>> a father dead in the flames, >> a father dead in the flames, but it wasn't the fire that killed him. >> it was actually a murder. >> three murders in one year. all covered up by fires. >> was a killer stalking this county, or was this something personal? >> who he was, who he was with. >> we had to figure out who would want this man to be dead.

>> police questioned everyone. the estranged wife, the new love, and her husband. >> it's terrifying. you wonder what kind of story were you involved with? >> jealousy, betrayal, revenge. >> who had the motive to kill one person and one person only? there is no perfect murder. >> this is "dateline." here's andrea with the fire inside. >> reporter: it's been said that everyone has three lives, one

public, one private. and one -- secret. but in 2011 two new york area families had all three exposed when their lives collided in a lurid tale of sex and jealousy -- fire and murder. >> it's terrifying because then you think, "well, hey. it could happen to me." >> it could happen to any one of us. >> forever, those people -- forever their souls will be marred and torn by these events. >> it's hard to know exactly what happened that day at that door. >> reporter: that day was march 6th, 2011 -- a raw and rainy sunday in tea neck, new jersey. henry rodzen was the first to spot trouble. >> reporter: what was happening that night? >> i had a flat tire earlier in the day, and i had to come back to fix it. it was raining, it was windy. it was just very miserable.

>> reporter: when we met up with rodzen -- almost five years after that gloomy night, the weather had changed, but his recollections had not. >> started puttin' all the -- all my tools away. for some reason, i just happened to look up, and i saw smoke goin' across the street. >> reporter: from the corner house? >> from -- goin' across from the corner house, goin' across through right. so i said, okay, well lemme take a quick jog over, see what's goin' on. >> reporter: what henry saw, once he reached the corner of terhune and elm, removed any doubt for the former volunteer firefighter. >> as soon as i saw that there was a bright amber glow, i knew that was definite fire. so i decided to just quickly run back to my girlfriend, i said listen, call 911, there's a house that's on fire. >> elm street in teaneck and it's the back of the house is on fire. >> okay, get everybody out of the house. >> reporter: you're a former volunteer firefighter. are you thinking, i've gotta 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. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: 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. [ sirens ] >> reporter: once inside the burning house firefighters discovered a badly burned body in a basement bedroom. it was shortly before two in the morning, when bergen county arson investigator sgt. terry lawler got a wake up call from his boss. >> "we have a fatal fire in teaneck, new jersey." gives me the address on elm avenue and says, "i'm headin' out there. and i'll meet you there." >> reporter: by the time he got there the victim's body had been taken outside. >> the body had suffered severe burns -- on the front of the

body, more so than the back, which wasn't bad -- as badly burned. >> reporter: they would soon learn that the victim was the owner of the house, a 59-year-old man named rob cantor. his body had been found in a basement bedroom -- the same place where henry rodzen spotted the fire. lawler thought it strange that cantor had died so close to where the fire started. >> usually, you see healthy, middle-aged males and they're tryin' to get away from the fire. so, maybe they're overcome by smoke. >> reporter: lawler wanted to look around the basement where the body was found, but it was flooded. >> we had to wait and have the fire department pump some of the water out so we could enter the basement and conduct our investigate. >> reporter: that job would take several hours -- giving detectives from the bergen county major crimes unit, time to question neighbors. >> canvassing is the most time consuming thing, but you have to do that right away. >> reporter: former bergen county prosecutor, john molinelli was on the scene in

those pre-dawn hours. >> unlike district attorney's office nationwide, in new jersey a county prosecutor is not just the chief law enforcement officer of the county, but also directly oversees the investigation of all major crimes. >> reporter: molinelli says from the first time he laid eyes on rob cantor's body, something didn't look right. so he asked the medical examiner to fast track an autopsy. >> you could see some indication that this wasn't just somebody who was just smoking in his bed and then the bed lit fire. >> reporter: what was your gut telling you as to what this could be? what you're looking at? >> the first thought was, "well, whoever did this act lit the crime scene in an effort to -- to frustrate law enforcement because dna evidence is always important." >> reporter: later that morning autopsy results confirmed the prosecutor's hunch. the medical examiner had found a small hole at the base of rob cantor's skull, and bullet fragments inside.

