Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Disney Family of Five Disappears, Cops Smell Stench at Luxury Condo, Gun Purchase?

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Anthony and Megan Todt meet in college, marrying shortly after graduation. The couple opens a practice together in Colchester, Connecticut. When the couple welcomes children Aleksander, Tyler, and Zoe, Megan stays home fulltime to care for them. In 2019, the family moves to Florida, just miles away from Disney World. Anthony Todt  continues working in Connecticut, travelling back to Florida for family weekends.  Anthony Todt struggles to support his family in Florida.  He loses his lease on the Connecticut Physical Therapy Office, and is in default on several loans. Todt begins charging insurance for care patients did not receive. By December, the feds discover Todt’s fraudulent activity. The father claims his family has no idea of his crimes and he will cooperate fully to keep it that way. Todt stops communicating with authorities, and in January, they have a warrant for his arrest. Investigators stake out the Todts’ seemingly vacant Florida home. Mail is piled on the porch and an eviction notice is taped to the door. The feds are leaving when Todt walks outside, stumbling and convulsing. They miss their chance to arrest Todt before he returns inside, but worried about his health, officers push open the front door to a horrible stench. Todt tells officers his wife is sleeping and he doesn’t know where his children are. Investigators find Megan, Aleksander, Tyler, Zoe, and the family dog badly decomposing in the Todts’bedroom. Investigators find Aleksander and Tyler on a mattress in the Todts’ bedroom, next to the bed, where Megan is covered with a blanket. Officers search the whole house for Zoe, before realizing her badly decomposed body is under a blanket at her mom’s feet. The bodies were ‘black as leather’ and an autopsy could not determine exactly how the victims died. All of the victims were drugged with Benadryl and had stab wounds. The children’s wounds we wereinflicted post-mortem, and the medical examiner says they were likely suffocated.  Todt initially confesses to the killings, saying both he and Megan were concerned about the possible 2020 apocalypse, and wanted to make sure their family died together and without pain. Todt claims the parents came up with a plan to drug, then kill the children and then themselves. At trial, Todt claims he made that confession out of a desire to protect his wife, claiming she actually killed the children while he was away, and killed herself in front of him after confessing what she had done.   Joining Nancy Grace today:  Cheryln Cadle - Author of “Suffer the Little Children: Into the Hands of Evil” and "The Murders of Christopher Watts” and “The Many Faces of Christopher Watts: A 5-year Update”, website: www.cherylncadle.com Caryn Stark - Forensic Psychologist,   www.carynstark.com, Instagram: carynpsych, FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", Instagram @JoScottForensic Sydney Sumner -  Investigative Reporter, ‘Crime Stories’  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Nancy Grace. The so-called Disney family vanishes into thin air, and then L.E. Law Enforcement smells a stench at their luxury Disney condo. Tonight, a gun purchase and jailhouse letters. I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. I want to thank you for being with us. The Toad family, a seemingly loving family of five with their dog, celebrates the holidays and travels to their Florida home, unaware of what's to come. Shate add to crime stories investigative reporter, Sydney Sumner.

They're called the Disney family, the Disney dad, the Disney mom, the Disney kids. Why? Is it because they live in celebration and they seem to have a fixation on Disney? They go all the time? Yes, that is exactly why. This family moved from Connecticut to Celebration, Florida. And this is a Disney planned neighborhood. They've divested a lot of their control in this planned neighborhood at this point,

but it is an idealic, perfect neighborhood that is overtly connected to Disney. And this family goes every chance they get to go into the parks for their children. So they've gotten that moniker, Sydney, because they're Disney kids. and they're Disney adults. You know, they have a name. The adults that keep going back to Disney over and over and over. They celebrate their birthdays there, their anniversaries,

they get engaged there, the works. So this is the consummate Disney family. Okay, that's not the whole story. In fact, they love Disney so much, Sydney. They move from where to celebration? It's in the shadow of Disney. Yeah. So they were originally based on the East Coast up in Connecticut.

