Jurors Heard Anthony Todt's Prior Confession to Killing Family — Then He Testified that His Wife Did It

Anthony Todt was arrested in 2020 at his home in Celebration, Fla., where authorities say he lived for more than a week with the corpses of his wife and children

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A Florida dad accused of killing his wife and three children told jurors Wednesday that he walked into his home to discover the children dead by his wife's hand. But the day before, those same jurors heard a recorded confession in which the alleged murderer, Anthony Todt, 46, admitted committing the crime.

Taking the stand in his defense, Todt waved away the blame placed on him by prosecutors and said his wife's depression drove her to attack the children before she killed herself.

"I came home and my kids were dead, it was the most horrible day of my life," Todt said on the stand in an Osceola County courtroom, reports News13. "What made it even worse is my wife died in front of me also."

In a videotaped confession played in court Tuesday, Todt admitted to the 2019 slayings, which took place in the family's home in Celebration, a planned community developed by Disney outside of Orlando. But in the confession, he placed some blame on his wife, Megan Todt, 42, telling detectives that Megan had been watching videos about how to achieve "salvation" in the face of a future apocalypse, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Todt told detectives that he and Megan had then made a pact to kill the entire family out of love to obtain that purported salvation, Assistant State Attorney Danielle Pinnell said as the trial opened this week, according to the Sentinel, ClickOrlando.com and WESH-TV.

Megan Todt and children.

Jurors learned from Todt's videotaped confession that when he and his wife talked to the children about dying, he claimed the kids responded, "We want to die with you," reports the Sentinel.

The Todts' youngest child, 4-year-old Zoe, was the first to be killed, he told authorities. In the confession, he told detectives that he sat on his daughter's bed for hours before he suffocated her with a pillow by lying on top of it. "I needed to save her soul," he said, according to the newspaper. "I wanted her to be with us."

The recorded interview also captures Todt saying he then stabbed his sons Alek, 13, and Tyler, 11, and suffocated Megan after he says she stabbed herself.

Anthony Todt. Osceola County Sheriff

But in court on Wednesday he gave a different account.

Todt testified that Megan's interest in the afterlife began after she became sick with Lyme disease and then fell into depression after a miscarriage, reports WESH. Returning home in mid-December 2019, he said he was met by Megan, who, he claimed, told him she had killed the kids.

After finding all three children dead, he said that he saw Megan stab herself.

"I wasn't there the night my kids died," he testified, WESH reports. "I felt like a failure. I decided I wanted to be with my family, that I wanted to die, that I deserved to die." He said he responded with several attempts to kill himself.

Authorities alleged that after killing his family and the family's dog, Todt lived with the corpses inside the residence for more than a week. He was arrested on Jan. 13, 2020, when FBI agents and Osceola County deputies showed up at the home to serve a federal warrant for health care fraud charges stemming from his physical therapy business.

Asked about the apparent contradictions between his testimony and recorded statement, Todt says that looking back, he likely was trying to cover for his wife's actions and assume blame himself.

ClickOrlando reports that Todt's attorney asked him directly if he killed his family.

"No," Todt said.

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Todt and his family had moved to Celebration from Colchester, Conn., though it's unclear how long they'd lived in the 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 he 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. On Dec. 22, the landlord of the condo had filed an eviction notice, serving the family on Dec. 26.

Closing arguments in the murder trial began Thursday. Todt is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of animal cruelty.