Megan Todt and children.
The slayings were shocking.
On January 13, 2020, authorities found the badly decomposing bodies of a mother, her three children and their dog in the master bedroom of a charming two-story house in the planned community of Celebration, Fla.
Todt had been living with the bodies of his 42-year-old wife, Megan Todt; 13-year-old son, Alek; 11-year-old son, Tyler; 4-year-old daughter, Zoe; and their dog, Breezy, for more than a week, authorities said.
Their bodies were wrapped in blankets, and autopsies later discovered toxic amounts of Benadryl in their systems.
Anthony Todt and children.
Todt was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of animal cruelty. He pleaded not guilty to the crimes.
More than two years later, at the start of his murder trial on Monday at the Osceola County Courthouse in Kissimmee, Assistant State Attorney Danielle Pinnell alleged that Todt told detectives he and Megan had agreed to kill the entire family, theOrlando Sentinel,ClickOrlando.comandWESH2report.
“Everybody needed to die in order to pass over to the other side together because the apocalypse was coming,” Pinnell told jurors, citing Todt’s alleged beliefs, according to theSentinel.
Anthony Todt.Osceola County Sheriff
He started with his youngest child, Zoe, 4.
“The defendant … went into Zoe Todt’s room while she was asleep,” Pinnell said, theSentinelreports. “He took the time to sit with her and then he rolled over on top of her until she suffocated.”
Next, he went to the boys' bedroom, where he allegedly said he suffocated and stabbed Alek, who was sleeping.
After that, he allegedly suffocated and stabbed Tyler, who was sleeping on a couch in the playroom.
“The defendant was more concerned about Tyler Todt because Tyler was the fastest,” Pinnell said. “He was afraid that if something didn’t go the way that he wanted, Tyler would escape.”
When everyone was dead, Pinnell said, he told detectives “he took all of their bodies and placed them all into the master bedroom,” WESH2 reports.
As Pinnell took jurors through what Todt allegedly did to his family on that fateful day, Todt shook his head as he listened, theSentinelreports.
He allegedly said Megan stabbed herself in the abdomen. When she failed to kill herself, he claimed, he suffocated her with a pillow, according to Pinnell.
Todt’s story changed after his arrest, say authorities.
Todt initially confessed to the murders, prosecutors said. Later, he said he wasn’t home when the killings took place.
During the course of the two phone calls in March and April 2020,Todt allegedly implied to his sister that his wife had killed the children before killing herself.
“There were multiple attempts, just so you know, multiple attempts in the last … over a time frame, there’s been attempts,” Todt said,The Dayreports. “Which is why this time I was stuck down here trying to handle things.”
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He then allegedly said his wife downed a bottle of Benadryl before stabbing herself in the stomach.
In recent years, Todt and his family had moved to Celebration from Colchester, Conn., though it’s unclear how long they’d lived in the Disney-developed dream town, which Disney no longer owns. He traveled between the two states while he tried to salvage his beleaguered practice in Connecticut.
Todt was a longtime physical therapist and owner of Family Physical Therapy in Colchester. But court records show that Todt was deep in debt.
Over the years, liens had been placed on a condo the family owned in Celebration, just blocks from their rental home at 202 Reserve Place.
On Dec. 22, the landlord of the family’s condo at Reserve Place filed an eviction notice, serving the family on Dec. 26.
Todt’s trial will continue this week.
source: people.com
