Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom, children, family dog MURDERED

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

A mom, her three children, and the family dog are found butchered in their Florida home. Husband and father Anthony Todt confesses to the killing, but now he is blaming his wife. He says she commits suicide. Why?Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Willcott - Judge and trial attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com  Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, Beverly Hills, www.drbethanymarshall.com Cloyd Steiger - 36 years with the Seattle Police Department, 22-year Homicide Detective, Author of "Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer: Gary Gene Grant" www.cloydsteiger.com  Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author of "Blood Beneath My Feet." Expert Guest on "Poisonous Liaisons," True Crime Network Nicole Partin - Crime Online Investigative Reporter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Four people and the family dog murdered. Why? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. And in an ironic twist, the killer now blames the dead mommy for all the murder and mayhem. What? What, mommy wanted to poison and kill the dog too? I'm not buying it.

Let's kick it off with our friend Ashley Afonso at Fox 61. The owner of Family Physical Therapy, Tony Tott, his wife and their three young children and dog have not been seen or heard from in weeks. My staff realized that something's amiss and they followed him, followed the online stuff and said he's really missing. A Facebook page created over a week ago by family and friends of the family of five looking for answers in their disappearance. They say the Tott family had recently moved to Celebration, Florida from Colchester, but say that Tony had traveled back and forth to continue to run his Colchester business. The community still waiting for many answers to the questions about a family that was loved by so many in this community. Over the years

in town, he always seemed very generous, helpful. They were always doing things for the community. I know around Christmas, they were taking a collection for a family in need. Really nice guy. Really nice guy. Beautiful wife, three children, Alex, Tyler, and Zoe, between 4 and 13 years old. Even the family pet not spared by the killer. But why? And I don't know if you guys have been to Celebration. I have been there. And after this case went specifically to the crime scene, it seems like it's something out of a Disney. Well, actually, it is. is a disney suburb let's talk about that let me introduce our awesome panel today judge trial lawyer court tv

anchor ashley wilcott at su wilcott.com and mom of a teen dr bethany marsh Marshall psychoanalyst joining us from Rodeo Drive Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us from Beverly Hills Cloyd Steiger 36 years Seattle PD 22 on homicide author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer Gary Jean Grant at cloydsteiger.com

Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and star of a brand new show on True Crime Network, Poisonous Liaisons. Joe Scott, this is in the shadow of Disney, not far from Epcot, right? Yes, it is. It's just right off a property, Nancy, actually. And that's what makes this all the more bizarre. What's it referred to as like one of those that you would think that you would find four bodies in a house. You know, when I went down there after the entire family was found wiped out, Cloyd Steiger, CloydSteiger.com, Cloyd, it was really eerie because it's, I want to say a cookie cutter community, but the homes are so big and pretty with green yards and trees and tons of Disney stickers on all the cars.

I suspect that some of those big, beautiful houses are timeshares where people have timeshares so they can go spend time at Disney. Right, Cloyd? And you don't expect to have a quadruple homicide at Disney. Yeah, that's right. But you know, all the time you never know what goes on inside the doors of those idyllic neighborhoods. I mean, every place has problems. But it is shocking that it would happen there, and you're probably right. Those are probably mostly vacation rentals, Airbnbs, and things like that. You know, Ashley Wilcott, I was talking the other day about the Lori Loughlin sentencing scandal and sentence in the college scandal.

And I was saying, why can't rich people be happy? I mean, they've got it all between those two. They had one hundred million dollars net worth. And now that I want to compare that to this beautiful family, wife, three children, family, dog, business, great business in two multiple locations. Why is the whole family dead? I mean, when you hear about a story like this, you have to wonder why, but the sheer enormity of a crime scene like this is overwhelming. Do you remember the Fulton County Courthouse shooting? My friend Al Dixon, we tried cases together, helped process that scene.

