Jennifer and Fotis Dulos

0:00 Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill, Hey Tina, Hey Rich, how are you? I'm hungry. I'm just here with the snacks that we do. Have a couple of snacks here. They're from Perfect Canada. Thought you said you got something different. I did, but we just went to Canada, so I thought we should use the snacks that we bought from. Well, no, I'm curious.

0:43 The other snack is Yeah, snack's not that exciting. Neither are the Canadian snacks really no offense to the Canadians. I mean they're just pretzels and oh I think they're pretty interesting though they're unique. Okay, yeah, so yeah, we just got back from Canada. We did tell our listeners about our lovely trip. We just we went to Toronto. We skipped American Thanksgiving and we had it over the border, which was a little scary because that there was an incident on the Rainbow Bridge, which isn't the bridge where we crossed, but we were in that almost exact area when it happened, Yeah, a little bit. We had a great time. I don't think we need to believe the point, but it was. It was super fun because our son, who was nineteen, is not of legal drinking age in the United States, but in Canada you need to be nineteen, and so we got to got to go out and have a couple of cocktails with our kids.

1:32 Yeah, which sounds unhealthy, but we had a good time. Comedy club Yuck Yucks. It was not the best comedy in the world. Well you said the name, and then it's the best thing. They tried real hard to make us laugh. I'm sure some days are better than others at Yuck Yucks. But the night we went was Yeah, we had a good time. We left the place where we stayed though, that was then the most amazing spot that we could have hard. It was your birthday present, so it was We spent a fair bed on the Airbnb, but it was a penthouse. It was on what the fiftieth floor, forty ninth floor, Yeah, and it was right downtown Toronto. It was like, right, you're the tower and those views were just I will not forget that view anytime.

2:15 So it was really cool, astonishing, was beautiful. I loved it. Yeah, it was a nice trip. It was a really good trip. Oh. You know what, before we started recording, you were like, are you ready? Because you were annoyed with me because I was looking at my phone. You looked a little distracted, and I said, no letter rip, which was the biggest mistake of my life. Why I don't get it. Well, let's not go into it. I don't think people need to know about your your issue if you've been married for any amount of time. I think our listeners know. All right when I'm referring to we should move on. Yeah, all right, do you want to try these snacks? Sure? But I noticed that you did bring the paprika pringles.

3:01 Oh yeah, which, well, we already ate a lot of those while we were Yeah, we had a whole can of them. They're so good. Shout out to the Pringles people because the Paprika pringles are so good. Our friend Asha gave us some paprika chips from Poland and I really liked those, But the Paprika pringles were amazing. Yeah, they need to bring them overka Pringles, they need to bring them over here to the States. Yeah, all right, So the two snacks that we did bring back though are pretty unique. One is maple and brown butter pretzels. Pop Daddy is the brand name maple and brown butter pretzel sticks, which seems interesting. And then the other one is that Indian everything in Canada just put a little maple syrup in it. There's a lot of Yeah. Well it was super fun too, because, like our son used to work for McDonald's and we like McDonald's.

3:53 Like, if there's a fast food place that we frequent, it would be, you know, McDonald's would be our choice to go to the bathroom and get a soda. And someone actually made fun of me in Canada for saying soda, but we like, so we're going into McDonald's and it's a whole it's a wholly different. It's it was really okay, it's not it's not completely different, but they do have quite a bigger variety of things. I am jealous of our Canadian friends who have so many more options than we have here in the United States. Yeah. So the other snack is Kurkura massala munch, which sounds it's like an Indian snack like it it looks like Cheetos. I think it's just like an Indian flavored Cheeto. It's an explosion of spicy chat PoTA taste in your mouth. I bought a bat one of the cool things. Like in Michigan, we don't have service areas. You just have to keep driving and you stop and then you have to get up the highway and you have to find a gas station or McDonald's. So I really like a good service station. So we stopped several times to get snacks.

4:57 Not that it's not gonna surprise anyone, but I think our I gave him a bag of those and he ate them. Oh really yeah, yeah, so that is the second bag that so they must have been good. Cool. All right, Well let's take a quick break and we'll try these and we'll be right back. What did you think? I thought they were both really good. The Sala munch is a little spicy mouth is kind of on fire. Really good. I love like a regular Cheeto so much. I wish that we just had a cheddar cheese flavor. But this is nice if you're like like a spicy, spicy or Cheeto profinitely has a little bit of Indian food flavor too. Yeah, I would would eat them again, and the pretzels delicious. I didn't like the pretzels tasted weird to me.

5:42 They were yeah, they were good, but they just tasted odd. Okay, Well more for me, all right? Would you like me to tell you about a case? I would love to, but I'm gonna do a little shopping Black Friday shopping. Okay, don't let me, don't let me this stir of you. Yeah. Today, the case I'm going to cover is a request from our listener, Kelly. Thank you Kelly for Kelly giving us this request. Interesting case. It is the story of Jennifer and Photus dulos fotus fotus fotis. So I'm going to talk through this story, but just a heads up. I gave you some lines to you. You did and I have not looked them over. In true Tina fashion, Yeah, you are going to be the voice of Jennifer in today's case. In the peaceful town of New Canaan, Connecticut, Jennifer, we almost live there.