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>> it wasn't just a shooting, it was an execution. >> i never met the man, but i'm sorry i never met him, because every person i've spoken to says he was a great guy and i believe that. i believe he was truly a great guy, because of the impression he left on his family and his friends. >> reporter: an avid guitar player, rob had worked as a software engineer for verizon. for 26 years he and his wife had lived on this street in teaneck. they'd raised their two daughters here. now, investigators had to figure out who wanted him dead. >> it wasn't just a shooting, it was an execution. he shot him from behind execution style. >> diabolical? yeah, despicable. >> reporter: back at the scene of the fire, investigators found a bullet

casing for a .380 caliber handgun. an analysis of a comforter also found in that bedroom revealed something else. >> and the forensic scientist was able to determine that ethanol was on the comforter. >> reporter: that suggested an accelerant had been used to set rob's body on fire. for bergen county prosecutor john molinelli, that was a disturbing development. that's because this was now the arson homicide in bergen county in less than a year. >> are those other two murders the first thing that come to your mind when you see this crime scene? >> there was certainly a discussion and a deliberation on the topic, certainly within the first few weeks of the cantor murder. >> reporter: on the surface, there were haunting similarities. in april of 2010, 69-year-old dolores alliotts had been found stabbed to death in her burning home. she was a woman that was known to leave her house open. she did not lock her doors.

it could have been a stranger from the street. >> reporter: a few months later, 74-year-old joan davis, a well known community activist -- seen here at a teaneck city council meeting -- was found strangled and stabbed to death in her burning home. >> we had always believed that the person who murdered joan davis was someone that she let into the house. >> reporter: and now, rob cantor had been found dead in his burning home -- also in teaneck. >> very early on we were looking at you know, could rob cantor's killer be the same killer in teaneck with ms. davis and in palisades park with ms. alliotts. >> reporter: the answer was unclear, at first. but detectives did have leads in the cantor case. a neighbor had reported seeing a stranger near the cantor home shortly before the fire. >> did you hear about the stranger that was in the area? >> yes. >> can you tell us about that? >> yeah. we weren't able to track who the person was and we tried through canvassing to trace, but we

never had him coming outside of the house or we never had him going inside the house. >> reporter: according to rob's friends, someone had been stalking him. about a year earlier, they said rob told them he'd gotten some creepy emails, which suggested that he was being watched. this is one of them -- "rob, saw you this morning with this woman on upper west side. how are things with her?" >> very, very strange email addresses, strange names. one was e-o-r-a-l-l-d. another one was e-o-r-2-4-7. >> reporter: assistant prosecutor brian sinclair who heads the county's computer crimes unit, says the emails seemed intended to intimidate. >> 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. >> reporter: with that in mind, the prosecutor and his top detectives decided to take a hard look at rob's personal relationships, starting with his wife of 27 years, susan

kirschenbaum, seen here in happier times. >> it's sergeant love. >> reporter: sgt. cecelia love was the case detective. >> what was going on in their lives at this time, susan and rob? >> well, they were living separately. um, they had -- still had a relationship, because they had the -- you know, the two daughters together. >> they were divorcing? >> yes. and you know, they were -- 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 -- his wife -- or his ex-wife. >> reporter: not only that, rob's friends told investigators that he had a younger lady in his life. a french woman named sophie meneut who lived across the river in manhattan. >> was this divorce because of the other woman? >> no, it definitely wasn't because of the other woman.

they had been talking about divorce before, uh, sophie. >> reporter: the detectives had a lot of questions for the women in rob's life. >> coming up -- >> she was crying. guys, get in here!

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>> reporter: after rob cantor's murder, investigators searched for a link between his death and two other arson homicides in bergen county. they couldn't find one. so detectives intensified their focus on those who'd been closest to rob. >> was this high priority? >> absolutely. we interviewed the friends and family members. >> lots of people to talk to? >> yes. >> reporter: at the top of the list were the two women in rob's life. his lover sophie menuet and his estranged wife, susan kirschenbaum seen here in a facebook photo. >> 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. >> reporter: still, the detective says, rob's estranged wife seemed devastated by his death . according to susan, she'd been at home and on the phone with a friend on the night of the

murder. >> nothing really led us to believe that she had any involvement in this. >> reporter: over in manhattan, detective love met with the other woman in rob's life, sophie meneut. >> 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. >> reporter: sophie told the detective that 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. >> reporter: the french born sophie was 40, 19 years younger than rob. they'd been seeing each other for more than a year, she said and had a lot in common. running, philosophy and science. but there was one problem. sophie was married when they met and raising three daughters, ages 5 to 10, with her husband, tony tung. >> sophie was living a bit of a secret life? >> initially, yes. but it wasn't too long before it -- you know, it all came out. >> reporter: sandra milon, a close friend of sophie's husband, was living in france when she heard about the affair. >> i was sad. you know, my friend was really going through a terrible time and i was so far away.