I think it was four days he was there at the courthouse trying to process a mass murder. That's hard, Ashley, and it leads to all sorts of problems at trial. You know what, Nancy, it is hard, and you're right, because then do you, at trial, you have to deal with all the different pieces of evidence, the different victims. But let me suggest this, you know, when you do have a crime scene with that many victims, I would suggest that there's a higher likelihood of finding some kind of evidence to link the killer to the bodies. And the reason is because there's more opportunity for mistakes, quote-unquote, by the killer. There's more opportunity to find DNA, to find the weapon. So I do think when there are more victims in a bigger crime scene, it's a lot more work. It's a lot more tedious. It's harder to try the case.

But you may have the good fortune of getting some evidence to actually find the killer. The other thing I have to mention, Nancy, and I know that the other guest just mentioned it, and just to reiterate, it does not matter if people have money or not. Money doesn't buy happiness. Well, I'd like to think it might buy me happiness if I had it, but I will say that those with money are not necessarily happier. And there could be other reasons why those with money or somebody in a nice home like this end up dead. Yeah, I don't really get it. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining me out of Beverly Hills at drbethanymarshall.com. What really struck me at the beginning, you've got a wife, a whole family, wiped out the baby Zoe, just four years old.

But the family dog, who would go to the trouble of killing the family dog? Well, that's a good question. Killing the family dog is either overkill, like methamphetamine, somebody who is crazed when they enter the household, somebody who is engaged in a crime of opportunity. They go in to steal things. The dog starts to attack them. They try to take out the dog. Then they're afraid that the family members can ID them, so they take out the family members. But although with that theory, it doesn't make sense because the smallest child is just a toddler. I always think about the role of envy and homicide. This was a neighborhood near

the happiest place on earth. Was this family envied? Were they resented? Did somebody resent them? Was somebody stalking the mother? Had somebody fallen in love with the mother? So many motivations for homicide in this case. Take a listen to the county sheriff, Russ Gibson. On January 13, 2020, Osceola County Sheriff's deputies responded to 2002 reserve place in celebration to assist federal agents from the Department of Health and Human Services in serving a federal arrest warrant for Anthony Tote. Anthony Tote's date of birth is September 29, 1975. Deputies made contact with Anthony in the home along with federal agents and he was

immediately detained. A safety check of the home was conducted where deputies discovered four deceased individuals inside. The home was immediately secured and a search warrant was obtained by our detectives. Detectives and forensic investigators began their investigation and crime scene processing. The medical examiner's office also responded to the scene and an autopsy was done the following day. The reports of the autopsy determined that the cause of death of the four decedents inside the home to be homicide.

Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about an entire family wiped out. Mom, Megan, son, Alex, Tyler, and little girl, Zoe his wife, found dead, murdered all the children. First of all, I want you to take a listen to this. We're still waiting on positive identification of the four deceased persons recovered in the home by the medical examiner's office. But based on our investigation and the suspect's statements, we strongly believe that they are that of Megan, Alec, Tyler, and Zoe.

Based on the initial investigation to include the suspect's statements, the deaths have been determined to have occurred sometime towards the end of December. Throughout the course of this investigation, our agency has been in close communication with the family of the victims. Guys, I want to go straight out to Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics. The family had been there locked inside that high end home at the shadows of Disney in celebration for some time before they were discovered. What problems does that present for the medical examiner? Because here we got a real problem because now the dad, Anthony Tote is saying that his wife is the real killer,

that she murdered the children. I believe he says with Benadryl. Yeah. He talked about that. He talked about the use of Benadryl. Yeah, he talked about that. He talked about the use of Benadryl, which, you know, the actual name of this stuff is diphenhydramine, and it's in tons of stuff. Sleeping aid, for instance. He even talked about Tylenol PM, which also contains Benadryl that makes this really, or diphenhydramine, makes this really groggy. So what he's saying is

she knocked the kids out and then proceeded to brutally, and I mean brutally, Nancy, obviously these crime scene images, stab them to death. And she winds up dead herself. So it's kind of thin. What really is key here, though, and what can help investigators, is the fact that all of these bodies are actually contained in the same location. And if we were to believe what we're hearing, he wrapped these bodies as well.