6:36 We almost lived in Connecticut, not New Canaan. Okay, where is New Canaan. New Canaan is in the very far southwest corner of Connecticut. We were going to live in Danbury, Connecticut, which is a big airfield. There was several towns we looked at. Yeah, that was many, many, many moons ago. It was all right, let me start over again in the peaceful town of New Canaan, Connecticut. Jennifer Dulos dropped off her five kids at school on May twenty fourth, nineteen, just like any other day, but then she vanished without a trace. Investigators quickly turned their attention to Jennifer's estranged husband, Fotus Dulos. Their messy divorce had been dragging on for almost two years, and Jennifer had said that she was afraid of Fotus. But was he responsible for her disappearance and if so, what happened and where was she? Jennifer Farber was born in nineteen sixty eight and grew up in New York City near Greenwich Village off of Fifth Avenue. Her dad, Hilliard Farber, was a highly successful banker. Her mom, Gloria, was a well known philanthropist who got involved in causes benefiting children, with a focus on education. The family was certainly wealthy. Jennifer's uncle, a Gloria's brother, was married to Liz Claiborne, and together they founded the women's clothing company that would become a billion dollar business. Jennifer went to the prestigious Brown University, where she first met Fotus Dulos, a Greetek immigrant who she would eventually marry. The two met during Jennifer's first week at school, but she didn't see him much after that. It would be seventeen years later that they would

8:09 reconnect and start dating. Jennifer graduated from Brown in nineteen ninety, and then she went to New York University's Tish School of Arts to pursue her Master of Fine Arts in writing. Friends say she found her voice during the MFA program, and for the next decade she wrote with passion and focus. According to Carrie Luft, one of Jennifer's closest friends. During that time, Jennifer wrote four full length plays, and she also completed a first draft of a novel. Jennifer, Carrie, and some other friends also founded a theater group called the Playwrights Collective. Were any of Jennifer's plays produced? You know, I wasn't able to find any information about any of them. I think the theater company that they formed probably did some of them, but I was not really able to find a whole lot of information about the plays other than what I'm going to tell you next, which is that her writing during this period has been described as surreal comedy mixed with memoir elements. One play, called The Red Door, is about a young woman who is about to get married and is visited by men from her past, guys that she's dated, wanted to date, or fantasized about. Carrie loved her friends, said quote. At core, almost all Jennifer's work explores the need to be loved and known as one's true self. Another friend and Jennifer's literary agent, Elizabeth Schenkman, set about Jennifer during that period of her life. Quote. Jennifer was a vibrant presence on the New York literary scene in the late nineteen nineties. She was

9:39 observant and often wryly funny about human behavior and social interactions, and she was always generous and supportive towards others other writers in her midst In two thousand three, now thirty five year old Jennifer ran into Potus Doulos at the airport, who she remembered from their days at Brown University. Fotis was born in Istanbul, Turkey, the youngest of four kids born into a middle class Greek family. The family moved to Greece while Fotus was in his teens and then, citing a desire to get exposure to society and culture beyond his upbringing, he decided to attend college in the US at Brown University, where he first met Jennifer. By the time the two met again, he had finished his MBA at Columbia Business School and was working as a management consultant at cap Gemini.

10:30 You said they met in college initially at Brown. They didn't date then, No. I think they just met briefly during her freshman year. But I don't even know if they really hung out much. The articles that I had said that they met, but they didn't really see just demosquatances, Yeah, exactly. While Fotus had grown up middle class, he developed a taste for the finer things in life once he started earning good money as a consultant. He was smart, well spoken, and athletic. He's been described by friends and family as having endless energy and a post positive outlook on life. He loved to ski, both snow skiing and water skiing, Jennifer was also athletic, playing squash competitively during high school and also being a runner. At the time they met again in two thousand and three, Potus was in the process of separating from his first wife. He and Jennifer were both ready for commitment, and Fotus made it clear upfront that he wanted a big family and he wanted it soon. So he didn't have children with his first wife, No, he did not. The couple got married in two thousand and four, and they moved to Connecticut, where Potus started a luxury home building business called The Four Group. To fund the business, Potus borrowed millions of dollars from Jennifer's father, Hilliard, although Fotus would later claim that it was a gift, not alone. Jennifer had some difficulty getting pregnant, but with the help of fertility treatment, she got pregnant and gave birth to twin boys in two thousand and six, Petrose and Theodore. Another set of twins came along in two thousand and eight, this time a boy named Constantine and a girl named

