Brazilian au pair Ana Elisa Toledo made certain in the early hours of Dec. 13, 2005, that her former boyfriend knew their relationship was over.
In fact, she told her former lover, Martin Novotny, she was seeing another man.
“That got me extremely angry,” Novotny told a Denver jury on Wednesday.
“I grabbed her by the arm and said she can’t be serious, this can’t be the end,” said Novotny, a Czech citizen and former au pair.
When Toledo added that she had been seeing both her new boyfriend and Novotny at the same time in November, Novotny said he slapped Toledo and she slapped back.
They began fighting, pulling each other’s hair and scratching – and then Novotny said everything faded into “blackness.”
The next thing he knew, Novotny testified, he was driving from the Denver home where Toledo was living and caring for two children. He said he felt cold.
Hours later, Novotny turned himself in to Denver police, telling them he had killed his girlfriend. During a 45-minute confession, he told Denver Detective Shane Webster that he stabbed Toledo “many, many times.”
Pressed by his own attorney, Jay Grant, on whether he could remember the stabbings, Novotny said Wednesday he couldn’t – only the blackness.
On Tuesday, Dr. James Wahe from the Denver coroner’s office said Toledo’s death was unusually violent, with the assailant repeatedly thrusting the knife in and around Toledo’s right eye. In 14 years of doing autopsies, Wahe said, there was only one other occasion when the killer had stabbed the victim in the eye.
Toledo was stabbed 74 times.
The couple had been dating and traveling extensively together for about 14 months prior to the Dec. 13 stabbing.
Novotny is on trial for first-degree murder. Prosecutors say he deliberately plotted the murder over several weeks. His lawyers claim Novotny acted in the heat of passion.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