They were all wrapped and covered in blankets. So that kind of preserves this scene. It's not like it's a wild, frenzied scene all over the house. They're contained in this one spot, which can actually help. Take a listen to Sheriff Russ Gibson describing the homicide counts. Anthony has cooperated with the investigation and he has confessed to killing his wife, Megan Tote, 42 years of age, whose date of birth is January 28th, 1977, and her three children. Alec Tote, 13 years of age, born September 26, 2006.

Tyler Tote, 11 years of age born july 23rd 2015 anthony also killed their family dog breezy anthony has been arrested on a warrant obtained by our detectives today for multiple counts of homicide and one count of felony animal cruelty. I don't understand the dog part. I don't understand any of it. Now, here is the dichotomy. To you, Dr. Bethany Marshall, you're the psychoanalyst. He gives a full confession. He's caught dead in the water.

He was this close to getting arrested on white collar crime, fraud. What he had was some type of a rehab, a set, a string of rehab clinics. So you get an injury, say you twist your ankle or you have knee surgery, you go to rehab and you get X amount of rehabs under your insurance. He was fraudulently, fraudulently claiming that he had customers coming in, enhancing their claims to make more money. OK, although it seems like the clinics were doing fairly well. Quit paying any of his bills, had eviction notices, the works, his monetary world was falling in on him by his own doing. But what I don't understand after giving a full confession, he now claims he turns the tables on his wife, claiming she's the killer. How can that be? You give a full confession,

then you change your mind? Because he's not thinking, Nancy. Somebody who's going to defraud an insurance company is somebody who is not very aware that they could be caught. They're not aware of how transparent they are and how thin, as Joe Scott Morgan said, the whole story is he wrote a letter to his dad saying that his wife gave the kids, I think it was a Benadryl pie, pudding pie. A tainted dessert, a Tylenol PM pie that she separated the children, then woke them up at 1130 at night and stabbed and suffocated each one. So the way he describes it using the word pie, it's a word that we use for like a fun dessert that you give children or something that you do on a Friday night when you're, you know, making popcorn, watching a movie with your kids,

and you follow up with pie or pudding or something like that. He uses kind of a jolly word to describe a very grim situation, which tells me that this is a man who has no feelings, very cold blooded. He can't learn from his mistakes. He can't see ahead to what's going to happen to him. He lacks big picture thinking, cause and effect thinking. So he thinks he can do and say whatever he wants and nothing bad is going to happen to him. I would imagine he thought that nothing would come of this confession, just like nothing would come of killing his children or,

or defrauding an insurance company. This is a man that doesn't imagine that he's going to be held accountable for any of his crimes. And not only killing them, Cloyd Steiger joining me, you can find it at cloydsteiger.com. Letting their bodies lie in the Celebration Home for all that time while they decompose. The decomposing bodies of 4-year-old Zoe, 11-year-old Tyler, 13-year-old Alex, and wife Megan. And, of course, the dog Breezy.

How do you do that? How do you just leave them in there to rot like that? Well, it's certainly not something you think someone who came across his family already murdered would do. They'd be panicked. They'd call 911 upon discovering the bodies. And you've got to wonder, because that had distinct eye heaven, so you've got to wonder what was going on in this guy's brain.

Was he just so disassociated? I don't know. But, you know, it's kind of a psycho thing, keeping his family with him like the movie Psycho with the Mother. I don't know. I mean, it's just, it's bizarre. I mean, I've seen it happen before. You have? Yeah. I keep dead bodies in the house for a long time because they don't know what to do with them, you know, and the smell, people can smell it from the front yard so and i'm sure this case was pretty strong people were probably smelling stuff thinking it was a dead animal in the area but i

don't know as she will cut judge and trial lawyer anchor court tv at ashywillcott.com remember jody arias who murdered her lover travis alexander stabbed him 28 to 29 times there were so many stabs we were never really sure how many times she stabbed him and shot him in the head she leaves his naked decomposing body in the shower stall and takes off across the desert literally to hook up with another new boyfriend never another thought about his body decomposing in the shower and this is after like an all-day sex marathon. She finds out he's taking another woman on a trip to Cancun and goes, okay, that's that, bam. It's over. And leaves him to

rot. There's something about that callous attitude towards somebody you claim to love. You're just going to let their naked body be found rotting in the shower? Well, that's because you can't attribute rational thought to somebody who's going to stab a loved one, right? So we start with that premise. You're

right. You wouldn't believe how many put together beautiful people I see in court come before me when I'm on the bench that you would think have it all together. And then you hear they've done these horrific things or they're convicted of doing these horrific things. And guess what, Nancy? They're not rational. They're criminals. They're not normal in the way they think. You know, you're right. That is my problem. I'm trying to apply logic to an illogical situation, and that doesn't work. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A horrible, brutal, and gruesome death for mom, Megan, son, Alex, just 13. My children are 12. They're going to be 13 soon.