12:01 Christianne. Another daughter, Cleopatra Noel or Clea Noel, as Jennifer called her, was born in twenty ten to complete the family. With the growing family, Jennifer put her writing on the back burner. She kept the kids busy with activities, art classes, music, horse riding, swimming, and tennis. Potus's business seemed to be going well, and he also got the kids involved in water skiing, which was almost an obsession for him. The oldest set of twins were competing at the highest levels of international water skiing competitions by the time they were nine years old. The family moved frequently because Potus would move them into whatever house he was building until it sold, and then he would move them into the next house. It was stressful constantly moving from one home to another. Many of these houses were over ten thousand square feet and they often didn't have time to fully furnish them or settle in before moving on to the next one, so they would be living in these huge luxury homes with cardboard boxes all around. Jennifer did start writing again after Cleo Noel was born, this time in the form of blogging about family life. She wrote a blog that was published on patch dot com and another blog on her own site called and five Make Seven, which was subtitled A Mother of five in Connecticut, writes to her children. As a way of capturing this moment in time, I'm going to have you read a short excerpt of a post that she wrote early on about getting back into writing and putting her work out there.

13:33 It's both exciting and terrifying to spread the word about the blog. I've been so utterly private for so long now, and it has served me well in some ways. Now that I am writing again about my most inner thoughts, the inside of her home, the inside of my life. Really such a total turnaround. What am I doing botus? My husband ask me this, For someone who so protects her privacy, this makes no sense. I guess in some ways I choose what I write, but I share. I decide what I put out there, what's meaningful to me to say each day. I know some of what he is saying is right. But the urge to keep on going is here and is starting to snowball, and the sense the more I write, the more I desire to write and to post and to share and to see what this all evolves into. It's a work in progress. Who knows where it'll go. The exciting thing is not knowing, so just from reading that is he controlling. I think he may have been a little bit controlling. Yeah. Yeah. As time went on, their marriage began to deteriorate and they started to fight more frequently. In January of twenty twelve, Jennifer wrote a blog about her New Year's resolutions, one of which was about Fotus. She wrote, why do I always feel like a failure Along these lines? I'm a bit overwhelmed and outstretched, and it's him whom I short changed first. She also wrote in vague terms about the conflicts

15:05 between them. In one blog, she wrote, don't be number two to anybody. That's what my father always told me. It's hard for girls, now women, wives, mothers. It's hard to know this for real, And in another she wrote, I wish I were a stronger person. That confrontation did not both scare and appall me. I just need quiet, peace and calm. They're so very lucky monks. They're the same gender. They don't have to worry about misunderstandings that could arise in opposite sex relationships. Monks are lucky. I mean not as I know. I respected a vow that they take, but that's an odd It's a odd odd analogy to make, isn't it? I think so. Over time, Fotus spent more time away from home, going on what he said were water skiing trips for as many as ten days a month. He wanted to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous, not stay home raising five kids with an introspective wife who liked to read and write. Fotos got more aggressive over time as well. One time he got into a physical fight with a parking lot attendant at Jennifer's parents apartment building. He was also very demanding with the kids and their water skiing training. He kept them on a strict training regimen, some days, working them from eight am to seven pm. In her later divorce filing, Jennifer said, the kids are physically and emotionally exhausted and have begged me to do something about it. We are all terrified to disobey my husband. Jennifer's father

16:41 passed away in twenty seventeen, and in March of that year, she confronted Photos about his increasing time away from home. He confessed that he was having an affair. Fotus met Michelle Treconis during a trip to Miami with the children at the water skiing club, where they were members. Michelle was forty four, a single of one daughter. She was Venezuelan and seemed to be more Photus type. She worked in marketing and pr for a high end resort. She was athletic, rode horses, reported for ESPN in South America on snow skiing, and was a competitive water skier. She once said that her goal was to rank in the top fifty female water skiers worldwide. The affair with Photus wasn't just a fling. He had fallen very much in love with her, and he told Jennifer that he was no longer in love with her, But he also wasn't ready for Jennifer to leave him with the children. At one point, he even suggested to Jennifer that maybe Michelle could move into their house. They could all live together in peace and harmony, and Jennifer and Michelle wouldn't really even have to see each other. It's a really good idea.

17:45 It was a huge house, after all. Goodness, Yeah, Jennifer was not on board with that plan. Jennifer staate, nor would. I don't get any big ideas in your heads. Most wives would not be on board with that. Jennifer stayed with Fois for a few months after she found out about the affair, but it was pretty much the last straw for her. Shortly after learning about the affair, she also discovered that Potus had bought a gun. Potus and Jennifer had agreed early on in the marriage that there would be no guns in the house while they were raising their children, but Fotis bought a handgun without telling her and showed it to at least one of the kids, who then told their mom about it. On June nineteenth, twenty seventeen, Jennifer packed up the kids and some of her things and left without telling Fotus. When he came home to find them gone, he called nine one one nine one Association of your Emergency. I am not worried about my wife and kids, and I haven't been able to get infessional kids five kids. That's just a short clip of the nine one one call that Jennifer took the kids to a house that she had rented in New Canaan, Connecticut, which was about seventy miles from their home in Farmington, Connecticut, and the next day Fotus was so with divorce papers. It would be an ugly and messy process. That dragged on for almost two years, with more than three hundred motions filed by both parties, and was still not finalized by the time of Jennifer's disappearance. Jennifer's filings showed just how afraid she was of Fotus.

