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A man recently found guilty of murdering his wife, their three young children and the family dog inside a Florida rental home more than two years ago has already appealed the convictions this week.
Prosecutors said 46-year-old Anthony Todt had been living with the corpses inside the home in the Disney-designed community of Celebration, outside of Orlando, Florida, for at least a week when FBI and Osceola County deputies showed up at the residence on Jan. 13, 2020.
Law enforcement came to serve federal search warrants related to an unrelated case of alleged health care fraud for Todt’s Connecticut-based physical therapy practice. Todt's out-of-state family had also called local authorities seeking a welfare check after not being able to contact them.
Anthony Todt testifies during his trial at the Osceola County Courthouse in Kissimmee, Florida, April 13, 2022. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel via AP)
Inside, deputies and federal agents found the bodies of Todt’s high school sweetheart wife, 42-year-old Megan Todt, their children Alek, 13, Tyler, 11, and Zoe, 4, as well as the family’s dog, Breezy.
After a brief trial and quick jury deliberation earlier this month, Todt was convicted on April 14, 2022, on all five counts: four counts of first-degree murder and one count of animal cruelty.
At his sentencing hearing, a judge described him as a "destroyer of worlds" before slapping him with four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, Fox 35 Orlando reported at the time.
This week, Fox 35 reported that court documents show Todt has already appealed the conviction and sentence in Fifth District Court. Todt had pleaded not guilty to all five counts.
During the trial, prosecutors played out a video confession of Todt telling law enforcement that he and his wife had plotted to kill themselves and their children before an upcoming apocalypse to "reach salvation," the Orlando Sun Sentinel reported. He claimed they worked together to kill their kids through suffocation and stabbing. But taking the stand himself, Todt told jurors his wife’s chronic illness and depression drove her to killing their children when he was not home that night. Coming home to find their children dead, Todt claimed that he witnessed his wife then stab herself to death.
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Oxygen reported that Todt’s father was convicted of arranging to have his mother killed. Robert Todt paid a teenager with learning disabilities to carry out a hit on his wife. The woman survived the shooting but lost an eye. The younger Todt was just 4 years old at the time of the attack.
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