Photo: AP
A Connecticut woman is missing and her estranged husband and his girlfriend are in custody.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Jun 04, 2019
A 50-year-old Connecticut woman is still missing after more than 10 days. Now police are treating the disappearance as a homicide and her estranged husband and his girlfriend have been arrested.
Jennifer Farber Dulos was last seen dropping her five children off at school on May 24th but she never returned to get them. She was reported missing that night. Jennifer and her estranged husband Fotis Dulos have been engaged in a bitter divorce and custody battle since 2017 and Fotis has been openly living with his new girlfriend Michelle Troconis. This week, the pair was arrested for trying to hide evidence covered with Jennifer’s blood.
What happened to Jennifer Dulos? Read on for all the details. Who is Michelle Troconis?
1. Disapperance
On May 24th, Jennifer dropped her children off at school and was never seen again. Friends reported her missing and her car was found that same night in a local park. Police began and all out search for her. They blanketed the town with flyers and used K9 units in the search. Police say they plan to engage dive teams to search a lake in the area. They still cannot find Jennifer and her phone is also missing, according to the New York Post.
2. Contentious Divorce
Jennifer disappeared in the midst of a two-year long battle over custody of her five children with Fotis. Fotis Dulos and Jennifer Dulos were married for 13 years when Jennifer filed for divorce. Fotis had started having an affair with Troconic in about 2016, according to FoxNews and Jennifer filed for divorce a year later. Court documents described their marriage as terrifying and unstable. In her filing she says she thinks her estranged husband is “dangerous and ruthless when he believes that he has been wronged,” reports the Washington Post. She stated outright that “I am afraid of my husband. I know that filing for divorce and filing this motion will enrage him.”
The day before she filed for divorce, Jennifer took her children out of the family home and moved them to a nearby town. Fotis would later move Troconis and her daughter into the home. Fotis claimed that Jennifer was the unstable one and that she called him names at times. Fotis, a native of Greece, held a Greek passport at one time and Jennifer feared that he would take the children to Greece with him. As a result, his visitations with the children were severely limited and he was not supposed to allow them to spend time with Troconis or her daughter.
In addition to marital trouble, Jennifer’s parents have sued Fotis for non-payment of debts close to $2 million. They made loans to his business flipping high end real estate. He has failed to pay them back.
Jennifer and Fotis are in the middle of divorce.
3. Michelle Troconis
According to reporting by the Hartford Courant, Troconis hails from Venezuela and holds a degree in psychology from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and trained as a therapeutic riding instructor at an academy in Michigan. She worked as a riding therapist for children with disabilities at a riding center in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. She later went into PR, working as a publicist at the Cerro Castor ski resort in Argentina, where her ex-husband, Gaston Begue, a former Olympian, was the director. She and her sister also developed a line of waterproof shoe covers and sold them under the table as Patagonia Styles, Inc.
Troconis was CEO of her company.
4. Trail of evidence
On the night Jennifer disappeared. Troconis and Fotis were seen on surveillance cameras making stops at more than 30 trash receptacles along a four mile section of Albany Avenue in Hartford, reports the Stamford Advocate. They were attempting to dispose of bloodstained items such as clothes and household items like kitchen sponges. Forensic examination would prove that the blood belonged to Jennifer, according to police reports. In one security video clip, a man later identified as Fotis was seen putting an item down a storm drain. When retrieved, police discovered the item was two Connecticut license plates that had been altered with adhesive and tape. The plates, which were expired, were originally registered to a 2007 Chevrolet Suburban belonging to Fotis.
There is significant evidence against Troconis and Fotis Dulos.
5. Possible homicide
Police are investigating the case as a homicide, even though Jennifer’s body has not been found. The bloodstained items that Dulos and Troconis tried to hide and the evidence found in Jennifer’s home lead the police to believe that she is a victim in this case. Police reports reveal evidence such as "multiple stains on the garage floor which tested positive for human blood," "multiple areas of suspected blood spatter," as well as "evidence of attempts to clean the crime scene.” According reporting by FoxNews, police documents state: “Based upon the crime scene processing, investigators came to the consensus that a serious physical assault had occurred at the scene, and Jennifer Dulos was the suspected victim.” Troconis and Dulos arrested at a hotel in Avon, Connecticut. They have been arraigned on charges of charges of evidence-tampering and hindering prosecution in the case and bond has been set at $500,000 apiece. Troconis has been bonded out with the condition that she wear a GPS device. Fotis remains in custody.
The blood on the evidence matches Jennifer Dulos.
Police expect to file more charge as the investigation reveals new information.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.