19:18 In one affidavit, she wrote, I am terrified for my family's safety, especially since discovering the gun, since my husband has a history of controlling, volatile and delusional behavior. Fotus claimed that he had discussed with Jennifer the possibility of purchasing a gun, and then he turned it over to the Farmington Police. She also wrote, I am afraid of my husband. I know that filing for divorce and filing this motion will enrage him. I know he will retaliate by trying to harm me in some way. I am afraid for my safety and the physical and emotional well being of our minor children. So that blogga it kept really personal. This is not from her blog. This is from her divorce filing. I'm yeah, no, that would have been something, but no, these are all These more recent quotes are from the different filings that she made during the divorce. She also claimed in one of those filings that he had threatened to take the children away to Greece and that she would never find them. In another motion, she claimed that Fotus almost hit her with his Chevy Suburban in her driveway when he was coming to pick up the children for a visit, accelerating and then swerving at the last moment.

20:30 She said that the children had witnessed this incident. She requested and was eventually granted, full custody of the children while the divorce proceedings were going on, with a judge concluding that Potus had pressured the kids to lie in order to help his cause and that his actions constituted emotional abuse. Fotus denied all these allegations and responded with his own filings, claiming that Jennifer was not fit to be a single parent of the five children and that she was taking medication for mental health issues. He said that she had lost one of the children on more than one occasion, including during a trip to London. He also claimed that she had tried to turn the kids against him by telling them things like your dad is a psychopath and your dad does not care about you.

21:15 Jennifer's mother also sued Photos for repayment of the two point five million dollars in loans that she and Hilliard had given him to start his business. As I mentioned earlier, Potus claimed that the startup money money had been a gift, not alone. Potus was frustrated by all of his losses in court, one time asking a judge, why do I always get the raw end of the stick with that? Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. So this all brings us to Friday, May twenty fourth of twenty nineteen. Just before eight am, Jennifer made the short three minute drive to drop the kids off at school in her Chevy Suburban. She was seen on multiple cameras returning home by eight oh five, but she has not been seen since.

22:04 When she didn't show up for some appointments in the city that day, her friends became concerned and called to report her missing. That evening, around seven pm, officers went to Jennifer's rental home and they did an initial search. Her suburban was not in the garage, but officers saw what looked like blood on the floor of the garage and also what appeared to be blood spatter on the side of Jennifer's other car. A twenty fourteen range Rover that was parked in the middle of the three car garage. Detectives noted that it appeared that someone had made an attempt to wipe up the blood before giving up. Around the same time detectives arrived at Jennifer's house, her abandoned suburban was found parked three and a half miles away on the side of Lapham Road, which bordered Waveny Park. Waveny Park is a park in New Canaan with a mansion at its center, surrounded by three hundred acres of fields, ponds, and trails.

22:59 They immediately launched a full scale search of the park, using helicopters and canine teams. There were no security cameras in the park, but they asked joggers and other visitors if they had seen Jennifer, but there was no sign of her anywhere. I remember you saying earlier on she was a runner, she's still running and could she have Yeah, I believe she was still running even up until her disappearance, So could she have been out for a run. And I mean it's possible. I'm sure It's one of the things they considered at first, but you know, it just seemed I think right away it was suspicious right the fact that she did not show up for some appointments, which was unlike her, and then her car just to be found abandoned like that was very suspicious. The next day, Fotus agreed to come into the New Canaan Police Department to talk to the police. He showed up around two forty five in the afternoon, which was three hours later than the time that he and detectives had agreed on. Within minutes of his arrival, his lawyer came in and told investigators that Photus would not be providing an interview and that he and his it would be leaving. Detectives told photos that they were surprised that he was not going to assist in the search for Jennifer. During this discussion, Photus had his phone out and one of the detectives asked if he could see it. Fotus handed it over without hesitation. The detective asked for the passcode to unlock it, and Photus gave it to him zero zero zero zero, which is not a very secure pass code. As the detective,

24:30 you're telling people that. As the detective put the phone in airplane mode, Fotus's lawyer asked what he was doing. The detective said he was securing the phone and its data because he believed it contained evidence related to Jennifer's disappearance, and that they would be seeking a search warrant. Potus's lawyer said that they had no grounds to seize the cell phone, but then he and Fotus left and the police were able to get the search warrant authorizing them to go through the phone's contents that evening. The first thing that jumped out to them was that Fotus's phone data showed that he had spent an hour or so around Albany Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut, on the evening of the twenty fourth, around the seven pm hour. Hartford is not far from Fotus's home in Farmington, about ten miles away, and Albany Avenue is a fairly major street that runs through Hartford. I'm not sure why they happened to find that location suspicious, but they headed up there and they decided to canvass the area. What the police had going for them, and what Fotus probably didn't realize, is that there are some seven hundred cameras all around the city of Hertford. It's one of the most sophisticated surveillance systems of any city in the US, and it's actually been a source of controversy with civil rights or civil liberties groups raising privacy concerns. As they went through the footage for the evening of May twenty fourth, they identified a Ford Raptor pickup truck that was registered to Fotus's Company four group. Between seven thirty and seven fifty pm, they saw the pickup truck drive along Albany Avenue, stopping several times, and each time it would