They had a physical therapy practice there. And in fact, the father actually traveled back to Connecticut on a weekly basis to continue seeing his patients. To Joseph Scott Morgan joining us, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, the author, Blood Beneath My Fate on Amazon, the star of a hit podcast, Body Baggs at Joe Scott Morgan. And Joe Scott, death investigator, it's very rare that an entire family just disappears. Yeah, yeah, it is. And one of the shocking things that occurs is that you have this manifestation of what I refer to as family annihilators. And just imagine this, Nancy, just for an instant. You've got these precious lives here, four, four lives.

that just literally vaporize in just a moment. They had impacts on lives, as you can imagine, that extended far beyond just their familial group. And one moment they're there, you know, you talk about this environment of being around Disney and being engaged with that. The next moment, they're gone, completely gone. And when that happens from an investigative standpoint,

you have a lot of questions. Did they leave one by one? They go as a group. Had they just vanished into that, thin air and driven off somewhere. And unfortunately, many times when you have these cases, you wind up learning the worst news possible. And that is, they're all gone. They're all gone together in one house, though. Tell me, Sidney, who is in the family? You heard Joe Scott mentioned four people. Who all is in the family? Anthony and Megan Tote are the parents. And then

we have Alexander, Tyler, and Zoe. Zoe is just four years old. So you've got Alexander, who is 13, and he is a pianist and a violinist. You have Tyler, who is 11, who is the pianist and guitarist. And you have Zoe, who is just four years old, and of course there's Breezy, the Dog, that we keep seeing. So 4, 11, and 13. Then you have mom and dad. Both aspiring physical therapists, Anthony and Megan taught meet in college,

marrying shortly after graduation. The couple opens a practice together in Colchester, Connecticut. When the couple welcomes children, Alexander, Tyler, and Zoe, Megan stays home full time to care for them. In 2019, the family moves to Florida, just miles away from Disney World. Anthony Totte continues working in Connecticut, traveling back to Orlando for family weekends. Sydney Sumner, when did things begin to go wrong? And it all goes to their luxe lifestyle. They have a place you said in Connecticut. They have a place at Disney celebration.

They go to the Disney theme park all the time with a whole. whole family, which is, you know, a couple of thousand of dollars once you take the whole family there. They had an exorbitant lifestyle. Where did it all start unraveling? Absolutely. This family was living beyond their means at this point. I mean, that commute back and forth from Connecticut to Florida, even that would just add up, even if you're not flying just in a car. So this family is relying solely on Anthony Toad's income from this physical therapy practice in Connecticut, for which they have to pay a lease. They're renting their home in celebration with a hefty rent check every single month. Then he's traveling back and forth all of the time, and they're spending all of this

money going to Disney World on a regular basis with their three children. So this really quickly adds up and Tote is struggling to pay those bills. And at some point, he actually starts charging patients insurance for care they did not receive. Between their expensive Disney developed neighborhood, travel back and forth to Connecticut and frequent Disney trips, Anthony Tott struggles to support his family in Florida. Tott loses his lease on the Connecticut Physical Therapy Office and is in default on several loans. TOT begins charging insurance for care patients did not receive. By December, the feds discover Taut's fraudulent activity. The father claims his family has no idea of his crimes, and he will cooperate fully to keep it that way. Taut stops communicating with authorities,

and in January, they have a warrant for his arrest. Joining us is renowned expert, Karen Stark. She is a forensic psychologist, TV radio trauma expert, consultant, and you can find her at Karenstark.com. Karen, thank you for being with us. How does that happen? You know it's happening. You see your credit card bills. You know you can't pay them. You start paying just the interest on the credit card bills.

And pretty soon, you're 50, 60, 80 grand in and you're drowning. But yet you keep doing the same old thing. Nothing changes. Isn't that what the definition of insanity is? You keep doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different outcome? That's a definition of being neurotic. And exactly right, Nancy.

In this case, he's really acting, and it's denial again. He's acting like nothing is going on. He's in over his head, and he doesn't want the family to know it's humiliating. This happens a lot with family annihilators. And so he just keeps pretending that everything's okay until the point where it's all going to go crash him down. Can I ask you about the wife? Because she has the same education that he does. She's very smart, very accomplished.

