Anthony Todt trial: Prosecution lays out its case in opening statements

CELEBRATION, Fla. - The trial against Anthony Todt, who is accused of killing his wife, three children, and their family dog in 2019 at their home in Celebration, Florida, started Monday with opening statements, where the prosecution laid out its case.          

Todt and his wife had a death pact in preparation for an upcoming apocalypse, prosecutors told the jury during their opening statement.

"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," one of the prosecutors said, adding that Todt allegedly confessed to the killings while in Osceola County custody.

"Sometime between December 14, 2019, and Christmas in 2019, he went into Zoey Todt’s room while she was asleep. He took the time to sit with her then he rolled over on top of her until she suffocated," the prosecution alleged.

Zoey was 4 ½ years old.

 The assistant state attorney told the jury that Todt also suffocated – then stabbed -- his 13-year-old son, Alexander, his 10-year-old son, Tyler, and his wife. He also allegedly killed the dog by suffocating it.

"He says after everybody was dead, he took all their bodies and put them in the master bedroom," the prosecutor told the jury, adding that he allegedly slept in the same bedroom as the bodies for days before authorities got involved.

Deputies with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office discovered the bodies in late December 2019, after Todt's sister, who lived in Connecticut, reached out to authorities and requested a welfare check.

Deputies testified that they went by the Todt home multiple times and found the house quiet and shades pulled down on all of the windows.

On Ja. 13, 2020, the sister reached out to authorities and requested another welfare check. The sister told police that the family was comparing notes about the famines whereabouts and details were not adding up.

 "Just in conversations with my sister, my sister-in-law was making a comment about…we just kind of put it all together about ummm....basically, the world is ending on the 28th and nobody has talked to them. Nobody physically talked to my sister-in-law since the 26th of December. And my brother has stopped texting as of Monday," Chrissy Kalpet told a 911 dispatcher. 

Todt was outside when deputies arrived the second time, but went inside after seeing the squad cars, deputies testified. They knocked on the door and Todt let them in and instantly smelled a bad odor.

"It was consistent with the smell of a dead body," Deputy Christopher Boos told the court.

Body camera video shown in court showed Todt appearing unsteady as he walked down the stairs to talk with deputies. When asked where his wife was, Todt told the deputies that she was upstairs asleep and proceeded to call her name.

Deputies went to the bedroom and found the bodies of Todt's wife, his children, and dog.

The trial continues Tuesday morning. 

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