Man charged with slaying family in Celebration says wife killed kids, self

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – A man charged with killing his family at their Florida home has claimed that his wife is the one who killed their three children and then herself.

Anthony Todt, 44, made the claim in a 27-page letter written from the Osceola County Jail and dated June 19 to his father in Massachusetts, the Orlando Sentinel reported Monday. Todt has been in jail since his January arrest. Prosecutors had copied the letter as evidence and released it to the newspaper in response to a public records request.

Todt claimed in the letter that his wife, Megan, put 13-year-old Alek, 11-year-old Tyler and 4-year-old Zoe to sleep with a dessert tainted with Benadryl and then stabbed and suffocated the children. He said he learned of the deaths after returning home from doing maintenance at a nearby condo they owned.

“At the news of this I ran to the bathroom and puked -- I was weak,” Todt wrote.

Todt said his wife was still alive when he got home and confessed to killing the children before drinking a bottle of Benadryl and stabbing herself in the stomach.

The bodies were found Jan. 13, when federal agents and deputies went to the house to serve an arrest warrant for health care fraud charges in Connecticut. Todt had a physical therapy practice in Connecticut to which he would travel during the work week, returning to Florida to be with his family on weekends at their home in Celebration near Walt Disney World.

Todt said he barely remembers the weeks between the slayings and his arrest.

Prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty for Todt, who has been indicted on four counts of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty. Defense attorneys have not spoken publicly about the claim that Todt’s wife was the real killer.