Martin Novotny had a simple explanation for why he killed the women he said he loved so much.
“I think she was cheating on me,” Novotny said during a 45-minute confession played to a Denver jury Thursday.
“I was trying to be a nice guy. She didn’t want me anymore. I just couldn’t imagine her with someone else,” he told Denver Detective Shane Webster.
The person he killed was Brazilian Ana Elisa Toledo, who was working as an au pair, taking care of two young children of a Denver couple.
During opening statements Thursday in Novotny’s first-degree murder trial, prosecutor Verna Carpenter described Toledo as a adventurous young woman who lived life to the fullest.
But in the early hours of Dec. 13, 2005, Carpenter said, Toledo, 24, was no match for her ex- boyfriend, who had plotted her death for weeks.
Although she did her best to fight him off, Novotny stabbed her 74 times, the prosecutor said.
Toledo’s death, Carpenter said, was carefully planned.
Novotny had gone to the home in the 2500 block of Cook Street where Toledo was caring for the children. He was armed with a hunting knife, duct tape and shoelaces. He had dressed in layers of clothes and was wearing gloves. He had already dug a grave for Toledo near Castle Rock.
Asked by Webster how many times he stabbed Toledo, Novotny answered: “Many, many times. Many, many times.”
She had “screamed a little bit,” Novotny said, and he had placed pillows over her face.
Jason Pink, Novotny’s attorney, said the death was a crime of passion. Only hours before, Novotny had gone to Toledo’s website and found that Toledo had posted a picture of another man.
Pink said Novotny gathered all the pictures and mementos of his year-long relationship with Toledo, drove to Castle Rock, dug a shallow hole and put them in “so he wouldn’t have to think of her,” Pink said.
But then he reconsidered. He couldn’t end the relationship without first talking to Toledo, Pink said. He gathered up the mementos and returned to Denver. As he had done in the past, he went to the window well of Toledo’s basement bedroom.
He tapped on the window, she let him in, and they began to talk.
“She said it was over,” Pink said. “He said, ‘Why?’ She said: ‘It’s been over since I lost your baby. Get out!’ He (Novotny) was out of his mind. He plunged that knife into her body. He went berserk,” Pink told the jury.
When it was over, he was horrified. He called police and turned himself in, the defense attorney said.
Pink said Novotny will testify in his own defense and tell the jury “what really happened that night.”
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
