It was a noise he couldn’t fuggetabout.
The trial of a New Jersey tech boss accused of murdering his brother and his sibling’s family took a “Sopranos”-like turn Wednesday as a key witness testified he heard gunshots and immediately thought, “Someone just got whacked.”
Dennis Corpora, an optician and neighbor of Keith Caneiro — who was allegedly slaughtered at his Colts Neck mansion by his brother Paul Caneiro — said he awoke to the sound of five sharp booms on Nov. 20, 2018.
“I remember listening to hear if I heard any screaming,” Corpora told the jury in a thick Jersey accent. “I went back to rest my eyes and I said to myself something happened at this exact time.”
He took a screenshot on his phone to mark the ominous moment but couldn’t get back to sleep, he said.
“I woke up, I heard the shots and I said to myself someone just got whacked,” he testified in Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold. “Those are the words I said to myself. Those exact words.”
He then called 911 to report the gunfire — dramatic audio that was played to the jury Wednesday.
“Do we allow hunting in the middle of the night?” he first asks the 911 dispatcher, to which she responds no.
When she inquired about how many gunshots were fired, he counted aloud — “Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun” — before she concluded it was five.
“I don’t want anyone else getting shot,” Corpora told her before hanging up, according to the audio.
Corpora said he later phoned the emergency line again to ask about what the commotion ended up being.
“I called them back again because it was bothering me. I just knew something happened. I had that feeling that something happened,” he said.
On the second call he was inexplicably told by a dispatcher, “It was unfounded. They didn’t find anything.”
During his testimony, Corpora said he sometimes heard gunshots in Colt’s Neck — possibly from hunters — “but they were not like this.”
He said he didn’t see anything, and could only hear the gunfire.
Caneiro is facing murder charges for allegedly gunning down his business-partner younger brother Keith, 50, fatally shooting Keith’s wife Jennifer, 45, and stabbing to death their children, 11-year-old Jesse and 8-year-old Sophia.
The alleged murders came just hours after Keith confronted his brother for stealing tens thousands of dollars from his trust.
Caneiro has pleaded not guilty.
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