Anthony Todt: ‘I don’t remember anything’
Murder suspect talked to relative from jail
Anthony Todt, the physical therapist accused of killing his family and dog inside their Celebration home in December, said in a phone call from jail that he’s missing weeks of memory around the time of the killings.
Todt was charged with four counts of first-degree murder of wife Megan and three children: 13-year-old Alek, 11-year-old Tyler and 4-year-old Zoe. Todt also faces a charge of animal cruelty for killing family dog, Breezy.
But in a phone call from jail made late February and released Monday by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office, Todt told a relative — a woman he refers to as “Cheesepuff ” — that he doesn’t remember “anything.”
“I don’t remember anything over Christmas and pretty much the first week I got here,” Todt is heard saying on the call.” “I don’t
remember coming here. I don’t remember anything.”
Throughout most of the 15-minute call, Todt and the woman discuss sorting through his belongings, including a car he said could be passed off to a younger relative.
He also mentions a silver Mickey Mouse necklace that belonged to his daughter Zoe, which he said he was trying to find “the night everything happened.” The girl wanted the necklace “for reasons you’ll find out later,” he said.
“I couldn’t find it in the jewelry box. I ended up falling asleep, and let’s just leave it at that,” Todt said. “I was supposed to wake up at 11, 11:30, and didn’t wake up until the next morning.”
Federal authorities were initially interested in Todt for an investigation regarding a fraud scheme in which they said he regularly billed insurers and Medicaid for treatments he never provided to patients at his Connecticut practice, Family Physical Therapy.
Todt confessed after federal agents confronted him in November. At first cooperative, Todt eventually stopped communicating with the feds.
Extended family members grew concerned about the family when they stopped hearing from them before Christmas. Deputies checked on the house in late December and found nothing suspicious.
When authorities went to the home to arrest Todt in the fraud case Jan. 13, they found the bodies decomposing inside. Investigators believe the killings happened sometime in late December and have said Todt confessed to the killings.
That confession has not been made public.
“I have no idea what I told investigators,” Todt said on the jail call.
Also among the records released Monday were interviews of three federal agents involved in trying to arrest Todt.
The three special agents for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General said they went to Todts’ home on Reserve Place early Jan. 13, hoping to find him after he and his family had been missing for weeks.
After watching the family’s home for about an hour, noting it was “completely black, all the blinds, all the shutters were shut,” Todt walked out onto the home’s front porch and sat down, one agent said.
However, the agent thought Todt looked right at him, so he asked another agent to switch spots with him, but continue to keep eyes on Todt.
Soon after, that agent said Todt got up and “very shakily” walked back into his house, still shaking and “kind-of convulsing,” the agent said. The federal agents called in Osceola County deputies as backup and, after knocking without response, opened the unlocked front door.
They initially got no response, but then the agents said they heard mumbling coming from upstairs and saw Todt standing at the top of the stairs, only in a t-shirt and underwear, according to their interviews.
The agents said he struggled to walk down the stairs, taking one step at a time and holding on to the railing. They asked about his wife, who he said was sleeping upstairs, then called out for her, without response.
They then asked about the children.
“He said, ‘Oh I don’t know, I can’t remember if they went to a sleepover last night,’” said Special Agent Melissa O’Neal.
When he neared the bottom of the stairs, O’Neal and a deputy went upstairs where they immediately saw three bodies in the master bedroom, who were “as black as this leather,” O’Neal said.
The investigators could not immediately find Zoe’s body, and asked Todt twice about the whereabouts of his daughter, but he did not answer coherently.
Agents searched closets and bathrooms, the garage apartment and the home’s freezer and refrigerator. Eventually, she was found at the foot of the bed wrapped in blankets, so small that they had missed her, they said.
“Just not what I was expecting,” Special Agent Michael Phelps said at the end of his interview.
Autopsies showed the family were killed by “unspecified violence” combined with overdoses of Benadryl. Stab wounds were found on Megan Todt’s body and those of the two boys. Crime scene photos also released Monday showed that the two boys were found with Christian prayer beads.
The photos also show that several empty packages of Benadryl and a generic equivalent were found in a trash bin outside the house.
In the jail call, Todt’s voice broke as he insisted he loved his wife.
“Just so you know, I couldn’t take the love out of loving her. I wanted you to know,” he said.