On December 14, 2019, brothers Aleksander and Tyler Todt performed together at their school’s holiday concert.
Both were gifted young musicians — Aleksander, 13, excelled on the piano and violin, while Tyler, 11, played piano and guitar. That night, they proudly received commendations for their performances, smiling for photos with their instructor as they held trophies and certificates.
It would be the last time anyone saw them alive.
Less than a month later, on January 13, 2020, authorities entered the family’s Florida vacation home in the Disney-developed community of Celebration. Inside, they made a horrifying discovery: the mummified bodies of the two boys were found on a mattress in their parents’ bedroom. Nearby lay their mother, 42-year-old Megan Todt, in the marital bed. Four-year-old Zoe was found at the foot of the bed beneath her mother’s feet.
The family’s patriarch, 50-year-old Anthony Todt, was also there — alive.
The Shocking Discovery
Federal agents with the Department of Health and Human Services had arrived that day to arrest Anthony Todt on federal healthcare fraud charges. They had been unsure whether he was in Florida or Connecticut, where he ran a physical therapy practice.
After several hours of surveillance outside the home, the agents finally saw Todt step onto the porch. They planned to arrest him outside — but before they could act, he went back in, appearing weak and trembling with each step. When the agents received clearance to enter, they had no idea of the horrors awaiting them inside.
Agent Melissa O’Neal later recalled how they knocked, then opened the door after getting no response. From upstairs, they heard faint mumbling. Looking up, they saw Todt standing in only a shirt and underwear, swaying unsteadily.
“He was still mumbling and needing a lot of assistance to get down, but saying don’t touch him because he would fall,” O’Neal said.
When he finally reached the bottom of the stairs, the agents asked where his wife and children were. “He said Megan was upstairs sleeping and even called for her, like she was alive,” O’Neal remembered. When asked about the children, he replied, “I don’t know, I can’t remember if they went to a sleepover last night.”
Agent Michael Phelps stayed with Todt while O’Neal and Agent Jim Nguyen went upstairs to look for Megan and the kids.
“The door to the master bedroom was open,” O’Neal said. “I could see feet — someone was deceased. Then I saw the buttocks of another person.”
Moments later, they identified the victims as Megan, Aleksander, and Tyler. Zoe was missing at first, until agents returned to the bedroom and noticed a small blanket at the foot of the bed. “She’s so little. She’s only three or four,” O’Neal recalled. Zoe’s body was so decomposed it had been overlooked during the initial search.
All four victims were badly decomposed, “black as leather,” O’Neal said. Even the family’s dog, Breezy, was among the dead.
The Murders and Confession
Todt was taken into custody but refused to speak. It wasn’t until the medical examiner’s report was released two months later that investigators learned the cause of death.
According to those reports, Todt had drugged his wife and sons with Benadryl before stabbing them. The boys were stabbed post-mortem, and all three children were likely strangled or suffocated. Their remains were too decomposed to confirm the exact cause.
Todt later confessed to the killings, claiming he was saving his family from an impending apocalypse. Yet he later recanted, pleading not guilty to four counts of murder and insisting that his wife was responsible.
In a letter written from jail and submitted as evidence, Todt claimed that Megan had given the children “Benadryl pudding pie” before killing herself. He said her newfound religious fervor convinced her that she was rescuing her family from the end of the world. He also alleged that he initially confessed only to protect her.
The Financial Collapse Behind the Crime
Investigators and prosecutors pointed to a different motive — money.
At the time of the murders, Todt was drowning in debt and facing a federal fraud investigation. In court filings requesting a public defender, he reported having just $1,500 and debts exceeding $200,000.
A year before the murders, one of his Connecticut offices had been shut down after eviction. In 2019, federal investigators discovered he’d been filing fraudulent insurance claims and had been under investigation since April of that year.
Agents said Todt assured them his wife knew nothing of the probe and promised to cooperate — but never followed through. When months passed without contact, they decided to arrest him in January 2020.
Adding to the family’s strain, the couple had received an eviction notice in December 2019 for a rental property they owned in the same community, just a mile from Walt Disney World.
In the end, a jury found Anthony Todt guilty on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of animal cruelty, bringing a grim conclusion to a case that shattered a once-idyllic family.