And they're just so full of love and life. I look forward to every minute with them. Tyler, 11, little Zoe, just four, even the family dog, murdered. And now to rub salt in the wound, insult to injury, after confessing to murdering his own family and leaving them to decompose. He is now blaming his wife for mass murder. She can't talk back. Take a listen to our friend at WESH2 News. It's Megan Milato. Listen. In that letter, Anthony Tote writes that his wife poisoned the kids with a dessert, murdered them while they were asleep, and then took her own life.

On page 16 of the letter, dated June 19th, Tote writes, long story short, she gave them Benadryl Tylenol PM pie, separated them, stabbed, and then suffocated each one, claiming that it was his wife, Megan Tote, who killed their three children, Alec, Tyler and Zoe. Also in the letter, Tote goes into detail about how Megan drank a full bottle of family-sized Benadryl, then stabbed herself in the abdomen. He says that's how she died and that she suffered from illnesses, including depression, which, according to him, played a major role in the deaths of his family. Tote continues and touches on why he hasn't come forward with this information. He says he would have called a press conference months ago, but was told by his attorneys that wasn't the appropriate way to handle the case.

Now, according to authorities, Tote has confessed to the murders in the past, and back in February, a grand jury indicted him on four counts of murder and one count of animal cruelty for also allegedly killing the family dog. Long story short, are you kidding me? This is a single-spaced, 18-page document. There's nothing short about this document. And he goes on and on and on about how none of this is his fault. On one page, he even lashes out at the sheriffs.

When they took me into custody, they dropped me down 10 stairs handcuffed behind my back. Boo hoo. Don't care. Don't care that you fell down 10 stairs. What? You fell down and you saw all the dead bodies you left there in the living room? That is why we hold on to someone in custody. Custody, deputy. I had back pain, shoulder pain, bilateral hand wrist pain, and nerve damage.

Really? In your left, in your hand? Then how could you write a 20 page letter whining you know where he's getting all this from his physical therapy stores he had his clinics that he wrote to hell and back and tried to milk the system and got caught talk about wrist pain he's gonna have a lot more than wrist pain with a quadruple homicide coming his way. But what really shocks me is now claiming his wife that he murdered did the deed. Take a listen now to Jeff Wyner, Orlando Sentinel. At the time that these killings took place, he was being about to be charged with insurance fraud, basically double billing insurers and medicaid for services he wasn't providing he was in deep financial distress that facing several liens

and and other um you know other financial burdens so that's kind of the state's theory of what happened here the reason that apparently anthony todd felt compelled to write this letter that was the basis of this story is that he read a a a story by the hartford current which is a sister paper of ours where they interviewed robert todd and discussed you know these theories that the family has about what went wrong here and this is anthony todd's attempt to correct the record he says that the insurance fraud case against him a was you know bs and b was not you know all that serious that he was going to get off, you know, without much penalty and that he wasn't very worried about it. And basically he presents himself as this doting father, you know, and husband to a wife who was very sickly and suffering for a long time. You know, he does blame her for having, you know, according to him, killed their children.

Does it never end with this man? Does it never end? He murders his whole family. Then, wife dead. He blames her. At one point, he even says she stabbed herself in the liver. I mean, I'm just a JD. I need a death investigator. Okay, Joe Scott, I know you're the superstar of poisonous liaisons. Now, that actually makes me want to watch it. A lot of people would say, oh, gross, but not me. Author of Blood Beneath My Feet also makes me want to read it. Joe Scott, he says she stabbed herself in the liver. What is he talking about?

