The trial of Anthony Todt, who police allege murdered his wife, three children and the family dog in their Celebration townhome in January 2020 is, after another delay, now scheduled to begin Jan. 24.
The case is set for a status hearing on Dec. 20.
Defense attorneys and the state continue to wrangle over whether a confession he gave in the hospital in the hours and days after his arrest will be admissible during the trial. Additionally, Todt’s defense has noted that finding an impartial jury in the case will take time due to the case’s notoriety.
“This case has been in People Magazine, had national coverage and a lot of local coverage,” Ninth District Public Defender Bob Wesley told Judge Keith Carsten at a pre-Thanksgiving case management hearing. “The jury selection will be longer than the trial.”
Todt, who ran a physical therapy practice in Connecticut — and faced fraud charges there in relation to it — was found by Osceola County Sheriff ’s investigators, who were doing a wellness check when family up north said they hadn’t heard from the family in weeks, and FBI agents who were investigating the fraud case, court documents have shown. They found the family dead, along with Todt, who was in a “state of confusion” about what happened when he confessed, and later said “he expressed suicidal ideation when he told detectives it’s ‘unfortunate’ he was still alive.”
In a motion to suppress the confession, the defense said the responding detective’s reading of Miranda Rights was “wholly inadequate and incomplete.”
In its response motion, the state maintained Todt was read his full Miranda rights in a second interview at the hospital and a third after his discharge, and waived them each time.
At an Oct. 26 hearing, Carsten ruled the prosecution can refer to the killings as murders, and allowed the jury to see photos of the victims’ bodies, despite objections from Todt’s defense team. However, the judge did rule any fraud charges from his business can’t be brought up in Todt’s murder trial.