26:03 stop, they saw the driver get out and put some black garbage bags into various various trash receptacles. They identified the driver as Photus and also saw that there was a passenger in the truck as well, which appeared to be Fotus's girlfriend, Michelle Treconis. Investigators then went around to the garbage bins and also searched the trash facility that some of the bins had been emptied and sent to, and they were able to recover several black garbage bags that contained clothing and undergarments that had been cut, plastic zip ties, and a bunch of household items like sponges, paper, towels, gloves, a mop, handled, duct tape, and ponchos. Oh boy, we've been there before. Yes, many of the items had what appeared to be blood on them. Testing would eventually show a DNA match to Jennifer Dulos on all of these items.

26:53 Additionally, there was a match to Potus's DNA on a couple of items, a match to his fingerprint on a couple of others, and a DNA match to Michelle Traconis on a couple of the black plastic garbage bags. They also found Photos's DNA, along with some of Jennifer's blood, on the faucet in the kitchen of her home. Another piece of footage showed Photos putting a large white colored item down a storm drain on Albany Avenue. Police were able to retrieve this as well. It turned out to be a large FedEx envelope. Inside were two Connecticut license plates. The plate number appeared to be five T six WBU, but as they looked closer, they saw that blue tape had been used to alter the number. The real number was five to one six w DJ. And who do you think that plate was registered to? Potus?

27:47 Yes? Okay, I have to be honest. I made you rewind because I got it wrong the first time. That's okay, that's okay. This was your weak storytelling that caused me to get it. Oh, you're doing a great job, thank you. It was a canceled registration, but it had belonged to PHOTOS. I have a question. Okay, so you said there's blood and there's like paper towels and things that were used to clean up the scene. Was there anything indicating that she was dead? Though, no, they can not. On a Walsh case, like some of her tissue was found and that led people to determine that she was No. I think it was just the quantity of blood that they found. It seemed like it was probably quite a bit, like in the garage, but then also on all these items that they found, so it Yeah, I don't think there was anything else, but it just seemed like there was enough there that it was pretty likely that she was dead. I'm always hopeful that, you know, Yeah, it did appear that Jennifer was most likely dead, and that PHOTOS was responsible, and that Michelle was probably involved at least in helping to dispose of the evidence of what. I don't ever, I've never understand these girlfriends who are just like, yeah, you know, your wife was a paint of the butt, it's okay that you killed her, and yeah, I just don't understand that. I do not understand it either. The search for Jennifer was still ongoing, but investigators decided to arrest Fotus and Michelle, not on murder charges yet, but on charges of tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. The arrest warrants were issued and executed on June first, eight

29:19 days after Jennifer's disappearance. Their goal was to get Potus and Michelle in custody so that they could ask questions and hopefully get them to talk, but Fotus wouldn't cooperate at all. He lawyered up and didn't say a word. In her first interview on June second, Michelle gave investigators her account of the day of Jennifer's disappearance. She said that she and Fotus had woken up at their house in Farmington on the twenty fourth at six forty am. She and Fotus showered and had sex, and then she made breakfast for her daughter and drove her to school. She initially said that she was with Fotus all morning, but when pressed, said that maybe it wasn't the entire morning, but she said he was definitely with her between six forty and eight fifteen, which would have given him an alibi during the time that Jennifer disappeared. She also claimed that she saw Photus with Kent Mawinney, who was Fotus's friend and attorney, at eight fifteen am, in the four Group office, which was above the garage of their residence. She did admit to being with Fotus during his drive along Albany Avenue that evening. She said that he had invited her to go to Starbucks and she had no idea why he kept stopping and throwing things in garbage bins. The next day, June third, investigators executed a search warrant at Fotus and Michelle's home, and they found what came to be known as the Alibi Script. It was two pages of handwritten notes that laid out in roughly one hour increments Photuses and Michelle's activities on the twenty fourth and the twenty

30:51 fifth. The writing was in two different handwritings later confirmed to be Fotuses and Michelle's, and what do you know it pretty much mapped verb to the story that Michelle told investigators the day before. When they confronted Michelle with the Albi scripts, she claimed that Fotus's attorney told them they should write out everything they did those days. But Michelle's story would diverge from the Alibi script in subsequent interviews as investigators confronted her with evidence that Fotus was seen in other places early the morning of the twenty fourth. In her second interview, she admitted, after some tears and attempts to change the subject, that she didn't actually see Photus that day until between one and two pm. In her third interview, she admitted that Potus wasn't at home when she woke up at six forty am, they hadn't showered together or had sex, and that she didn't see him until at least noon. She also said that she didn't actually see Photus at the Four Group office meeting with Kent Mawinni, as she had claimed. She now said that she dropped by the Four Group office, which again was at their house above the garage, and she saw Mawinni by himself, but that Potus's cell phone was on the table, so she assumed that he was either there or somewhere at home. There were several other inconsistencies in Michelle's stories across the three different interviews that she did with the police during these days. While they were conducting interviews with Michelle and still searching for Jennifer, investigators uncovered several

