Fotis Dulos

State Police Charge Fotis Dulos with Murder, Kidnapping [UPDATED]

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Fotis Dulos killed his estranged, fearful wife on the morning of May 24, 2019, in the New Canaan home where she and their five kids had been living for more than one year, according to a state police detective’s sworn affidavit made public Tuesday. He’d left Farmington at daybreak that Friday morning in a pickup truck and took the Merritt Parkway to New Canaan, pulling off of Lapham Road alongside Waveny and then pedaling to her Wells Lane home on a bicycle from his own childhood that he’d brought to the United States when he moved here from his native Greece, according to an arrest warrant application (see PDF below) from Detective John Kimball of the state police Western District Major Crime Squad. Once at the house, Fotis Dulos laid in waiting for her, officials have said. The last known image of Jennifer Dulos alive is captured 8:05 a.m. by a neighbor’s video surveillance system—she’s driving her SUV home after dropping the kids off at school. A subsequent analysis of the garage, house and SUV by the state’s chief medical examiner, including bloodstains, blood spatter and blood loss, led the state official, Dr. James Gill, to determine that Jennifer Dulos sustained an injury or injuries that would be “non-survivable” without medical intervention.

Fotis Dulos

Police: Manpower Dedicated to Missing Woman Case Led To Minimum Shift Staff, Drop in Motor Vehicle Citations

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The manpower that New Canaan Police dedicated this past summer to the investigation of a missing local mom drained the department’s staff to minimum levels for a time, leading to a decline in motor vehicle violation citations, officials say. Year-to-date motor vehicle violation incidents were down about 20% as of Oct. 31, officials reported at last month’s meeting of the Police Commission. Responding to a question from Commission Chair Sperry DeCew about the decline in incidents—from 3,648 through the first ten months of 2018 to 2,933 this year—Deputy Chief John DiFederico said, “With the investigation this summer, that took a lot of manpower away.”

“We also had a very high number of order-ins,” DiFederico said at the meeting, held Nov. 20 at NCPD headquarters.

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‘We Give Thanks’: Family and Friends of Jennifer Dulos Release Statement Marking Six Months Since Her Disappearance

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Marking six months since her disappearance, family and friends of Jennifer Dulos on Sunday issued the following statement through New Canaan Police:

“That this milestone coincides with the Thanksgiving holiday challenges us to pause and give thanks, in spite of this tragedy. We give thanks that Jennifer’s children are healthy and well. We give thanks that they share their mother’s deep sense of empathy and curiosity about the world around them. And, as ever, we are deeply thankful to the New Canaan and Connecticut State police for their ongoing efforts to solve this case and bring those responsible to justice. In honor of Jennifer, we encourage acts of caring and generosity this holiday season, whether donations to a local food bank or shelter or other gestures of compassion.

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State Police: Girlfriend Also Charged with Tampering in Jennifer Dulos Case

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Though investigators haven’t placed her at the scene of a violent crime that marked the last time a New Canaan mom of five was seen alive, Michelle Troconis repeatedly lied to authorities about her own doings that Friday in May and in the critical days that followed, according to a state police detective. Troconis, live-in girlfriend of the man that authorities say traveled to New Canaan early on the morning of May 24 to ambush his estranged wife—and then tried to clean up the scene and fled with her body—played a key role in the cover-up by helping Fotis Dulos see to it that the vehicle he used could be scrubbed of evidence, according to an arrest warrant application from Detective John Kimball of the state police Western District Major Crime Squad. 

Fotis Dulos is accused of trying to clean up the borrowed red Toyota Tacoma he drove to New Canaan that day in three main ways, according to Kimball’s affidavit—by wiping it down himself, urging its owner to replace the back seats and having it detailed. 

According to Kimball, Troconis knowingly helped her boyfriend in each of those efforts, though she lied about it prior to her June 8 arrest on felony hindering and tampering charges. During a May 29 interview with detectives, she claimed Fotis Dulos had told her the Tacoma’s owner—Pawel Gumienny, a project manager for Fotis Dulos’s building company, The Fore Group—wanted to sell the pickup truck. “For this reason, Dulos had planned to bring the Toyota to have it cleaned and detailed,” Kimball said in his affidavit. “Troconis claimed, ‘Fotis at some point calls me says … pick me up at the car wash in the parking lot and so I went to pick him up and then we went … to meet with Andy (attorney Andrew Bowman) and we drove.’ Troconis made it sound as if she had no idea what [Fotis] Dulos was doing and that she had simply been called by Dulos to come pick him up.

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‘Lying in Wait’: State Police Affidavit Points to Premeditation in Jennifer Dulos Case

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Fotis Dulos left his Farmington house at daybreak on May 24—the Friday of Memorial Day weekend—and drove toward New Canaan, according to evidence presented in a state police detective’s sworn affidavit made public Wednesday. The 51-year-old had taken precautions, leaving his cellphone back at the home office of his building company and driving a red Toyota Tacoma pickup truck that belonged to one of his workers, according to an arrest warrant application from Detective John Kimball of the state police Western District Major Crime Squad. Fotis Dulos parked the Tacoma on a dirt turnoff along Lapham Road and made his way to the Welles Lane home that his estranged wife, Jennifer Dulos, had been renting, according to Kimball’s affidavit. She’d filed for divorce nearly two years prior—saying at the time that she was afraid her husband—though a custody battle for their five children and subsequent court order violations had protracted the divorce proceedings, and it hadn’t been finalized. 

The last known photo of Jennifer Dulos alive is captured at 8:05 a.m. by a Welles Lane neighbor’s video surveillance system—she’s driving her SUV home after dropping the kids off at school while Fotis Dulos “is believed to have been lying in wait at 69 Welles Lane for his wife to return home,” Kimball wrote in a 43-page arrest warrant application. 

During the next two hours and 20 minutes, Jennifer Dulos appears to have been killed in a violent assault that’s followed by an effort to clean up the scene, the application said. At 10:25 a.m., the residential surveillance video “shows Jennifer Dulos’s Suburban traveling westbound away from 69 Welles Lane,” according to Kimball’s affidavit. 

“[Fotis] Dulos is believed to be operating the victim’s vehicle which is carrying the body of Jennifer Dulos and a number of other items associated with the clean-up which occurred in the garage of the residence,” the affidavit said.