Is that even possible? First of all, where exactly is your liver? Hey, folks will just take their right index finger and find the base of their rib cage on the right side and just go slightly below that. You're right at your liver right there. It's actually where we do core body temperatures on dead bodies at the scene. You know, you're just always full of so much valuable information. I try, Nancy. I try. You know, I've just always full of so much valuable information. I try, Nancy,

I try. You know, I got to tell you something here, though. Give me a break, because they're trying to paint this guy as if he didn't have an awareness of what he was doing. And this terrifies me in this case, because it always seems the more brutal the case is, the more people are going to try to paint somebody as an uncontrolled psycho. Nancy, this guy planned this. There were boxes of empty Benadryl found in a trash can. You had Tylenol PM that's just loaded with diphenhydramine as well. You've got a single area. And then after all is said and done, he takes the time to wrap each one of them in a blanket. This guy knew what he was doing, Nancy.

And he brutalized these people. Yes, I've had people that have actually taken their own lives by stabbing themselves in the abdomen with a knife. But that ain't what happened here. He brutalized his wife after he killed his kids. To add, as I said, insult to heinous injury, murdering his wife and children, then after she's dead, blaming the wife, claiming that it was not the appropriate way to tell the truth. So he gave a long, lengthy confession that I might add coincides with all the physical evidence. But listen to this. Is everybody sitting down? Bethany, especially you, you need to lay down.

Quote, I would have called a press conference months ago, but I was told by my lawyers, who happen to be some of the best in the state, that I just sit in idle making a list of lawsuits for when I get out. crime stories with nancy grace guys we're talking about this guy anthony tote h44 who murders his wife and children and family dog according to a grand jury brutally brutally the crime scene was horrible one of the worst many of these cops have ever seen. But it kind of reminds me of OJ Simpson. Isn't he the one, Jackie, that said I'm 200, I'm what, 200% not guilty or 100? What did he say? Anyway, he says he's quote 10,000% not guilty. Not 100%, but 10,000% not guilty. Now, this is reminding me, this letter, I'm so happy he took the time to write a 20-page document because that's going to be state's

exhibit number one. But he, by far, is not the first person to wipe out the whole family and then blame the wife, the murder victim. Take a listen to our friend at CBS News, Omar Villafranca. I have two beautiful girls that I'm truly blessed with every day. After initially denying involvement in his family's disappearance, Christopher Watts allegedly told investigators his pregnant wife Shanann killed their two daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste. According to a newly unsealed arrest affidavit, Watts claims that moments after he told her he wanted a separation, he observed her on a baby monitor actively strangling their younger daughter while their older daughter was sprawled out on her bed and

blew. He claims he then went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death. It's so wrong. It is so not true. That is the last thing she would have done. If somebody has her, just please bring her back. I need to see everybody. Just days after Watts went on TV pleading for his family's safe return, he allegedly told investigators where to find their bodies on a property owned by the company he worked for. Joseph Scott Morgan, he said he needed to see everybody. Well, he knew how to find them. How did he murder and dispose of the children's and his wife, Shanann's body? Oh, he took them. He took these these precious. Well, what we believe happened, he killed Shanann

in bed, laying next to her. And let's don't forget, Nancy, she was so far along in her pregnancy. She'd been out of town working. She just collapsed in bed. It didn't really take a lot of pressure. Didn't he have sex with her first? Well, some people say that. I don't know that for a fact. But what I do know is.

Yeah, so I believe the sperm in the autopsy report are you. Let's see. I'll go with the medical examiner. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, he took her body, wrapped it up, placed it in the truck, and then allegedly took these two little them at the scene, stuffed their bodies down into these oil containment systems that they had out there, where the chemicals literally began to render their bodies down,

and then took his own wife's body and buried it in a shallow grave in that dirt, that hard dirt out there where she actually gave birth, coffin birth, if you will, to this precious little child, Nico. He brutalized them. And it's not much different than what we're talking about today with Todd. You know, just hearing you say it like that, Joe Scott, just so upsetting. And when they tried to pull the little girls out of the containers, the containers were about that big at the top and the little girls' shoulders were that big. So you had to push them down into the crude oil container and they became de-sleeved.

