CSI Nantucket: Jury Sees Chilling Crime Scene Video

June 13, 2007 — -- A silent video of slain Manhattan executive Elizabeth Lochtefeld's body lying facedown on the floor of her Nantucket cottage was shown to the jury Tuesday during the trial of her former boyfriend, ex-Citigroup bank executive Thomas Toolan III.

The video also panned to a bedroom, where jurors saw a bloody mattress beside a nightstand where a blood-speckled book called "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" was chillingly visible.

Later Tuesday, three law enforcement officials testified that on Oct. 24, 2004, the day before the murder, Toolan tried to board a flight to Nantucket, the exclusive island off the coast of Massachusetts, carrying a 10-inch knife wrapped in a rag.

The law enforcement officials testified that Toolan alternately explained that he had forgotten he had the knife, that he needed it for a fishing trip, that he needed it for a family dinner and finally, that he needed to bring it to Nantucket to cut a birthday cake. All three testified that they had smelled alcohol on Toolan's breath. The knife triggered an alert during passenger screening, according to testimony.

The previous week Lochtefeld allegedly told Toolan she wanted to end things. He refused to let her leave his Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan, police said, so she reportedly slipped out at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning after he had fallen asleep. She headed to Nantucket, where she was renting a cottage.

Toolan was unable to board the Sunday flight to Nantucket after the knife was confiscated, according to testimony. Police say he boarded a flight to the island the following day, rented a car and purchased a four-inch fishing knife with an orange handle, which has never been found.

Turkey, Fish, Birthday Cake

Port Authority patrol Officer Frank Pulizzi said on the stand Tuesday that he had given Toolan a summons and confiscated the 10-inch knife.

"He apologized for having a knife," Pulizzi told prosecutor Brian Glenny. "He said his sister was having a turkey. … Possibly had had a few drinks. I could smell alcohol on his breath."

Port Authority police Sgt. Lorenzo Tyner, a 21-year veteran, also testified that he had been called to New York's La Guardia airport terminal C.

"I observed a knife — silver with [a] black handle and a blue rag," Tyner said, explaining that Toolan told him that he was "having lunch with his sister in Nantucket and she wanted him to bring a knife. I explained I didn't believe his story."

"'Look, I screwed up. I shouldn't have had the knife,'" Tyner quoted Toolan as responding.

Then-Transportation Security Administration supervisor Van Anthony Johnson testified that he was called to the scene as well, and also said he was skeptical of Toolan's answers to his questions.

"I asked why he had a knife? He made two statements. To cut a birthday cake. And, he was going fishing and [to] use it to clean the fish."

"In your capacity as a supervisor and trained TSA agent," Toolan's defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked Johnson during cross-examination, then repeated Johnson's recent testimony, "his eyes were glassy, speech was slurred, he was unsteady on his feet and he had an odor of alcohol."

"Taking all that together, impaired by alcohol, bringing a 10-inch knife on a plane 'to cut a birthday cake' — you didn't buy that?"

"No."

Reddington vigorously challenged the law enforcement officials over the fact that no police report had been written up on the knife.

"Three days later it was apparent this was a big deal," Reddington said to Johnson. "Mr. Toolan was charged with murder, and it was state police calling you about a guy with a knife who tried to bring a knife on an airplane."

"You still didn't prepare a report?"

"No," Johnson testified.

Also Tuesday, Lochtefeld's friend Leslie Costello testified that Lochtefeld was initially smitten with Toolan and that she talked of marriage and children with him. The families of both Toolan and Lochtefeld, as has been their practice, sat separately in court and watched with rapt attention as the day's testimony unfolded.

'Just Pulling a Prank'

Thomas Toolan III, now 46, grew up near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. His two parents founded a Montessori school. Toolan reportedly graduated in 1991 from Columbia University in New York.

He was arrested at an antiques show in 2001 at the Seventh Regiment Armory in Manhattan after New York City police said he tried to walk off with a 60-pound, $80,000 marble bust of a Roman aristocrat under his coat.

Toolan reportedly told a security guard who stopped him that he was "just pulling a prank." His attorney at the time told the New York Daily News that Toolan "had a lot to drink" that night. He eventually pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. A short time later, he was asked to leave his job as a vice president at Citigroup.

Elizabeth Lochtefeld grew up in Peekskill, N.Y., and spent summers during her childhood on Nantucket, where her father, John, is an artist and art gallery owner. She graduated from Notre Dame, traveled and taught English in Japan.

She moved to New York and began a consulting firm called Code NYC, which assisted architects and construction project managers trying to navigate the Byzantine city building rules and regulations. The business was sold for about $1.5 million, her brother said.