She is a musician as well. She's an amazing mom. When do you begin to see no evil here? no evil, speak no evil. When do you have no idea what's going on in the family pocketbook? Well, you wonder about that, Nancy, because did you really have no idea? How could that be? I mean, she's living there. She has no access to financial records. She doesn't begin to see that something is going wrong. It's a possibility, but it seems a little unlikely. Maybe she just went along because it was easier to do that and everybody magically hoped it would resolve itself.

But something maybe deep inside of her knew that things were not right. I suspect that very strongly. Well, you know, Karen Stark, you're the psychologist. I get alcohol addiction, drug addiction, because it's a physical, it's an illness. And I've seen people's lives. And I've seen people's live, ruined, completely ruined. They lose their job, their spouse, their children, their home, everything, their credentials, because they're addicted to drugs or alcohol. But I don't get the being addicted to spending money, just way out of your league, that desire to spend money. I know a lawyer, a female lawyer, and she is fantastic as a lawyer. If you open any closet in her home, stuff just falls out, that she orders online.

It's constant. The shopping network, Amazon, you name it. And a lot of the packages have never even been opened. She's addicted to it. The whole basement literally is floor to ceiling. Like there's a little path amongst shelves. floor to ceiling of stuff. Then we hear about people that have gambling addictions.

They can't stop. It's not physical. It's mental porn addictions. Sex addictions. And it goes on and on. I get the drugs and alcohol. But the spending money addiction, I don't get that. When you know that you owe 80 grand for Pete's sake.

I mean, I was looking the other day in an article about tort. spelling who I happen to like very much and reading all the money they owe it's it's staggering how do you get to that point and then you start feeling hopeless like I'm never going to pay it off I'm never going to get out of this hole hey let's turn on the shopping network it's how does it happen it's like any other addiction dancey it really is not different from alcohol or drugs it's really a coping mechanism. It's a way to not deal with your own issues. It's not something you consciously are doing. They're actually shopping to take their mind off of what's really happening without knowing why they had this addiction. So, of course, they would be clothes that have tags on them.

Can't you control your urges like, okay, if you have to shop online, if you have to do it, Why can't you go to T-Mew? I mean, why do you have to spend all that money on, say, a burberry shirt when you can get an $8 shirt? I mean, there's something to it. Why do you have to go to Disney? Why, it's been $2,000? Why can't you go around the corner, have a family walk and go to Chipotle? What's wrong with that?

Don't you achieve the same, that you gratify the same urge? That's what it's about. It's about gratification. and part of it, of course, is look at this wonderful lifestyle I'm living. But when you're talking about an addiction, it doesn't surprise me that your friend has tags on because it's not about the clothes. It's not about what you have. Please put her up.

It's the surge that you can't stop. You have to keep going. I mean, when I see people driving by in a Porsche, I'm like, there goes that car payment. You can have it. Don't want it. I'll stick with my beat up minivan. So I'm trying to figure out what drove them, what demons were driving them to spend all this money. But in her defense, Sidney Sumner, crime stories investigative reporter, isn't it true that she had an ailment?

That's correct. Megan suffered from Lyme disease. And that includes often debilitating symptoms, including severe fatigue, cognitive impairments, like, having a brain fog, issues with memory, joint pain, arthritis, not being able to sleep through the night, nerve pain, sometimes heart issues and dizziness. So we don't know exactly how severe Megan's symptoms were, but if this is something that she was dealing with on a daily basis, I could see how she wouldn't be so concerned with exactly what is coming in and out of a bank account every day, every month. and put it all together, and you've got a roiling, bubbling, witch's brew waiting to boil over, and it does. Hey, come not said, blood. All right?

Yeah, take it down. Stay calm. Children you? I can't know if they don't just sit down. Keep coming down. Yeah. Yeah, you know it. Yeah, like seven to them.

Mm-hmm. You got any weapons on you? What's your wife's name? Megan. Is the name of her fault? Megas? Meg. All right, come on down, buddy.

