28 February 2020 :

State Attorney Aramis Ayala will seek the death penalty against Anthony Todt, the man accused of killing his wife, 3 children, and dog in their Celebration home. Ayala made the announcement during a news conference in front of the Osceola County Courthouse in Kissimmee on Tuesday. She said a grand jury recommended capital murder charges. Todt has been indicted on murder charges in the slayings of Megan Todt, 13-year-old Alek, 11-year-old Tyler, and 4-year-old Zoey. Their bodies were found January 13 on the 200 block of Reserve Place in the Disney-designed community of Celebration. A medical examiner later determined that three of the four bodies had stab wounds; the youngest didn't have any obvious signs of trauma. An official cause of death hasn't been released pending toxicology test results. Todt was under investigation by federal agents for health-care fraud. When Ayala first took office in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, she made waves by publicly denouncing the death penalty. She later created a death penalty review board that works independently on assessing these cases, including the Todt case. Florida law requires all 1st-degree charges to be issued by a grand jury. So a grand jury convened Tuesday and unanimously charged Todt with premeditated murder. The development in the Todt case comes on the heels of Ayala being removed from another high-profile murder case. Prosecution of the persons charged in the Nicole Montalvo case was handed to State Attorney Brad King after a public dispute between Osceola Sheriff Russ Gibson and Gov. Ron DeSantis over the lack of murder charges in that case.