Suspect in slaying arraigned

NANTUCKET -- Life on Nantucket changed Oct. 25, the day that police say Thomas E. Toolan 3d flew in, rented a car, bought a knife at a local store, and used it to kill Elizabeth Lochtefeld, who had recently ended her six-week relationship with the New York financial analyst.

Since the slaying, the first in 21 years on this island some 30 miles off Cape Cod, year-rounders are calling police more often for troubles ranging from strangers walking on local roads to alarm systems going off in shuttered summer houses, said Police Chief William Pittman.

Arlene Briard, a native who drives a taxi, has seen the changes, too, with more calls from single women requesting rides home.

Before leaving on his latest voyage, Briard's Merchant Marine husband told her to keep the doors locked, the first time he'd made the request in their 10-year relationship. Briard locked them, every night.

"People here from way back when never thought someone would come in our midst and kill someone," she said. "It just never happened."

Toolan, 37, returned to Nantucket yesterday and was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty to first-degree murder.

The murder has had such a significant impact on island life that Toolan's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, said yesterday that he will seek to move the trial off Nantucket because he does not believe that an impartial jury can be found among the 3,800 residents.

"It's a beautiful island, but it is very parochial," Reddington said in an interview after the hearing. "Everyone knows everyone. I wouldn't want to try a case here."

Cape & Islands Assistant District Attorney Brian S. Glenny said his office would oppose Reddington's motion.

The case, which was continued until a pretrial hearing Jan. 25, is expected to go before a grand jury.

Toolan, a former New York bank executive, wore black, tasseled loafers, a dark suit, and a red-striped tie as he walked in shackles from the Police Department to court. Hounded by reporters, he said nothing before, during, or after the hearing.

Lochtefeld's friends and family left the courtroom without comment.

Toolan is accused of traveling to the island and stabbing Lochtefeld to death in her family's condominium.

Lochtefeld, 44, who had told family members she was afraid of Toolan, went to Nantucket two days before her slaying because she was held against her will following a loud argument at Toolan's apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, authorities said. The next day, Toolan was stopped and cited for trying to carry a knife onto a Hyannis-bound flight at LaGuardia Airport, authorities said.

After seizing the knife, security at the airport checked Toolan's criminal history but found nothing warranted his arrest. Toolan missed his flight, but flew to Nantucket the next morning.

Upon his arrival, investigators said, Toolan asked the victim's landlord for Lochtefeld. The landlord then called Lochtefeld's brother, Peter, who called Nantucket police.

A short time later, police found Lochtefeld's body in the condominium. Toolan, who had caught a return flight to Hyannis, was later stopped by a Rhode Island state trooper, who recognized Toolan's rental vehicle from an all-points bulletin issued for the suspect.

Prosecutors declined to say yesterday whether they had recovered the weapon used.

Outside the brick Town Hall in which the island's lone courtroom sits, about 22 people gathered near Vincent's Restaurant to watch Toolan walk to the hearing.

"This doesn't happen every day here," said one man, who declined to give his name.

The police chief said the number of calls his department has received, "everything from suspicious persons to domestic problems to inquiries about protective orders," have increased dramatically since Lochtefeld was killed.

Thankfully, Toolan was arrested quickly, "so the community didn't really have the opportunity to get into that panic state, but they always wonder who's knocking at the door," Pittman said.

"If somebody like that got onto the island and was able to do this to somebody like Beth, how safe are they?"

Some residents blame the media for some of the heightened sense of unease; a story about the killing made the cover of a recent People magazine. But others, like Briard, lament the loss of innocence on the island.

"You read about these things, and even though they're real, they're at a distance," Briard said yesterday after Toolan's arraignment.

"Murder was always something abstract to us. Never did I think that it would touch us like this. Never."