Michelle Troconis (inset) helped cover up the murder of Jennifer Farber Dulos, cops said. (Inset: Law&Crime Network/Pool; New Canaan Police Department; image of Jennifer: New Canaan Police Department)
After almost four years, someone will finally stand trial in the disappearance and presumed murder of Connecticut woman Jennifer Farber Dulos, who was 50 when she went missing. Jurors in Fairfield County must determine whether Michelle Troconis helped then-boyfriend Fotis Dulos, 52, cover up the homicide.
The alleged killer died by suicide
Suspect Dulos, who was Jennifer’s estranged husband, died by suicide ahead of a hearing to reevaluate his collateral for bond.
Kent Mawhinney, who was his friend and a lawyer, is also charged in the alleged murder conspiracy.
Authorities have yet to find Jennifer Dulos’ remains. She went missing from New Canaan, Connecticut, on May 24, 2019. Police say that evidence left behind at her home showed that she was the victim of a violent crime so bad that she is likely dead.
Suspicions fell on her husband, Fotis Dulos, with whom she was in the middle of a tense divorce. Jennifer Dulos asserted that her spouse harbored revenge fantasies against people he believed wronged him. She once claimed that he tried to hit her with a vehicle.
Fotis Dulos denied having anything to do with his estranged wife’s disappearance. He even did a TV interview, saying he was “worried” about her. His defense had considered going with a “Gone Girl” theory that Jennifer had staged her disappearance and framed Fotis for murder. He left a suicide note, maintaining his innocence.
An oft-publicized piece of prosecutorial evidence is surveillance footage showing the husband making multiple stops to throw away garbage on the day of the disappearance. Police said he was discarding evidence throughout Hartford with Troconis’ help. They described finding a garbage bin containing a Vineyard Vines T-shirt stained with her blood, according to The Hartford Courant.
In an argument to relax bond conditions, Troconis attorney Jon Schoenhorn said the surveillance footage didn’t show her participating in throwing away the evidence — only that she was a bystander riding in the vehicle. He has also argued that police misled a judge to obtain the arrest warrant against his client.
Troconis allegedly lied to police about her actions amid the murder
Investigators claim to have discovered an “alibi script” at the apartment that Troconis and Fotis Dulos shared. They suggested she used it to lie to them the first time they spoke. From documents:
These documents came to be referred to by investigators as “The Alibi Script.” The two-page document included two distinct handwriting styles which were later confirmed by Troconis to be her own handwriting and that of Dulos. The Alibi Script was an outline of the activities of Troconis and Dulos for the dates 05/24/19 and 05/25/19 laid out in approximately hourly increments. The original, handwritten Alibi Script was recovered from a trash bin in the Fore Group office [where Dulos worked] and photocopies were in a briefcase. The Alibi Script included a narrative which was nearly identical to the information provided by Troconis in her first interview and it represented an account of 05/24/19 and 05/25/19 which Dulos and Troconis together had authored and which narrative Troconis presented nearly verbatim in her first interview.
“In her second two interviews, Troconis’ account of those dates diverged from the Alibi Script, particularly when confronted with evidence, much of which was unknown to investigators during the first interview,” the arrest warrant continues.
The arrest warrant also highlights several alleged inconsistencies that police claim occurred across her various interviews “and even, sometimes, [during] portions of [the] same interview.”
Substantively, police allege that Troconis initially said she spent the entire morning of May 24 with Dulos — beginning at 6:20 when they had sex before she made her daughter breakfast “and drove her to school.” Subsequently, however, Troconis allegedly admitted that “maybe he wasn’t home” the entire morning but still accounted for his whereabouts between 6:40 and 8:15 on the day that Jennifer disappeared.
Troconis also allegedly told police that she had not actually had sex with Dulos on the morning in question — or even seen him until later that day when the two had lunch together.
Other incidents of apparent dishonesty leading to eventual clarity allegedly include shifting stories about the location of Dulos’ cellphone on that fateful morning, whether and when Dulos had been in a “business meeting” with Mawhinney, and what happened when the two had lunch on May 24, 2019.
Troconis also allegedly changed her story about what Dulos was wearing that day, describing a polo shirt before mentioning a collared button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
‘I wasn’t cleaning Jennifer’
“I brought a bucket, a sponge, garbage bags, disposable gloves,” Troconis allegedly told police during her final interview when quizzed about what she was doing at a house in Farmington. According to officers, she also said she bought Windex Clorox bleach, a vacuum, a broom, and paper towels.
The arrest warrant notes that Troconis noticed a brown stain on a paper towel. Dulos explained the mess by saying he “spilled coffee” before handing the soiled paper towel to his alleged accomplice.
“[Troconis] also told investigators that the soiled paper towel did not smell like coffee,” the arrest warrant reads.
At one point, police told Troconis that Dulos had killed his wife and involved her in the cleanup process.
“That’s like even worse,” she allegedly replied. “I hate him because of that.”
An officer then pressed harder: “He got you in trouble.”
To which Troconis allegedly replied:
But I was cleaning the house. I wasn’t cleaning Jennifer.
Troconis has since firmly written off Fotis Dulos.
“Whether or not Fotis Dulos was capable of doing the things the police and prosecutors accused him of doing, I do not know,” she said in a statement translated by her defense and obtained by NBC Connecticut in May 2020. “But based on what I have learned in the last year, I think it was a mistake to have trusted him.”
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
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