Murder suspect accused of stabbing longtime girlfriend 55 times sobs in court, tells family: ‘I didn’t mean it’

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HAMILTON, Ohio (WXIX) - It's not every day that a murder suspect completely loses his composure and confesses, sobbing, to the crime as his trial gets underway but that's exactly what prosecutors say happened in a Butler County courtroom on Monday.

Toby Madden, 52, is accused of brutally killing his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his child by stabbing her 55 times inside their Hamilton home nearly two years ago.

He's on trial for two counts each of murder and felonious assault the slaying of 50-year-old Rachelle Brewsaugh .

Madden has maintained his innocence and insisted he is not the one who killed his girlfriend for 27 years, court records show.

Before the jury was brought in on Monday morning, however, Madden saw his family including his daughter in the courtroom and sobbed.

Making a stabbing motion with his arm, Madden told his family: "I'm responsible for what happened to her. I didn't mean it. I love you," Butler County Assistant Prosecutor Mike Hon said in court Monday, according to the proceedings captured on camera by Court TV .

Madden also said" "I don't want you to hate me."

Witnesses including a detective who heard and saw this stunning statement, which was recorded in the courtroom and prompted the judge to call a brief recess, will testify about it, Hon said.

"You are going to hear that in this trial," Hon told the jury. "And now my plan is to give my opening statement that I did have prepared and explain to you what he didn't mean to do. And ladies and gentlemen it's 55. That's the number that I want all of you to remember. You're going to hear that number a lot throughout this trial.

"That's the number of times that Toby Madden - that man sitting right there - stabbed Rachelle Brewsaugh on Oct. 11, 2022, and killed her. Fifty-five. He stabbed his girlfriend of over 20 years and the mother of his child 55 times."

She was stabbed in her head, chest, abdomen, upper back, left knee and both sides of her arms, shoulders and hands, according to her autopsy report.

While the state presented its opening statements Monday, Madden's defense attorney did not.

He waived the opportunity, which rarely occurs because it allows the state's evidence to be presented without the defense's perspective.

The prosecutor called Madden's daughter, MacKayla Madden, to the stand.

She testified about her parent's volatile, on-off relationship.

She relayed to the jury what she heard her father say in court earlier that day: "I am sorry. We got into an altercation. I am basically the one who did it. Don't hate me. I love you."

Testimony will pick back up on Tuesday as the state continues to present its case.

Madden was found competent to stand trial in August 2023 but the case has been delayed several times, court records show.

He's complained about and fired his various attorneys, five of whom were court-appointed.

Earlier this month, Madden tried to fire his sixth attorney and delay the trial again by seeking to represent himself.

Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge Jennifer McElfresh already ruled against the same request in January.

Madden's attorney wound up withdrawing the request this time two weeks later it was filed.

There may be extra court security for the trial.

The judge removed Madden from the courtroom in March after he kept yelling despite being told to stop. Deputies then struggled to take him out of the courtroom.

He recently opted to start serving an 11-year prison sentence at a state prison following his conviction of possession of drugs in an unrelated case even though he is appealing it and could have stayed at the Butler County Jail due to his murder trial starting so soon after.

But, court records show Madden also has complained about alleged "issues" at the jail and with the staff.

The Butler County Sheriff's Office caught him with a suitcase of more than 300 grams of methamphetamine in 2021, court records show.

Deputies confiscated the meth but did not arrest Madden in the hopes that he would work with them as a confidential informant and eventually tell them how he obtained the drug, according to a court filing for his appeal.

However, he never contacted them again and they eventually charged him with possessing the drugs.

Madden told Hamilton police when they were investigating his girlfriend's slaying that someone else did it because there was a bounty on his head for the drugs.

He has been incarcerated at the state prison in Chillicothe since June but was recently moved back to the Butler County Jail for this trial.

He had a previous felony conviction of aggravated assault in 1988 and was sentenced to serve 3 to 15 years at a maximum security prison in Mansfield, court records show.