>> reporter: sandra met tony tung when she was living in new york back in the 80's. she says when tony first met sophie, he fell hard. >> they were a beautiful couple. i was very happy for them and i was very happy for tony. and then sophie being french, so that was great. >> reporter: when contacted by investigators, sandra told them all she knew. sophie had the career, an important job in finance with an international firm. tony stayed home with the kids. he served as president of the pta at their school. >> did tony share with you the joys of being a dad? >> yeah, 'cause we talked about it all the time. he was so much full of love for his girls and since he was the one raising them, he was there 100% of the time. >> he's mr. mom? >> yeah. >> reporter: once the girls were older, tony wanted to work, too. so, with sophie's financial help, he opened a computer store. hopes were high, but business was bad. and sandra says when tony learned sophie was having an

affair, his world fell apart. >> he was really, really hurt. but trying to do his best for the girls, as always. >> reporter: the couple soon went their separate ways. but when rob cantor was killed a year later investigators came to see tony. >> the reason we're here is because there has been an incident that happened in new jersey. >> okay. >> reporter: the detectives told tony he was just one of several people they were questioning. >> don't take this the wrong way. >> what? >> was your wife cheating on you with rob? >> yeah. >> reporter: tony admitted that he'd been upset when he first learned of the affair, but told detectives he'd moved on. >> tell you if my wife was seeing somebody else i wouldn't be too happy. >> oh no, no. the pain is gone. >> reporter: according to tony, he'd been at home alone the night before. >> i was on facebook, reading email and watched the news. >> reporter: the detectives weren't convinced. but with no smoking gun, no witnesses and no dna, it seemed

unlikely this case would be solved in a matter of days, or even weeks. 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. >> reporter: first they hired a private investigator. then they petitioned the governor. when that didn't work, they picketed outside the bergen county courthouse. one of rob's co-workers spoke for the group. >> they keep telling us, 'give them time' or 'don't interfere.' we hired our own world class private detective. they said he's not doing a good job. then, who is doing it? everything we do, they say don't do it. we are so frustrated. >> was it moving slowly, as they claimed? >> well, i'm sure for them it was moving slowly. but you know, every investigation's different. >> reporter: in fact, this investigation was a lot further along than the protestors knew. coming up --

a suspect, but no evidence! >> you had no video, you had no receipts, you had no witnesses. >> you're right, we didn't. >> reporter: then, a break. those eerie emails. could the sender be the killer? i had a heart problem. i was told to begin my aspirin regimen, and i just didn't listen. until i almost lost my life. my doctors again ordered me to take aspirin, and i do. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. listen to the doctor. take it seriously.

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>> reporter: for more than a year rob cantor's friends had >> reporter: for more than a year rob cantor's friends had been telling detectives that rob's murder was related to his affair with a married woman. the woman's husband, tony tung. they said was the jealous type. a man who'd actually come to teaneck to confront rob. >> he had made visits to rob cantor at his home to talk about this relationship and ask him to end it.

>> reporter: this is tony tung. he admits he did some foolish things in the wake of his wife's affair, but insists murder wasn't one of them. he says he was surprised investigators suspected him. >> did you tell them everything? >> yeah. i mean, why would i lie about stuff like that? i didn't do anything wrong. >> reporter: according to tony, he only went to rob's home to put a face with the name. >> that's a bold move. >> i want to know who the person is. >> so you ring -- ring the doorbell. >> yeah. i say, you know, "my name is tony. i'm sophie's husband. can i come in and talk to you?" he was like, "okay. yeah, sure." so i walked in. >> what do you two talk about? >> first we, like, small talk. just family stuff. >> this sounds crazy. >> no one would believe it. >> reporter: as awkward as it sounds, tony says, the two men actually found common ground. >> you're talking about cooking

as well? >> little bit. i made a comment about his stove. we had a lot in common. we both like foods. obviously, we both love sophie. >> reporter: for several hours, tony says the conversation was mostly light chit chat. but in a strange turn, tony asked to see the basement bedroom where rob and sophie had sex. >> 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 an affair with my wife. might as well see the rest of it. >> reporter: what could you gain by seeing that room? >> i guess, in a way, how he treat her. i remember, i was a little upset. >> reporter: that it was a room in the basement? >> yeah. it was like this like, you took sophie down here? what the hell's wrong with you? you can't go to a hotel? >> reporter: how angry are you when you leave? >> i was like, "well, i'd like you to stop seeing my wife." >> reporter: what did he say? >> he said, "i can't answer you

