The Dateline episode “The Fire Inside” investigates a 2011 house fire in Teaneck, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City. Inside the house on Elm Avenue, the man who lived alone in the house, Robert Cantor, 59, was found dead in the basement. He died from a gunshot wound and then was set on fire. Seven months earlier in 2010, another Teaneck resident, 74-year-old Joan Davis, was found slain in her house after an arson fire. And just months before Davis’ murder, 69-year-old Dolores Alliotts was stabbed to death and set on fire in her home in nearby Palisades Park. There was a theory in the media that the murders were the work of a serial killer. But the murder of Cantor proved to be personal and motivated by jealousy.
While the murders of Davis and Alliotts remain unsolved, in 2015 Sui Kam “Tony” Tung, 52, was convicted of murdering Cantor — who was the boyfriend of Tung’s estranged wife Sophie Meneut. Three days prior to Cantor’s murder, Meneut served Tung with divorce papers. In 2016, Tung was sentenced to life plus 10 years in jail. The additional 10 years “was for setting fire to the body, destroying the Cantor family’s home and its decades of memories, and desecrating Cantor’s body.” Dateline airs Fridays at 10pm on NBC.