That silence, when they call out for Megan, that silence is deafening. To Joe Scott Morgan, you see that they are in the home. the home and they've got their weapons drawn probably because they could smell a stench from outside that luxury condo. It ain't cheap living in celebration, right? You ever been down there? I have. Yes, I have. Have you? Yes. I mean, when I took, we've taken the children to Disney, the whole shebang, Disney, Florida, Disney, California. When we were living out there, the Disney cruises, they're not cheap. They're awesome. It's all.

incredible, but we would ask the children the next year, do you want to go to Disney and go, please say no, please say they'd say yes. I have scrapbooks upon scrapbooks upon scrapbooks because it's a magnet for children. It's amazing. And those condos that are in the shadow, literally a stone's throw from Disney, they're amazing. And they come with a hefty price tag. So the steep. The steep. drew the police into that luxury condo. Why? Why the stench? Well, I'm going to tell you. You remember what we were talking about just a second ago?

Where'd they go? What happened to them? Nancy, it had been weeks, weeks since this family had been seen. And just imagine when these police officers made this entry into this environment, it was like they got punched in the gut with smell and the guy coming down the staircase hold on here he'd been living in this environment for this protracted time and that stent originates from one source well actually four or maybe five if you include the family pet it comes from death and death has a smell all of its own it inhabits that space did you know that when those police officers probably left that location after after they began to explore the scene, they would have had to have had all of their clothing laundered sufficiently

because it would attach it to themselves. That smell would be in their hair, any kind of facial hair. And I know this is really grotesque, but that's the reality of what we encounter. Now you do this times four individuals who are now deceased in this location. This individual that's coming down the staircase had indwell this space. He didn't go outside for fresh air. He lived in this space.

You have, and I'll say it plainly, you have decaying remains that he is living adjacent to. Living is kind of an overstatement, existing in this environment, and it's a complete horror show. Back to the Body Camp video that we have obtained. This is what happens when law enforcement smell this horrific smell from outside their Lux condo. the family hasn't been seen officers are responding to a wellness check from relatives and this is what's going on inside

just have a seat you good I got you so have a seat Megan you're forward for me all right your hands forward Megan you want me to get a chair for you to sit down in

what's that hey can you run out there and grab some gloves We still can't find the daughter. What? Where's Zoe? I haven't seen her and she went with you. Oh, no, and it's here. It's sleeping here.

You didn't hear. Check your garage. After arriving at their vacation home in Celebration, Florida, the family goes silent. When police execute a search warrant, they enter the house and discover four mummified bodies and the body of the family dog inside the master's. bedroom. Have a seat. You good? I got you.

Let's have a seat. Megan. You're forward for me, all right? Your hands forward. All right. Megan? You want me to get a chair for you to sit down in? What's that?

Hey, can you run out there and grab some gloves? We still can't find a daughter. What? Where's Zoe? I haven't seen it. She went with you. I don't see it. It's here.

Thank you. Thank you. I have to meet you. You can go back to. Check your God. You haven't seen her. Yes, you've seen her. Did he actually just say,

Sidney Sumner, I haven't seen her. She went with you? And he's talking to the female officer? Right. At this point, Anthony Toe is mumbling. He's giving gibberish answers. He seems to have some mental confusion going on talking to these officers. But he suggests that...

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Mental confusion. Objection. My rear end. Middle confusion. He doesn't want them to know where Zoe H-4 is. He knows darn well where Zoe is. Listen.

Investigators find Alexander and Tyler on a mattress in the Tots bedroom next to the bed where Megan is covered with a blanket. Officer searched the whole house for Zoe. before realizing her badly decomposed body is under a blanket at her mom's feet. The bodies were black as leather, and an autopsy could not determine exactly how the victims died. All of the victims were drugged with Benadryl and had stab wounds. The children's wounds were inflicted post-mortem, and the medical examiner says they were likely suffocated. We listed out all the human victims. The dog was killed, too.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Sydney Sumner, did you actually say that the dad had apparently mental confusion? That is not a legitimate mental diagnosis, Sydney, number one. Did you ever think he didn't want to admit that he killed his four-year-old little girl who had turned black as leather, according to the autopsy? upstairs hidden under a bunch of blankets? Mental confusion? What? Well, of course, Tote is also trying to conceal what he did. But watching this body cam, Nancy, this man, I mean, it's almost a month after authorities say that he killed his entire family. And in his interrogation, Tote goes on