32:22 other pieces of video evidence that helped flesh out Potus's movements on the day in question. First, they saw him very early in the morning of the twenty fourth, at five thirty five am, leaving one of his other properties in Farmington, about two miles from his home. He was driving a red Tacoma pickup truck. The truck didn't belong to Potus. It was actually one of his employees, who said that he normally left his pickup truck at Potus's home during the week and drove one of the company cars. They spotted the red Tacoma on video in several locations between Farmington and New Canaan, including school bus video from that morning that the Tacoma parked about three miles from Jennifer's house and only about one hundred feet from where Jennifer's abandoned car was eventually found. This led investigators to wonder if Fotus parked there and maybe jogged to her home.

33:15 But then an eagle eyed detective noticed in one of the pieces of video footage that it looked like that there was a bike tire sticking up out of the back of the pickup. So they then reviewed any video footage they could find from houses in between where the Tacoma was parked and Jennifer's house, and sure enough, they saw a guy in dark clothing wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled up to obscure the rider's face, riding a bike toward Jennifer's house at seven thirty am. Just to note, the temperature in nu Canaan that morning was in the mid sixties, so if you were biking, you probably wouldn't be bundled up with a hoodie on you pulled over your head. So I've given you a lot of details about the video footage, but let me step back and just run through the timeline of everything we know for sure.

33:59 On four five thirty five am, Photus leaves one of his properties in Farmington, driving his employees red Tacoma pickup truck. Now, this is about ninety minutes from New Canaan, where Jennifer lived. The truck is spotted on video at locations between Farmington and New Canaan at six thirty six and seven oh three am. At seven thirty one am, the man in dark clothing is seen on a bicycle midway between Waveny Park and Jennifer's house. At seven forty am, the Tacoma is seen on video parked near Waveny Park. Earlier video footage showed that it wasn't there at seven oh five am, so it must have been parked there within the last thirty minutes. At eight am, Jennifer drops the kids off at school and is seen arriving back home by eight o five.

34:47 Investigators believe that Potus killed Jennifer during this time. He laid in wait in the garage and after she pulled in and closed the garage door, he attacked. And Jennifer's blood had been found in the garage and in her car r not in her car, but in the garage, and on the other car that was in the garage, so there's a range Rover that was in the garage. Her suburban was found elsewhere. It was found by the park. The blood was found spattered on the outside of the range rover like underneath it and on the door, so they're not actually sure how Jennifer was killed, but the blood on the garage floor, including the spatter that ended up on the other car, showed that it must have been a violent attack of some sort. She may not have been killed right away either, because the zip ties that they found later were likely used to restrain her. At ten twenty five am, Jennifer's suburban is seen leaving her house. Her cell phone location showed that her phone left her house about this time and traveled to Waveny Park. Investigators believed that Photus put Jennifer's body in the back of the suburban along with his bike, and drove her car to Waveny Park, near where he had left the tacoma. At eleven twelve am, the tacoma is seen traveling away from New Canaan at a location about five minutes from Waveny Park.

36:07 At twelve twenty two pm, we see the tacoma pulling back into Photus's property in Farmington, the same one that he left early that morning. Between one thirty and five thirty pm, there are several comings and goings to and from the property in Farmington, including both Michelle and Potus between seven and eight pm. Then Fotus and Michelle are spotted driving his Raptor pickup truck around Hartford dropping items into various garbage bags. So the big question was what did Potus do with Jennifer's body. There are two windows of time that detectives believe that he could have done something with her. First, after he drove Jennifer's suburban with her body in the back to Waveny Park, he was at the park for probably thirty five to forty minutes before the Tacoma was seen driving back toward Farmington, but the park was searched pretty thoroughly, including with canines, and there were joggers and other people at the park at that time, so it seems unlikely that Fotus could have left her body around there. The other window of time is after he got back to his other property in Farmington in the afternoon.

37:13 At two twenty four pm, a white jeep Cherokee owned by Potus is seen leaving the property and returning an hour and a half later, so he could have done something with Jennifer's body anywhere within forty five minutes of that property. At that time, and he's in construction. Yeah, he has a lot of different houses, a lot of different properties. One intriguing possibility that came up was a place called the Windsor Rod and Gun Club. It was a twenty five acre wooded area about twenty miles north of Farmington. The club had been founded by Kent Mawinny. Do you remember him. He was Fotus's friend and attorney. Kent had actually founded the club and secured the land about twelve to fifteen years earlier, although he had left the club five or six years ago. On May eighteenth, six days before Jennifer went missing, j Lawler, who was a member of the Rod and Gun Club, was there hunting with a friend and they came upon a hole in the ground. It was six feet long, two feet wide and three feet deep. It looked very much like a shallow grave. At the bottom of the hole was a blue tarp and two bags of lime. Lawler and his friend immediately thought it looked like a grave and that the lime was there to get rid of a body. But they hadn't heard about any missing people in the area, and so they just disturbed the area around the hole to make it apparent that it was there, so no one accidentally fell into it, and then they went on their way. Four days later, Lawler was back on the property and

