A physical therapist charged with killing his family told investigators that he and his wife had a murder-suicide pact, a prosecutor told a Florida jury during an opening statement of his trial. In his alleged confession, defendant Anthony Todt, 46, was quoted saying that he suffocated his three children and stabbed the two sons. He suffocated the family dog, and also suffocated his wife after she tried to kill herself with a knife, he allegedly said. But as previously reported, he wrote his father a completely different account after the confession. He denied any wrongdoing and asserted it was his wife who planned and carried out the killings.
Law enforcement in Celebration, Florida discovered Todt at his rented home on Jan. 13, 2020 with the bodies of his family in the master bedroom: spouse Megan Todt, 42, their son Alek Todt, 13, son Tyler Todt, 11, and daughter Zoe Todt, 4. There was also the dog Breezy.
The defense is saving their opening statement until later in the trial.
Anthony Todt’s sister, who identified herself on 911 calls as Chrissy Caplet, made welfare calls from out-of-state since late December 2019. These calls were played for the court on Monday. She said that no one had spoken to her sister-in-law Megan since Dec. 26, 2019. Brother Anthony, a physical therapist who worked in Connecticut, flew back to Florida on the previous Nov. 22. He has stopped texting, Caplet said.
“In conversations with my sister–my sister-in-law was making a comment about basically the world ending on [Dec.] 28th,” Caplet said in one of the calls.
Local authorities finally entered the home on Jan. 13, 2020. According to officials, Todt said he had taken Benadryl in a suicide attempt.
Officials said defendant Todt spoke to them that day on Jan. 13, 2020, and also two days later. According to prosecutor Danielle Pinnell in opening statements on Monday, Todt some time between Dec. 14, 2020 and Christmas of that year went into his daughter Zoe’s bedroom, sat with her, and then rolled on top of her until she suffocated.
He then went to the bedroom that Alek and Tyler shared, Pinnell said. Alek was in the room. The accused killer suffocated and stabbed the boy in the abdomen, according to the confession described by Pinnell.
Pinnell said jurors would hear evidence that Todt worried about Tyler, the fastest of the victims, escaping. But Tyler was sleeping on a sofa bed in a downstairs playroom. Todt suffocated the younger boy, and also stabbed him in the abdomen, according to the confession.
Then there was Megan.
“The defendant also in his interview talks about Megan Todt,” Pinnell said. “And the defendant in his interview says that Megan Todt and himself had an agreement that everybody needed to die in order to pass over to the other side together because the apocalypse was coming.”
Anthony Todt allegedly said that Megan stabbed herself and failed to kill herself, so he suffocated her to death with a pillow.
Todt also suffocated Breezy to death, according to this confession. He allegedly said he put all of the bodies in the master bedroom, where he stayed until law enforcement found them.
Todt allegedly confessed his guilt to detectives on Jan. 13 and 15, 2020. But he wrote a letter dated June 19, 2020 to his estranged father, claiming that Megan, who suffered from different illnesses including depression, fed the kids pie laced with “Benadryl/Tylenol,” and stabbed and suffocated them, according to the document obtained by The Orlando Sentinel.
Defendant Todt asserted he was “10000% INNOCENT of all these preposterous charges,” and said he wanted to “correct all inaccuracies” from the media outlets, which he dubbed “the creative writing machine.” He claimed deputies wanted to “score a big win” by arresting him.
Todt said he planned on filing lawsuits when he gets out of custody, and he voiced plans on stating a nonprofit organization in his family’s memory.
[Screenshot of defendant Todt shortly after his arrest on Jan. 15, 2020 via Stephanie Bechara]
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