to say he's been trying to kill himself this entire time. trying. Again, another word we love to see referring to suicide. But this man has been living in a home with five dead bodies for a month. And when police burst into this home, their concern was for his health. Toad briefly came out of the home and officers were poised to pounce on him for that fraud activity involving the insurance fraud back in Connecticut. So that's where they were going to make arrest. So, Sidney Sumner, isn't it true that he told officers, this is a yes, no, Sydney, that he tried to kill himself? Yes. Isn't it amazing, Joe Scott Morgan, that he managed to kill his entire family, but not himself? Yeah, it just didn't have the intestinal fortitude,

did he? He thought about it all that time. And let me give you another little slice of reality. here while he was in this house he he literally nancy's not just the smell and listen i'm not trying to discuss anybody here but this is the reality of what we're dealing with here this guy is in dwelling this environment not just with the smell not just with these precious family members that are literally decomposing all around him day after day the flies the flies are lighting on him they're coming off the body they're coming off the dog's carcass they're lighting on him he is completely infested in this environment. As were the police officers that walked in,

they saw the horror of what was going on. I think the big question here is how did he get them to the spot? We've heard a lot about, you know, the stab wounds and everything. Those, you know, those obviously are probably post-mortem. They're actually two knives that are involved in this. You see one here, which is absolutely horrific. The clothing is just despicable. When you see this, a lot of this is as a result of decompositional change.

And this is what all that remains of the family. You talk about the body changes, that kind of dark, leathery-like. That's mummification, kind of a natural mummification that takes in. And, you know, the thing about it, Nancy, is that this guy by trade, I know he's a physical therapist, but at the baseline, he's a scientist. He understands a lot about human anatomy, physiology, he also understands what it's going to take to kill somebody. And he took a cowardly way out.

When I think about the level, the degree that he went to, he gave these people Benadryl, which is diphtromine, to try to OD them on. And you can OD on Benadryl, but I think it was purposed in this case to make them drowsy enough so that he could probably either with his hands or with a pilla, suffocate them. And it's not enough just to do that. Because after they're deceased, he's going to pick up a sharp instrument and drive it through their bodies over and over and over and

over again. You know, it goes back to a statement I make. Nancy, the house of depravity has no freaking basement in it. It is, it is absolutely horrific. I've covered this case for a couple of years now. And it is just absolutely bone chilling. January 13th, investigators stake out the TOT seemingly vacant Florida home. Mail is piled up on the porch and an eviction notice is taped at the door. The feds are leaving when Taut walks outside, stumbling and convulsing. They miss their chance to arrest Taut before he returns inside, but worried about his health, officers push open the front door to a horrible stench.

Taut tells officers his wife is sleeping and he doesn't. know where the children are. Investigators find Megan, Alexander, Tyler, Zoe, and the family dog badly decomposing in the Taut's bedroom. Anthony Tote lives in the home for weeks alongside the decomposing bodies, sleeping beside his dead wife while their children lie on mattresses near her, sending deceptive texts to keep the family members from growing suspicious. December 14th, the Tott family heads to the boys' school for an annual. annual Christmas concert. Alexander, now 13, is an accomplished pianist and a budding violinist. Tyler 11 also plays the piano and is taking folk guitar lessons with his mom. Both boys receive

awards for their performances, photographed beaming with their music instructor. That picture, the last taken of the boys. The family never seen alive again. After the boys' concerts that night, again, never seen alive afterwards. And we heard Sidney Sumner state that the dad, the Disney dad, was having some type of a mental problem, mental confusion. Well, you know what? He knew enough to call the drugs a Benadryl pudding pie that he gave his children. Not only that, he had the wherewithal to blame who else, his wife. Todd claims his wife actually killed the children while he was away and killed herself in front of him after confessing what she had done.

She said the kids were dead. And Joey was my little angel. That's the first one I went to. I was covering for my wife. Obviously unsuccessfully, because as you saw by the video, compared to what they said, I had no clue had my kids died. That from our friends at WKMG. Joining me right now is a very special guest. He has intimate knowledge into the thinking of the so-called Disney Dad family annihilator. It's Sherilyn Cato.

