Woman Thought She Met Mr. Right. 3 Weeks Later, He Was Accused of Her Brutal Murder By Virginia Chamlee

Elizabeth Lochtefeld was, by all accounts, in the prime of her life. After founding a New York consulting firm early on in her career, she sold her shares in the company and settled in Nantucket, Mass. At 44, she was single, dating and had seemingly found Mr. Right.

However, weeks later, on Oct. 25, 2004, she was found murdered in her home.

A 2004 PEOPLE cover story detailed how Lochtefeld “proudly introduced her handsome new boyfriend,” 37-year-old Thomas Toolan III, to close friends in early October of that year.

Gene Mahon, a photographer who met Toolan that night, told PEOPLE of Lochtefeld: “I could see the love in her eyes. I was happy for her.”

Lochtefeld had met Toolan — a former financial executive based in New York City — the month prior.

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Her friend Sara Boyce, an art gallery owner, told PEOPLE: “She was giddy with excitement. She was saying, ‘He’s so great, he’s so smart, he’s preppy.’ ”

But Lochtefeld began privately expressing reservations to her friends within weeks of their relationship beginning to blossom, telling some that her new beau was already “talking rings,” and she hoped to slow the relationship down a bit.

While neighbors described him as gentle and kind, at least one woman who had dated Toolan years prior told PEOPLE he was “a Jekyll and Hyde,” and could turn in an instant.

By Oct. 22, she had decided to end the relationship, traveling from Nantucket to N.Y.C. to break things off. But she would later tell her brother Peter that Toolan became violent when she broke the news, even attempting to keep her from leaving his apartment.

She managed to slip out of Toolan’s home at 4 a.m. the next day, Oct. 23, while he was sleeping, and headed back to Nantucket, stopping at the police station on the way home to ask about a restraining order.

“She said she had broken up with him and wanted no part of him,” Nantucket police chief William Pittman told PEOPLE at the time. “The officer said she was creeped out by the guy, but also that he could be a sweet guy too.”

Lochtefeld then went to stay with her brother for a couple of days, fearing Toolan might come after her. Toolan, meanwhile, tried to board a flight to Nantucket but was temporarily detained when security found that he had a kitchen knife on him.

Undeterred, the next day he caught another flight, landing in Nantucket and then heading to a boating supply store, where he purchased a 5-inch diving knife.

By then, on Oct. 25, Lochtefeld had left her brother’s house and gone to her own home, where she packed up some of Toolan’s belongings and shipped them from a local mailing center.

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Before she returned home, she told her landlord, Barbara Kotalac, who lived next door, that she planned to pick up her nephew at school at 1 p.m.

Kotalac would later explain that she spoke to a man who appeared to be Toolan, who approached the house. Hours later, she noticed Lochtefeld’s car was still in the driveway after 1 p.m. and, remembering that she had mentioned picking up her nephew, she called Lochtefeld’s brother Peter.

Shortly after, Lochtefeld’s body was found in the house, with a law enforcement source telling PEOPLE there was evidence of a struggle, and blood stains found on the wall inside. She was stabbed nearly two dozen times.

Kotalac, for her part, told PEOPLE: “I didn’t hear a thing. That’s what bothers me the most.”

Several hours later, police arrested Toolan for driving drunk in a rental car on a highway in Rhode Island. Later, he was charged with Lochtefeld’s murder, which was, at the time, the first on the island of Nantucket in more than 20 years.

Lochtefeld, meanwhile, was remembered by friends and family as a woman who had plenty of life left to live before it was tragically cut short.

As her friend Mahon described to PEOPLE, “She was looking forward to her whole life. She was waiting for it to come to her.”

Toolan was sentenced to life without parole for the first-degree murder of Lochtefeld in her cottage following a 2007 trial. However, following that guilty verdict, Toolan’s conviction was reversed on appeal in 2011 by the Supreme Judicial Court, which cited flaws in the jury selection, and a new trial was ordered.

A second trial in 2013 also ended with a guilty verdict, and, following his second appeal in 2022, the Massachusetts state supreme court upheld Toolan’s murder conviction.