Guilty Verdict in Nantucket Murder Trial

June 21, 2007 — -- The jury in Nantucket's first murder trial in nearly a quarter century convicted Thomas Toolan III today of first degree murder for brutally stabbing to death his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Lochtefeld in October 2004.

Toolan, 39, and Lochtefeld engaged in a six-week whirlwind romance after they met Labor Day weekend 2004. Lochtefeld ended the relationship three days before her death.

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about one hour Wednesday afternoon and three hours today, the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror reported. Judge Richard F. Coonan sentenced Toolan to life in prison without parole, a sentence that automatically results in an appeal to the state Supreme Judicial Court.

Toolan was also convicted on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

The guilty verdict means that the jury rejected the defense's claims that Toolan, a former vice president at Citigroup, was insane at the time of the murder — the result of chronic drug and alcohol abuse.

At the trial, which began June 8, Toolan's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, argued that Toolan didn't have full cognitive ability when he flew to Nantucket from New York City, bought a knife, went to a cottage Lochtefeld was renting and stabbed her 23 times. Reddington claimed drugs and alcohol combined with Toolan's already fragile mental state had rendered him unable to stop himself from killing Lochtefeld, a 44-year-old entrepreneur.

Reddington also presented evidence that Toolan had frontal lobe damage in his brain that made him impulsive and aggressive, and witnesses for the defense testified he also suffered from dementia, psychosis and depression — all made worse by his alcohol and drug abuse as well as the emotional stress caused by Lochtefeld's rejection.

Reddington pointed to Toolan's troubled past, including his arrest after an attempt to steal a bust from an antiques show in New York. Toolan's lawyer later told a local paper he "had a lot to drink" the night of the arrest. Not long afterward, Toolan was asked to leave his job at Citigroup.