She's the author of Suffer the Little Children into the Hands of Evil. She's the author of The Murders of Christopher Watts. She's the author of The Many Faces of Christopher Watts, five-year update, and you can find her at Sherlyn Catole.com. Sherilyn, thank you for being with us. So he has the wherewithal to blame his wife for the murders. Surprised? Not surprised at all.

As you see on the stand, he's very arrogant, very narcissistic. And, yeah, he never, to this, day he will not say that it was his fault he continues to blame his wife Megan who I think by all accounts was a wonderful mother loved her children would have been in a horror to know what has happened here yeah it's just the kind of story that you want to go shower when you're done reading it or listening to it really you know he is not the The first family annihilator to wipe out the whole family, including his wife, and then when she cannot defend herself, blame the wife.

I guess we all know this story backwards and forwards. Chris Watts, listen to him lying through his teeth. Like I went out. I didn't know. I lost it. Sure. Okay. Is it an animal flame on the ground?

On the bed. I'm obviously. I just cut off. Jessica Morgan, I don't get it. He murders the whole family. He takes them all out. But that's not enough. He then has to denigrate the mother, his wife, and blame it all on her.

Nobody believes that. No, they don't. This guy, you know, look, what a scumbag he is. And you and I've covered this case for a long long time as well. When I think about what was done to Shanan and those precious angels, And let's don't forget the baby that turned out to be a coffin birth as well. All right, we cannot forget him. And when he did this to her remains, it goes to show you how disrespecting this individual was relative to this precious family that he did, in fact, annihilate, Nancy.

So let me ask Sherlyn Cato. In this case, the current case, the case in chief, the Disney family, there was also a disney, discussion that they feared as a family the apocalypse. So they decided to all die together rather than endure the apocalypse? Is that right? Well, again, this is his story. Megan's not here to defend that story. But yes, supposedly she had belief that on December 28th of 2019 that the world was going to end. The only thing that, thing to substantiate that is she had told his Anthony's sister that story on the phone one day, but I think more as a joke than believing it and certainly not to, we've all heard those

kind of stories. We don't kill our families because we think it's going to happen. If we trust in God and believe that he is in heaven and can trust. controls us in that way to help us after eternity. We know that we could be together in heaven anyway, so we don't have to all fill our whole family to be together. So I think it's... Well, you're so right, Cheryl and Cato. And let me stress that the sister to whom you are referring is the defendant, the family annihilators sister, who has stated the family was living in fear of the apocalypse. Well, we've got that call. listen. Hi, I don't know who I need to speak with. I'm curious if I can have a wellness check done.

Let's see how much for the wellness chip? It's 202 reserve place in celebration. I had actually called on December 29th and I had an officer go out because I was concerned. My brother and his family, they had all been sick. But there's actually been more development. just in conversations with my sister, you know, my sister-in-law was making a comment about, we just kind of put it all together, about basically the world ending on the 20th, 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.

So you hear the sister saying, we pieced it all together. In other words, my brother said me this story, and he, He runs with it. Listen. We started to find more about the world just coming to the end, the apocalyptic end, and that a family is never separated and enslaved and it's better to avoid this. So all go together. Okay. You mean that die together?

Died together. That's correct. Okay. So people know why have been chronically ill for a while. really appealed to her. And because it appealed to me also, because she wouldn't be in any pain, found it wouldn't be separated. It would be no more sorrow, no more heartbreaking, no more anything. It would be a salvation in everlasting life. Karen Stark, psychologist, this sounds like they're picking out a new car. Yeah, she had been ill for a while, so this option really appealed to her.

I want the electric windows. I want the leather seats. She loved it. This is all BS. That mother did not kill her own children to avoid some zany apocalypse. What is he saying? And I love the detectives. They're going, yeah, the apocalypse. Keep talking. How is he justifying this? Well, what's interesting, Nancy, is that he is justifying it.

That he's saying, here's this guy that seemed like he was mentally incompetent, confused. and now there's a story that he did nothing. It's always about him. Wait, put her up. What, have you been, he doesn't seem incompetent to Sherlyn Cater. Not at all, that's the point.

