk, and she didn't want to. But you got Rob's sister, and she was great. She was fantastic. Yeah. We were so grateful that his sister spoke to us, and she was so lovely. And she spoke about this wonderful relationship that she had with her brother and her

You know, I was just happy finally somebody was talking about Rob, you know, other and yes, his friend spoke to us who was wonderful, Murdad. But it was so wonderful to have a family member saying such nice things about Rob and, you know, really stand up for her brother and let us know what he was all about. Yeah.

I thought your interview with Meridad was just so adorable. I mean, he seems like a great guy. And the closeness that he felt with Rob and clearly still feels all these years later is very obvious. I mean, he really loved his friend. And they loved each other. They had these silly nicknames for each other. They were funny. They were so funny. And Meridad was the perfect person to interview.

talk about Rob and to bring Rob to life for us. So, here's a clip that did not make the broadcast from your interview with Merdad. And I truly believe if he were alive today and this heinous man was in prison, he said, Merdak, maybe we should buy some cookies and go see him. When the first time this whole thing happened, he went to his house and he called me and

They said, "Doc, I'm running late. He came to see me." I said, "Who is he?" He kept saying, "He." I said, "Who?" He said, "Tony." I couldn't connect the dots. Then I realized, he said, "I'll see you in a few minutes." So he showed up at work. He looked disheveled. I made the coffee. We sat down. He explained to me. I told him, "How did you let him in? It's a bizarre behavior." You mean just showing up like that, you thought that was bizarre? To knock at somebody's door, how did he find the house?

Right? I mean, it's not that Roberto was a famous person. He was a celebrity. And Tony came back more times. A second time. He let him in again. He said, oh, I feel sorry for him. I mean, if I'm in that situation, I'm not letting that guy in my house. I know why he's there. I know he's ticked off at me. I'm going to be like, hey, look, you should probably talk to your wife about this. Like, this is between the two of you. This is not about you and me.

you know, but I would not be like, Hey, come on in. Let's have coffee. Let's be buds. That's a really good point. Yeah. It was Rob, right. That he, he wanted to diffuse things. He, he wanted to, you know, give this man what he needed, you know, as far as like understanding what was happening in the relationship. And I mean, that was very nice of him to, to say, you know what, let's talk it out. And you, you know, everyone, you, you have friends that you're so frustrated because you're like,

You can see from the outside. Don't do that. Like, don't let him in. Or if someone's dating someone that you don't think is the right person or that's not a good person, and that person can't see that. Or if somebody's wearing an incredibly garish sweater. That's sweaters. Yeah. Yeah. Now we have a different piece of sound about the same thing. This is Tony Tong telling you about those visits to Rob. Let's listen to that.

You decide to go pay this Rob Cantor a visit. That's a bold move. Take us to what happened. I introduce myself. I say, you know, my name is Tony. I'm Sophie's husband. Can I come in and talk to you? He's like, okay, yeah, sure. So I walked in. He just invited you in? He has to stay a little bit, but, you know, he invited me in. Are you there to tell him to stop seeing Sophie? That's the end.

I like to find out what's going on first. What did you gain from this visit? No, I was... What I gained from the visit, I gained the knowledge of who this person is and how this person's going to behave later on. He's not a bad guy. Did you tell Sophie that you had gone to see him? No, he did. How did she react to that? Oh, she's yelling. And I tell her, you know, how it's... I tell her the same thing I'm telling you right now. I don't know how you can not see...

This love triangle, you know, from Sophie's point of view, for example, or Rob's and not think to yourself, this is going to head in a direction. I don't want it to head in. Like they, they did not seem to see that.

Rob seemed to think, no, no, I'll win this guy over the way I win everybody over. And Sophie did not seem to perceive the danger that, I mean, your husband has found out about the affair. He's been cyber-stalking you. He read all your emails. He's learned everything about this affair. And now he's going to confront the guy you're having the affair with. That's when, like, alarm bells should be going off. Like, this is a time to start taking this extremely,

extremely seriously right you know one of the things that the one of the things meridot said is rob died so sophie could be free that was so wow no so profound i mean those two loved each other i think that's true i know sophie had finally found her true love you know in rob and and yeah i mean she it was like tony had the shackles on her right like he wouldn't

And then she finds sweet, calm, patient Rob, who's, you know, appears to be her soulmate, but she can't shed Tony. And then Tony ends up killing her one true love. It's heartbreaking. And in the process, ruining everybody's life. Yes. Right? Yes. Absolutely. His, Rob's, Sophie's, and probably the kids'.

It's awful. It's the worst. It's the worst. And I wish we never see it, but we see it all the time. That's it for this episode of Talking Dateline. Thank you, Andrea. Before we go, we wanted to tell you about something that we're trying now. You can now send us audio of your questions, and so your voice might be featured on an upcoming episode. Make a recording of your message on your phone and send it to us as a direct message on Facebook, Instagram, or X, formerly Twitter, and

And it doesn't have to be about the episode itself. And no topic is off limits, although some language is not going to get you on Talking Dateline. But you can also still reach us the old-fashioned way. Now this is the old-fashioned way, the OG way on social at DatelineNBC. Also, don't forget to listen to my all-new podcast, which is called Deadly Mirage.

The first two episodes are now available wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and for early access to episodes. Okay, that's Talking Dateline. Thank you. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

What makes a Carnival Cruise fun? A picture-perfect beach day at Cozumel or a tropical adventure at the Mayan Ruins with snorkel excursion for good measure. A delectable surf and turf at sea topped off with craft cocktails at Alchemy Bar. Now, get some Z's. You never know what tomorrow will bring. Why? Because no one does fun like Carnival. Carnival. Choose fun.