Fotis Dulos

Police Search for Body of Jennifer Dulos at Waveny ‘Mulch Pile’ [UPDATING]

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More than two-and-a-half years after Jennifer Dulos went missing, police continue to look for her body, and on Monday state investigators searched a corner of Waveny Park. The New Canaan mother of five was murdered by her estranged husband in May 2019 after dropping her kids off at school, officials have said. Though Fotis Dulos was charged in the capital crime in January 2020, he killed himself about three weeks later without disclosing the location of her remains. On Monday morning, state detectives and their search dogs could be seen gathered in the southwest corner of the “mulch pile” off of Lapham Road. An open area where the town long kept ground-up leaves and debris in neat rows, the mulch pile has been available in the past to town residents seeking to pick up mulch for use on their own properties.

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Cameras at Waveny: Town Approves Contract for Security Upgrade

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In a major step forward for the grassroots push to install security cameras at Waveny, town officials last week approved a contract with a Shelton-based company that specializes in areas that include video surveillance and network infrastructure. The Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting Aug. 4 voted 3-0 in favor of the $57,222 contract with Advanced Security Technologies, Inc.

“We have committed improve security,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said at the meeting, held via videoconference. “This is one piece of that—creating a backbone and capability to expand more easily with more modern technology.”

Security systems at New Canaan’s municipal buildings and town-owned properties have been developed piecemeal. The planned upgrades will see cloud-based systems for Waveny park, as well as Waveny Pool, Town Hall, Waveny House and municipal parking lots all connected to the New Canaan Police Department, officials have said.

Board of Selectmen

After Dulos Case, New Canaan Police Investigators Seek More Video Surveillance Throughout Town

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Police investigators in New Canaan hope that the town’s plan to install cameras at Waveny’s entrances as a result of the Dulos case leads to more video surveillance throughout town. For the fourth straight year, the New Canaan Police Department Investigative Section is asking that municipal officials especially consider installations at the town border and entrance and exit ramps of the Merritt Parkway, according to an end-of-year report from the head of the section, Lt. Jason Ferraro. “This is directly supported by the Dulos case and the huge role that video evidence played in leading to the arrests of [Fotis] Dulos and [Michelle] Troconis,” Ferraro said in the report, discussed briefly at Jan. 15 regular meeting of the Police Commission and obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request. 

“We realize this is a capital item but having LPR’s [“license plate recognition” cameras] located at strategic locations would greatly improve our ability to get ahead in an investigation and improve the likelihood of an arrest occurring. Hopefully the approval to install cameras at Waveny Park as a result of the Dulos case will be the beginning of more cameras at vital locations within New Canaan.”

The Board of Selectmen last month approved the hiring of a Bridgeport-based technology consulting firm to put together an RFP for updating security systems in New Canaan.

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Fotis Dulos Employee Emerges as Key Figure in Murder Case

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After pedaling his bicycle from Waveny Park to Welles Lane to kill his estranged wife, and then steering an employee’s pickup truck back upstate with her corpse, Fotis Dulos failed to remove from the vehicle the dark-colored, hooded sweatshirt he’d been wearing while cycling, according to interviews and evidence cited in a state police detective’s sworn affidavit made public last week. The Toyota Tacoma’s owner would discover a blue hoodie in a red pail inside the truck on May 28, four days after the murder, according to Detective John Kimball of the state police Western District Major Crime Squad. Kimball’s lengthy affidavits—now spread across seven felony arrest warrant applications connected to the disappearance and murder of Jennifer Dulos—show that the man who came upon the sweatshirt, Pawel Gumienny, has played a critical role in a multi-agency investigation that culminated Jan. 7 in murder charges against Fotis Dulos and conspiracy to commit murder charges for his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, and personal friend and civil attorney Kent Mawhinney. Gumienny, a project manager at Fotis Dulos’s construction company, first was revealed as a key source for investigators in September, when police brought a second round of hindering and tampering charges against Fotis Dulos and Troconis.

Fotis Dulos

Arrest Warrant: Friend of Fotis Dulos Connected to Grave Dug in Woods Two Months Before Murder

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Two months before Fotis Dulos killed his estranged wife at her New Canaan home, a friend of his traveled to a wooded hunting club property upstate where unsuspecting club members just days before the murder would come upon a 3.5-foot-deep, 6-foot-long grave covered over with grill grates and a debris, a blue tarp and two bags of lime inside, according to a state police detective’s affidavit. Kent Mawhinney, a 54-year-old Bloomfield attorney, was not only a friend of Fotis Dulos, but also had worked as the first lawyer to represent him in defense of civil suit brought by Jennifer Dulos’s mother, Gloria Farber, claiming Fotis Dulos owed her family $2.5 million in loans. He also had helped found the five-member Windsor Rod & Gun Club in East Granby more than a decade before, securing its 25-acre property, according to an arrest warrant application (see PDF below) from Detective John Kimball of the state police Western District Major Crime Squad. Though Mawhinney himself was no longer a member of the club, he knew where to find the “hidden key to the logging chain” that secured its entrance, according to Kimball’s affidavit. Six days before the May 24 murder, two club members came upon the “disturbed ground” of the would-be human grave, though they shrugged it off at the time because they weren’t aware of any missing people, and left after kicking around some debris so that no one would fall into the hole, the affidavit said.