right now." >> reporter: remarkable, right? but get this, tony says he went back two more times. >> and third time was like, you know, this is pointless. >> and he's still letting you in? >> no, that time we were on the patio. he actually was like, "no, tony, why don't you just call me?" >> you're becoming a regular visitor at your -- your wife's lover's house. >> well, he was more worried -- i think his wife is still living there. >> i mean, this sounds all very cordial. >> it is cordial. >> reporter: tony insists that was the last time he saw rob. that was a year before the murder. >> where are you that night? >> i went home. >> you're just hanging out at home? >> yeah. >> doing what? >> watch tv, reading, wash dishes, clean the computers. >> reporter: for months investigators searched for evidence that tony had crossed the river from his home in manhattan to new jersey that night. they checked cameras at all the bridge and tunnel crossings.

they poured over bus schedules, taxi and limo records. but in the end, they came up empty. >> you had no bridge video, you had no taxi receipts, you had no witnesses. you had nothing actually physically placing tony tung in teaneck. >> you're right. we didn't have him at the george washington bridge. we didn't. >> reporter: still, the investigators kept digging. remember those anonymous emails that had been sent to rob, suggesting that he was being watched? turns out they all traced back to tony tung. >> he created all of these on the same day, which was the same day that he learned about the affair. >> he used these email addresses to start contacting mr. cantor at some level just try to shame him into stop having an affair with his wife. >> reporter: that wasn't all. a close look at tony's computer indicated a massive amount of data had been destroyed on the night rob cantor died.

>> what mr. tung was doing, less than three hours after the murder, was obliterating data. he was doing the digital equivalent of lighting it on fire. >> reporter: that seemed more than coincidental. so in may 2012, 14 months after the murder of rob cantor, the bergen county prosecutor decided it was time to arrest tony tung. >> i answer the door in my boxers, and my tee shirt. detective yank me out of there. gun to my temples. slam me against the wall. what the heck? >> you're mr. mom. and now you're accused of murder. >> yeah. and burning the house down. >> reporter: in the fall of 2015, tony tung finally went on trial for murder. rob cantor had been dead for nearly five years by then. given that prosecutors still no physical evidence connecting tony to the crime, getting a conviction looked to be an uphill battle.

coming up -- >> reporter: and on the stand, a star witness. >> they told me there was a fire! when "dateline" continues. pe 2 , are you thinking about your heart? well, i'm managing my a1c, so i should be all set. right. actually, you're still at risk for a fatal heart attack or stroke. even if i'm taking heart medicine, like statins or blood thinners? yep! that's why i asked my doctor what else i could do... she told me about jardiance. that's right. jardiance significantly reduces the risk of dying from a cardiovascular event for adults who have type 2 diabetes and known heart disease. that's why the american diabetes association recommends the active ingredient in jardiance. and it lowers a1c? yeah- with diet and exercise. jardiance can cause serious side effects

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>> reporter: in october 2015, the rob cantor murder case went to trial. almost every day for the next two months, rob's friends and family would be there. tony's friend sandra milon, who now lives in france couldn't come to new jersey to support him. did you follow the trial? were you able to over the internet? >> i was able to. yes, a little bit. >> reporter: for sandra, the man she read about online accounts, bore no resemblance to the person she'd known for 30 years. did you think for a second that, "oh, my gosh. maybe i don't know tony as well as i think"? >> no, no. because um -- tony knew also that -- doing something stupid, as in going to kill this man, then what? then you end up in jail for the rest of your life and is it really worth it? i mean -- what mattered for him

was his girls. >> reporter: veteran prosecutor wayne mello, who was chosen to try the case obviously saw it differently. >> this case was about perhaps the oldest motive in the world, in this case she and he done him wrong. >> reporter: according to the prosecutor, tony's rage, simmered until one event finally set him off on march 6th, 2011, that day was the day tony learned that sophie had introduced one of his daughters to rob. this would be first time that a child of tung had met mommy's friend rob. in a timeline, partially captured by security cameras, tony is seen just after 8:00 pm that night, talking with his daughter, cleo in the lobby her mother's apartment building. >> cleo will tell her father oh, yes i had a lovely day today,