And I went, what is de-sleeved? Yeah. What is that? Yeah, it's actually, there's actually a chemical that's contained. This is raw petroleum, Nancy. This is not like you go down to the store and you just buy oil for your car. All right? We take things out of this oil, this raw oil like taluene, which is stuff we use to strip metal with, Nancy.

And that's what these little girls were exposed to. So that top layer of skin. Yeah. And it's just they're absolutely their skin, their top level of skin, the epidermis, and down to the dermis, which is a sublayer, begins to peel back, begins to peel back. That's what's de- the sleeving in this. And you know, back, you know, in the top, yeah. In the top of these things, these little holes where he put the bodies in, these are called thief hatches.

I think that's a, an appropriate name because he stole their lives. He took Bella, the oldest little girl, and there's evidence that he actually crammed and jammed her down through this hole because she's got scratches up her back. There were actually there were actually there was actually evidence of hair and skin from her body found in the hinges of this thing. That's how brutal this was. And then blames his pregnant, murdered wife, Shanann. Now, remember, he's blaming her for the murders, even though he says this.

Take a listen to Chris Watts in his own words. I have no idea what's going on. I have no idea what's going on. I'm shaking. Both my kids are blue and they're gone. I'm just like, why is it just... I'm not that person, like, in the street. Hey, notice those long pauses as he's trying to come up with a scenario where Shanann, his dead wife, did the murders. That's when you're trying to think through your lie and to you actually wilcott

judge trial lawyer court tv anchor have you ever seen defendants trying to come up with a lie they're like and then uh then i saw my daughter on the baby monitor i mean she has to think through the story you can't just tell it because he's making it up as he goes. Absolutely. You can often tell when people are lying. But let me suggest this. Even when Chris Watts was first interviewed and saying, oh, this is what's happened and this is terrible. Let me just tell you this. I think once you start doing this long enough, like you have, like I have, like everybody else on the panel has, you start to get a sixth sense. And I have to tell you, when I watched him, I didn't believe him for a minute because of what you just identified. The story starts to change. They get caught up on their words. They're thinking about what to say next. And then they go backwards and then this and then that. Even if

there's subtle nuances, you can tell, in my opinion, that they're not telling the truth then he goes on to give a full confession by the way on audio video so all this is a lie to all of you people out there all you lonely hearts women that think you want to marry chris watts you need to look at his confession and listen to it by the way he's been sentenced so this is all a big lie that Shanann Watts murdered her children and then he murdered her. No, that's a lie. Now, there's someone else that pre-coursed all of these. His name was Neil Entwistle. And I remember it like it was yesterday. Take a listen to Mike Garcia with AP. 27-year-old Rachel Entwistle and nine-month-old Lillian

were found shot to death in their Massachusetts home. We may never know why this happened, but we do know that Rachel and Lillian Rose loved and trusted Neil Entwistle. Prosecutors told the jury that Entwistle stole his father-in-law's.22 caliber handgun and used it to shoot his wife and daughter. He later drove more than 50 miles to return the gun. The following day, he flew to his native England without calling police. The defense told the jury that his wife killed their daughter and then committed suicide. His attorney said Entwistle found his wife and daughter dead of gunshot wounds and returned the gun to his father-in-law's house to protect his wife from the shame of suicide. But I condemn Neil Entwistle for compounding the unspeakable nature

of what he has done by disparaging the memory of his wife and vilifying the entire Matarazzo family by his decisions. Prosecutors say Entwistle was unemployed and deep in debt. They say he was unsatisfied with his sex life and was looking for sex partners online. The prosecution argues those factors led Entwistle to kill his wife and child. It never ends. And now you've got this guy, Anthony Tote, 44, old enough to know better, writing his manifesto. And by the way, at the end, talk about living in a dream world. The boys performed in Nashville in July. I uploaded their performance and recital. If you want to see them, they're amazing. They're dead. You kill them. Rot in hell. That's my message to you, Tote. This is a crime online dot com. It's great reading, but don't believe it.

We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an I Heart podcast.