38:44 he saw that the bags of lime had been removed, and then in June he went back and saw that the hole had been filled in. So this property is just a hunting property that people just yeah, and he just left it wide open, yeah, okay in August. So he never really connected this with Jennifer's disappearance. I mean, he saw the whole before she disappeared, so he didn't obviously make any connection then. And then afterwards, he didn't really think about it until August when another club member said to him, did you hear about Kent Mawinniy. He's involved in that Dulo's case. It was at that point that Lawler put two and two together. As I mentioned, Mawinni had left the club five or six years earlier, but coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, Mowinni had reached out to another club member in March or April asking how he could get back onto the club's property. The member told him about a hidden key to get onto the property, but no one knows if Mawinni ever used it, and no one else at the gun club had heard from him since. Lawler reported all of this to the police, who then came and excavated the location where the hole had been, along with the surrounding area. Again, they used cadaver dogs, but there was no sign of Jennifer's remains. A review of Kent Mawhinney's phone records showed that he had been near the Rod and Gun Club in late March and then again on May thirty first, one week after Jennifer's disappearance. Despite all of these efforts from investigators, Jennifer's body still has not been found to this day. Oh

40:17 yeah, it's really so frustrating. It is frustrating because you just you know that he did it, and you know he had to have done something with her body within a pretty limited amount of time, and so it's just daylight, right yea most likely. Yeah, So it's just yeah, it's very baffling. Were streams, ponds, lakes searched, Yeah, I think so. I mean they looked I'll talk about more, but they looked at like all the different properties that he owned. They looked at a property that Jennifer's mom owned, they looked at, yeah parks. I mean they really did a very thorough search of everywhere they could think of, and so there wasn't cement poured that day at a property. I don't think so. No.

41:02 Fotis hired well known criminal defense attorney Norm Pattis to represent him. Pattis came up with a novel theory to explain Jennifer's disappearance. And I use the word novel as a clever double meaning because he claimed to have a copy of Jennifer's unpublished novel that she had written several years ago, and Pattis claimed that it echoed the plot of Gone Girl. So if you haven't read Gone Girl or seen the movie, I'm going to give a spoiler alert before I say anything about it. It's a great book if you haven't read it, it is, but it's about a woman who fakes her own murder and leaves behind several false clues implicating her husband. Pattis said of Jennifer's novel, it's not Gone Girl, but it's close. His implication was clear that maybe Jennifer faked her own murder and then made it look like Fotus was responsible for her disappearance.

41:52 It was a ridiculous theory on its face, and Jennifer's friends and families were outraged by Pattis putting this out there. Friends who had read the draft novel say that first of all, it was written ten years before Gone Girl was published, and second, it was not at all similar to Gone Girl and didn't match any of the evidence in her actual disappearance. And third, it was ludicrous to think that Jennifer would leave her children while he was out on bail for the tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges. Fotus gave interviews to Dateline and other media outlets. While he wouldn't discuss any of the evidence or specifics about Jennifer's disappearance on advice from his lawyer, he came across as very soft spoken, sincere, and concerned. In these appearances. He of course denied any stories of violence or abuse in the marriage, and was very careful to talk about Jennifer in the present tense, saying he still believed and hoped that she was alive and would be found. It was an impressive act.

42:51 Here are a few short clips that I collected from those interviews. It was never, never, never any violence abuse in any way. Jennifer and I didn't even really argue all these years. I never wanted Jennifer out of the way. Even if I could get so custody, I would still not take it because I wouldn't want my children to have a relationship with her mother, because I care about the children. I had my differences with Jennifer, like many people do when they go through a marriage. It didn't work out for us, but that doesn't mean that I wish her ill in any way. She was a great mother. I think she was an excellent mother, and I hope that she continues to be an excellent mother. You use the present tense. Yes, do you believe Jennifer is alive? I do, against all circumstantial evidence or common understanding. I'd like not to discuss this, but in your mind, your mind for my attorney's advice, so I can't understand, but in your mind she's alive. Yes. I just want to say, if there's any dateline producers out there listening, I would love a shot being a Tate line host. I know, I know, I know we're ready for that. Oh sure you are sure? You are well? We would do it together. Yeah, so that was one of the shirts I wanted to do, was like Keith and Dennis and Josh and Richentina. Well, I forgot, I always forget the lady's name. I don't know.

44:21 I can't help you there. I'm terrible at names. I just I just know Keith. Yeah, and then I was gonna put Ritentina at the end. Yeah, what do you think of Photos's those short clips that I play. I mean, I know he's a lying sack of garbage, but he sounded sincere. I know he really I have to say, like he really comes across as super sincere. I also know he's a lying sack of garbage as well, even without a body. There was a lot of evidence pointing toward Photos and also toward Michelle Traconis and Kent Malinney for helping him cover up the crime. On January sixth of twenty twenty, all three of them were arrested. The charges against Photos were murder, felony murder, and kidnapping in the first degree. The charges against Michelle and Kent were conspiracy to commit murder.