mommy and i went to a museum. i met her friend rob. time is now 8:20 p.m. >> reporter: almost two hours pass before tony is seen again. mr. tung, is seen on video parking his car at 10:10 pm. we see him on that video walk from his car to his residence. then about 20 minutes later security cameras again catch a glimpse of tony. >> you will see him walk to his car. you will see him enter his car. you will see him spend perhaps two minutes in the car. you will see him walk to the corner. not his corner. he's not going back home, he's going to teaneck. >> reporter: according to police, 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. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: the prosecutor argued that tony had plenty of time to make the 13 mile trip to teaneck and return in time to start destroying computer files. >> just hours later, as that body has been recovered from the embers of a horrible arson, mr. tung just happens to be feverishly erasing 170,000 bits of information on his computer. >> reporter: in spite of that the prosecutor said a critical piece of evidence was found on tony's email account.

in november of 2010, just months before the murder, tony had emailed a friend in texas asking for help getting an ammo magazine for a .380 caliber handgun. >> state your name for the record and spell your last name. >> reporter: though the friend never sent the magazine, the prosecutor says the email was significant. >> mr. tung 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? >> reporter: though the murder weapon was never recovered, the prosecutor says this video seems to show tony exiting his car that night with something in his right hand. >> something was taken from that car. that something i suggest to you -- is the gun. >> reporter: in one of the most anticipated moments of the trial, the state then called the woman at the center of it all,

tony's now ex-wife sophie menuet. >> please state your name for the record and spell your last name. >> sophie meneut. >> reporter: perhaps no one in the packed courtroom listened more intently to sophie's story than susan kirschenbaum, rob's wife at the time of his affair with sophie. >> where were you born? >> in paris. >> reporter: according to sophie her marriage to tony was already in trouble when she met rob cantor at a science lecture in the fall of 2009. i was wearing a t-shirt that had paris marathon so rob said "oh, you run." and he said "oh, i run too" and we started talking about that. >> reporter: as the weeks passed their friendship turned into something more. >> i knew that he had feelings for me and i started to develop feelings for him as well. >> reporter: sophie said, it was on valentines day weekend, 2010, that the relationship became intimate at rob's home in teaneck.

>> 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. >> reporter: a few days after that sophie says she learned that tony had hacked her private email account and knew everything. >> did mr. tung 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 the basement.

>> reporter: days later, sophie says tony told her he was going go to chinatown and buy 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. >> reporter: a year later the prosecutor argued, tony used that gun to end sophie's relationship with 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. tung's wife. >> reporter: for her part, sophie says she learned of rob's death the next day, when she got to work. >> there were voice messages on my voicemail and emails from rob's friends.

they told me that there had been a fire in rob's house and that he was dead. >> reporter: it was in that moment, perhaps, that the two women in rob cantor's life, two women who had never before met, bonded. when court adjourned that day, susan embraced her husband's lover. >> it was an emotional moment, because they really had never met before in person. and i think it was just validation that they both, you know, were on the same page. >> reporter: in closing, prosecutor wayne mello, returned to one theme he had pounded hardest during the trial. >> this murder could have happened no other way other than the murderer is seated before you. >> reporter: it was now the defense's turn to argue that for

all the theory and conjecture, the prosecution had really proved nothing. >> reporter: coming up -- the stranger near the crime scene. >> i saw an older gentleman with a red cap. >> reporter: had police overlooked clues? >> they just let it slide because they got their man! >> reporter: a powerful final moment -- the verdict! who got an awful skin condition. with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis, you feel like you're itching all the time. and you never know how your skin will look. because deep within your skin an overly sensitive immune system could be the cause. so help heal your skin from within, with dupixent. dupixent is not a steroid, and it continuously treats your eczema even when you can't see it. at 16 weeks, nearly four times more patients taking dupixent saw clear or almost clear skin compared to those not taking it,

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>> reporter: 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 a true one, either. >> 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 teaneck -- >> no. no. >> reporter: for sandra milon, the prosecution's theory that tony murdered his wife's lover out of jealousy, made no sense. >> sometimes in crimes of passion, it's -- you don't really think it through. you're angry. >> well, crime of passion when you're angry, that happens right then, doesn't it? does it really happen over a year later when things are working out?