At no point does this guy seem incompetent? He's lying. There's a big difference. In fact, didn't he just file a nearly $10 million lawsuit against the jail claiming, they're reading my letters and they're giving them to the media? He

He knows exactly what he's doing, Sherilyn. Absolutely he does. I believe he does. He wrote this 31-page letter to his father, and it's just over and over and over again, you know, praising himself and having to confess this horrible thing that his wife did. And again, you know, that he had no part and that he walked in after it was all done. And he lay with his family for a month of all.

they rot around him. And to me, I'm not a doctor or a psychologist, but to me, the mental state he was in is because he was laying there breathing the disgusting rotting of bodies. His letter, the 31-page letter, practically every sentence starts with me, me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, it's all about me and I. Karen Stark, I don't know if you're drinking. the same Kool-Aid as Sidney Sumner, but he is not mentally confused. He does not have a mental defect. He murdered his whole family and then stayed in the house of them because he didn't know

what to do with their decomposing bodies. That was the point I was trying to make that he may have appeared to be confused, but obviously he knows exactly what he's doing. Over and over again, he takes the blame away from himself. Even with this lawsuit, it's like, oh, the government is the problem. And poor me, it's always poor him. My wife did it. The government is hurting me. He cannot take responsibility.

And he clearly knows what he's doing. Right from the start, he knew what he was doing. Did he have to go back and use a knife after they were all dead? No, that's rage. That's pure rage. We know that. So this guy is very crafty and will continue to take the blame away from himself. She said the kids were dead.

And Joey was my little angel. That's the first one I went to. I was covering for my wife. Obviously, unsuccessfully, because as you saw by the video, compared to what they said, I had no clue had my kids died. Crazy. Crazy like a fault. Crazy like a fox. That from our friends, WKMG. So we're coming up with different things of how we could do this.

We didn't know how we do this. Because we're not violent people. Okay. Not violent people at all. So could they have some cough medicine that I put them to sleep? They go overdose or cough medicine. Just put them in the sleep. Make me advice peaceful death.

Mm-hmm. Okay? So my wife made a pudding pie. Pudding pie. Jove pie? Mm-hmm. Um, for us it, did nothing happen. Cheryl and Catole, help me.

You're the one that wrote the book. You're the one that has conversed with this guy. You know all about him. What is his deal? Who is this guy? Putting pie? It was chocked full of Benadryl to drug the children. Correct.

Uh, he made the pie, obviously. And, um, I do believe, you know, thinking that he was surprising his family with a dessert and to kind of force them to eat most of it. I think when the police got there, I believe that some of that dessert was still sitting around the kitchen. But yeah, who does that? I mean, it's so sad that those four children were eating a pudding pie that he made to kill them and all the while conversing and laughing. with their dad and not realizing what he was doing to them. It's just, it's beyond sad and it's beyond evil and he knew exactly what he was doing.

He planned it. It was all very carefully planned. They had two places there in celebration. They had a condo that they were buying and then they had a house next block over that they were renting for $5,000 a month. and this was a huge house. Beautiful home had an apartment above the garage, I believe, where he could go. And, yeah, that might be the, that's the condo that they owned.

They rented a house. Hey, he kind of trailed off there at the end, Cheryl and Cato. You said he had an apartment over the home where he could go. And what? What? I would be very concerned if my husband has a secret layer. what is he doing in his man cave? I take it he's not just in there watching football on Sundays.

Well, according to him, there would be times that Megan couldn't get comfortable and she was in so much pain and he would leave and go and sleep somewhere else because she was just in too much pain to have him in bed with her. I mean, I don't doubt that maybe she had Lyme's disease and had some problems. Who told you that, Sherilyn? Who told you that, him? I was told that by a close friend of hers, that she was diagnosed with Lyme disease

when she was in, I think, junior high school. No, I'm saying who told you that he would go to his secret layer to help her? Who told you that? I was told that by a close friend of his, a close friend of the families. A close friend of his. Yes.

Okay. Yes. Listen, listen to more. It didn't work. So we kept thinking, thinking, talking, and just research and different things. And finally, you know, we started researching and research, and we said, we're just going to have to do some sort of exangination. Okay. Plead to death.

Okay. That's how they used to do it. We're in the back, but they used to do sacrificial things. You take a plea to death. bleed to death. Oh, bleed to death, sorry. Oh, that is okay. Okay.

