NEED TO KNOW
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Anthony Todt, 50, murdered his wife Megan, 42, and their children Aleksander, 13, Tyler, 11, and Zoe, 4, in December 2019
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He then lived with their four bodies for weeks after the murders, and even shared a bed with his dead wife and daughter at the family’s vacation home in Celebration, Fla.
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Todt confessed to the crime but then claimed his wife killed their children. Records suggest he may have been motivated by his own financial ruin and pending federal arrest
On Dec. 14, 2019, brothers Aleksandser and Tyler Todt performed at their school’s holiday concert.
The two were both accomplished musicians despite their young age, and on that night Aleksander, 13, received a commendation for his performance on the piano and violin while his brother Tyler, 11, was awarded for his work on piano and guitar.
Photos taken that evening show the two boys smiling as they hold their certificates and trophies while posing with their music instructor.
It was the last time the two boys would be seen alive.
On Jan. 13, 2020, authorities would enter the family’s Florida vacation home in the Disney-developed community of Celebration and find the mummified bodies of the two boys on a mattress in their parents’ bedroom.
The body of their mother Megan Todt, 42, was found lying in her marital bed and their sister Zoe, 4, was found at the foot of the bed under her mother’s feet.
Also in the house was the family’s patriarch, Anthony Todt, 50, who was very much alive.
Related: Dad Accused of Killing Family in Upscale Celebration Community May Have Lived with Bodies for Weeks
Agents with the Department of Health and Human Services said in interviews obtained by PEOPLE that there had been a plan to arrest Todt on federal charges of healthcare fraud that day.
There was also some concern, said those agents, as to whether or not Todt was in Florida or Connecticut, where he had his physical therapy practice.
The three agents interviewed had been staking out the home for a few hours that day when they finally saw Todt walk out on the porch.
A plan was made to arrest him outside the home but he went back inside before that plan could be carried out, with one of the agents remarking in his interview that Todt was struggling to walk and convulsing with each step.
The agents were then given permission to enter the home, unaware at the time of the horrors they were about to witness.
Agent Melissa O’Neal said they knocked on the door and eventually popped it open when there was no response.
The agents could “hear mumbling from inside the house” once they entered the home, which “sounded like it was from the top of the stairs,” said O’Neal.
All three agents looked up to see Todt in just a shirt and underwear looking down at them from the second floor.
“He was still mumbling and needing a lot of assistance to get down, but saying don’t touch him because he would fall,” O’Neal recalled of Todt.
It took him some time to get down the stairs, and once he did, the agents said that they immediately asked where his wife and three children were given the state of the home and pungent odor.
“He said Megan was upstairs sleeping and he also called for her, like she was alive,” O’Neal recalled in her interview. “We asked where are the children? And he said: ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember if they went to a sleepover last night.'”
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Agent Michael Phelps then stayed with Todt as O’Neal and Agent Jim Nguyen went to go find Megan and the kids.
“We went upstairs to check for Megan and the children because we had called for her too and obviously there was no answer,” O’Neal said.
They noticed the door to the master bedroom was open, and a moment later realized that there were multiple bodies in the room.
“I could see feet, and you could tell it was somebody who was deceased. You could see the buttocks of another person,” O’Neal said.
Soon after, the agents had identified the three people in the room as Megan, Aleksander and Tyler, but there was no sign of Zoe.
Agents searched the entire home before returning to the master bedroom.
“We went back in the master bedroom, and she’s so little. She’s only like three or four. There’s another little blanket at the foot of the bed…,” O’Neal recalled,
Zoe’s body was so badly decomposed that agents could not see her during their first search of the room.
The bodies were all “black as leather,” said O’Neal, who also noted the family’s dog Breezy was among the victims.
Related: Man Accused of Killing Family in Celebration Home Was in Deep Debt, Accused of Defrauding $130,000
Todt was taken into custody but said nothing, forcing authorities to wait for the medical examiner’s report to learn how he murdered his family.
The Orange County Medical Examiner released those reports two months later, which determined that Todt drugged his wife and two sons with Benadryl and then stabbed all three.
Aleksander and Tyler were stabbed post-mortem, according to their autopsies, which also said that the three children were likely strangled or suffocated to death. The bodies were too decomposed to know for sure exactly how Todt killed his children.
Todt initially confessed to the crime, and said he was saving his family from the apocalypse.
He then entered a plea of not guilty to the four murder charges, and placed the blame on his wife.
In a letter written from his jail cell and later entered into evidence by prosecutors, Todt claimed that Megan had killed the children by feeding them “Benadryl pudding pie” while he was not at the house, and then killed herself by drinking a bottle of Benadryl and stabbing herself in the stomach when he returned home.
Todt said that Megan did this due to her a newfound religious fervor which led her to believe she was saving her family from the apocalypse.
He also claimed that he initially confessed to authorities because he was trying to cover up his wife’s actions.
There is a good deal of evidence to suggest, however, that the brutal massacre may have been fueled by Todt’s financial ruin.
In court papers seeking to be declared indigent so he could be appointed a public defender, Todt claimed to have $1,500 and debts totaling $200,000.
He had been evicted from one of his Connecticut offices a year prior to the murders, and in November 2019 learned that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, had been investigating him since April after finding evidence that he had been filing fradulent insurance claims.
Federal agents said that Todt informed them at the time that his wife was unaware of this and assured them he would cooperate with their investigation. When they did not hear from him again, they made the decision to take him into custody in January 2020.
The couple had also received an eviction notice in December 2019 for a rental property they purchased in the same community, which is located just one mile from Walt Disney World.
A jury ultimately found Todt guilty of four counts of first-degree murder as well as animal cruelty.
Read the original article on People