>> reporter: turns out, that was the same argument, tony tung's attorney, robert kalish made to the jury. why, he asked, would tony kill rob a year after rob had shown him the bed where he had sex with his wife? >> 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. >> reporter: according to kalish, investigators never seriously considered the possibility that someone else may have wanted rob cantor dead. >> tony was the only suspect. >> reporter: another potential suspect, kalish said was the stranger that had been spotted near the cantor home shortly before the fire. charles johnston was the neighbor who reported the man to police. >> i saw an older gentleman approximately 65-70 year old white male with a red cap on and white hair. >> was it someone from the neighborhood? >> no. >> reporter: bergen county detectives never followed up on

that, kalish argued because they only had eyes for tony. >> they just let it slide. let it slide because they got their man. >> reporter: on the night of the murder, kalish said, tony was at home alone watching an "indiana jones" marathon on tv. as for the late night destruction of all those computer files. kalish says that was just an unfortunate coincidence. >> it's just -- just -- normal that he decided to -- to do -- to do it at that time. >> what time did he delete the material? >> it's -- i believe it started about two something in the morning and then ran for about 5 hours. >> so we're talking about two hours after the fire started. >> yeah. >> it looks bad. >> oh, sure. that's -- that's why mr. mello and the prosecutor's office have a case. >> reporter: equally bad for the defense was the evidence that months before the murder tony had tried to get a friend to buy him a magazine for a .380 handgun.

>> why do you need to ask a friend in texas for that? >> it's like -- it's a conversation starter. he's in texas. >> a conversation starter? "i need a 380"? >> no, it's something else. like, "oh yeah, by the way. you're in -- you're from texas. aren't these things a little cheaper over there? >> it just looks bad that you're asking a friend -- >> i understand that. yeah. >> -- for a 380 caliber magazine, and a 380 is used to kill rob cantor. >> but i didn't kill rob cantor. >> did you show sophie a gun? >> yeah, i did. yeah. i s -- i was holding it for somebody. >> reporter: according to the defense, the business about the magazine amounted to nothing first, tony's friend never followed through. and second, there was not a shred of evidence that tony was in new jersey on the night rob was killed. >> how can you prove that a man committed a murder in new jersey when you cannot even prove that he was in new jersey? >> reporter: in closing, kalish

urged the jurors to ignore the prosecution's circumstantial theories and emotional appeals. >> what we have to do --to follow, to follow through on what's right and not what comes out of here, but what comes out of here. >> reporter: after a trial that lasted two months, the jury spent several days deliberating. for former prosecutor john molinelli, it was a tense time. >> did you worry as the jury was deliberating? they had some questions, they wanted to hear some things again. did you worry that they couldn't visualize him perhaps in teaneck? >> i would never admit this while i was the prosecutor, but i can admit it now, yes, i was worried. >> reporter: on the fourth day of deliberations, the jury sent a message to the judge. they'd reached a decision. >> has the jury agreed upon a verdict? >> yes, your honor. >> is it unanimous? >> yes, your honor. >> your verdict is? >> guilty.

>> reporter: it was an emotional moment of relief for rob cantor's widow and daughters. it was a moment that tony tung says he never expected. >> you hear the word "guilty" on murder -- >> unbelievable. unbelievable. >> reporter: though tony never took the stand during his trial, at his sentencing, two months later, he spoke publicly for the first time. i'm really for sorry what happened to robert cantor and especially to the two daughters of rob. coming from a father of three daughters, i could tell them that i didn't kill their father. >> reporter: as expected, no one on the cantor side of the courtroom was buying it. susan, rob's widow, spoke for the family. >> i think what the defendant leaves is a legacy of darkness and destruction, vengeance and cruelty.

>> reporter: one of rob's colleague's also addressed the judge. >> please, please, please make sure he never sees the light of a day. >> reporter: when all was said and done, that is exactly what the judge decided to do. mr. tung, if you could please rise. as to count one murder, this court sentences you to life imprisonment. the no early release act will apply. >> reporter: tony tung faced his fate alone that day. his daughters, now living in europe with their mother, were not there to say goodbye or shed a tear. but rob cantor's daughters were. >> tony tung mercilessly executed robert cantor and forever changed the lives of so many people. and for that he has to pay a price, which is to say, he has

now forfeited his life. and that's justice. >> that's all for now. thanks for joining us. all of a sudden i realized, what's going on? why are they late? something definitely was wrong. he said, your family was in an accident. and my whole world just dropped out from underneath me. >> the scene told the story. >> what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. >> a deadly crash on a dark road. two gone, one barely alive. a tragic accident. but look closer.