And so we started researching where would be the easiest to stab to do when that's, so the kids can bleed to death, maybe in combination with the sleep drunk. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I know I tried. I don't know if I ever punched it. I don't know if I did or not.

I saw a little margar, but I don't know if I saw anything. But then she rolled and started struggling and I put my hand over the mouth and then put a pillow over top of her. So she went to and then she started to fade away. And I just held that until there was no motion left. No way in H.E.L. Here he is talking about his wife, that she's the mastermind behind annihilating the entire family. We were researching where we thought it would be the easiest. to stab the children so they could bleed to death. The mother, I'm telling you, did not do that.

Listen to more of Anthony Tote. We walk in, he's on his back. She's just sitting there holding his feet together, just in there, just eyeing each other, gaining the confidence, I guess. And I go to, I stabbed him. He's starting to kick him. was trying to get out and he kept blowing so I ended up putting a few of those

a pillow there and I put a pill in back of his head so he wouldn't pick me with the back of his head and I reached around with my hand and held his um nose in his mouth and he kept rolling and kicking and roll and kick him and then eventually stopped he is just um brimming with love for his family trying to think of just the right way to murder them including his wife I couldn't help my wife pass. I felt a failure. I wasn't there the night my kids were died. I felt a failure.

I decided that I wanted to be with my family, that I wanted to die, that I deserved to die. I loved my wife. I loved my kids. They were first and foremost in my life. I did not do this. Yes, you did do it. You killed your entire family.

But you couldn't kill yourself. Listen. So then it came to me. Then you made a day or two to make sure everything, everybody passed, make sure the house was all set, and that kind of stuff, then it didn't come. So that's why I did it. I started the dendro. I tried hanging myself,

zip tire around the neck. The only thing that did was here to eat my neck glottis. I couldn't get it on the carotid artery because my neck is too big. I tried to stop hanging over the edge of the dead. I was trying to figure out how to go through and fall in the right direction to get it upward, up into my doing my diaphrags. Really? It irritated his neck when he tried to hang himself.

Sydney Sumner, what about the purchase of a gun? So there's a receipt that proved that Tote purchased a gun five days. days after his family was last seen at that Christmas concert. But it was just a pellet gun. And investigators determined that Tote did shoot himself with this gun twice, but it obviously wasn't fatal. Okay, Sidney, he shot himself with a pellet gun. Okay, so somehow he managed to murder his entire family and the family dog, but he decided

to kill himself with a pellet gun. a pellet gun, and as you can see, he's still very much alive. Sheryl and Cato, you know him. What light can you shed on his personality? What drove him to this? He was just in over his head so much, and I think it meant of a very, this is a common thread that I'm finding with a lot of these family annihilators. They really care what people think of them. They want to, he was very well liked in Connecticut. He had the two physical therapy businesses. He was so well liked by his patients.

They raved about him actually about how much they loved him and they were so beyond shocked when they found out that he did this. And so I think he was just so in over his head. One of his loans was more than $100,000. He had accumulated a half of him million dollars in debt just from taking out different loans, one loan to cover another loan and this loan to cover that loan. And I don't think Megan knew anything about these loans. I think he did this on his own. And then he got in over his head. His credit line dried up and he had nowhere to go.

He started being dishonest with his Medicare billing, Medicare or Medicaid billing. He was he was billing them and when services had not been rendered. So I think for Anthony, he just really cared an awful lot about what people thought of them and just couldn't take it anymore and decided to kill his whole family and at that point maybe to get sympathy from people. I don't know, If you want to kill yourself, you can't do it any other way, take the knife that you killed your family with and slit your own wrists. But he's so narcissistic. And a true narcissist, I don't believe, wants to ever harm themselves.

I think it's all about protecting themselves. And even now, suing from behind bars, citing the FBI regs and the U.S. Postmaster General regulations that once a letter is stamped and sealed, it's under the jurisdiction of the U.S. and cannot be opened by anyone other than its intended target. He's actually suing for $9.9 million, claiming his mail has been open at the jail and leaked to the media. FYI, we're not reading your mail.

Why do family annihilators do what they? do? What drives them? Of course, this state never has to prove motive. But you can't help but wonder why when you think of this family gone forever. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed human.