45:07 Fotus was back home the same day after coming up with his six million dollar bond, but now wearing an ankle bracelet to keep track of him. However, prosecutors learned that the houses that he had put up for collateral for his bond were actually under foreclosure. It turned out that Fotus's finance finances were really kind of a mess. He had borrowed millions to start his business and was always on the brink of bankruptcy, essentially selling one house to get cash to build the next one, but never really getting ahead. And I think the two years of the legal battle and the divorce also he was being sued by Jennifer's mom for two point five million dollars, and he had multiple lines of credit open with a total balance of four point five million dollars, not to mention the many mortgages on his properties. In total, his debt exposure was around seven million dollars, and he was failing to even make the minimal interest payments on that debt. It's also worth noting that the kids had trust funds established in their name from Jennifer's parents, which were worth more than two million dollars. If Jennifer were to disappear and Fotus were to get custody of the children, he would suddenly have access to that money. Because of the fact that his bond had been put up using collateral that was under foreclosure, prosecutors made a motion to revoke his bond. On the morning of January twenty eighth, Potus was notified that he needed to show up for a hearing that afternoon. He likely realized that this would be his last day of freedom, at least until the trial, if not forever. At ten thirty am,

46:42 he headed into his garage and attached a hose from the exhaust of his suburban and ran it back through the window of the car and started the engine. When he didn't show up for the hearing, police quickly checked the location of his ankle bracelet and saw that he hadn't left home. They rushed out to find him in the garage inside the running car. They pulled him out onto the driveway and performed CPR, which was captured on video by news helicopters overhead. They were wow, very dramatic. Yeah, the footage is actually really dramatic. They were eventually able to get a pulse and they then airlifted him to a hospital in New York City, where he was placed in a hyperbaric chamber. To try and reverse the effects of the CO two poisoning. It didn't work, though. He was on life support for another two days, during which time the kids, who hadn't seen him in months because of a court order, were allowed to come and say their goodbyes. Oh my goodness.

47:36 Yes, Yeah, he died on January thirtieth, twenty twenty, at fifty two years old. Holy coow. I didn't didn't see that coming. Yeah. I think he just realized that he was probably never going to be free again. I think he knew that it was, you know, it was over for him. Well was there enough evidence though to convince? I mean, there was so much evidence of you know, there wasn't a body, but there was so much video of him it was really not hard at all to trace. And all the items that he threw out that had his DNA on it, along with Jennifer's blood and DNA, so I think it was pretty overwhelming. I just think of recent cases like Barry Moore few Yeah, I guess there wasn't really blood evidence there. Yeah, I think in this case there was enough circumstantial evidence that he would have been convicted once upon a time if you didn't have a body you weren't able to convict. Yeah.

48:25 Fotus did leave a suicide note proclaiming his innocence. He wrote, quote, if you are reading this, I am no more. I refuse to spend even an hour in jail for something I had nothing all caps to do with. Enough is enough. If it takes my head to end this, so be it. In the note, he also claimed that Kent Mawinney, and Michelle Traconis also had nothing to do with Jennifer's disappearance, which was kind of an odd thing to say. If he was truly innocent, how would he know if Michelle and Kent were also innocent. He also wrote, quote, please let my children know that I love them. I would do anything to be with them, but unfortunately we all have our limits. Okay, So that I'm going to have to take issue with that. Like, you're a dad, and even if you think you're going to jail, you do everything you can to stay out of jail to be there for your kids because they've already lost their mom. Yeah, absolutely so. Photus As suicide not only ensured that he would never face trial for what he did to Jennifer, it also left his five children without a parent, And on top of that, it screwed over his supposed friends, Michelle and Kent, because I'm sure prosecutors would have pressured them to flip on Photus in exchange for some type of leniency. I would think at least one of them would have taken some type of offer and maybe even led them to Jennifer's body. But now all of that was off the table. There were some rumors in late twenty twenty that Kent mawinney may have turned on Michelle. Michelle's attorney referred to him as a jailhouse informant, and we're trying to get information about what he might have said

49:57 to the police, but it's unclear what, if anything Winnie has shared. Remember, Mwinnie is a lawyer, albeit not a criminal attorney, but he knows how the game is played, so I wouldn't be surprised if he cuts some sort of a deal. There has been some indication from prosecutors that he will testify against Michelle Treconis at her trial. Kent mawinny was out unbond but under house arrest until May of twenty twenty three, when a judge granted a motion to lift the house arrest, but he's still required to wear an ankle monitor. Just recently, Mwinni's attorney asked that his ankle monitor be removed because it causes him embarrassment and prevents him from wearing ice skates, which I understand is quite a hardship. But the judge, these people I know, the judge did not see it that way and denied the motion. This was just a couple of weeks ago. Actually, Michelle Traconis has maintained her innocence.

50:49 She released a statement in May of twenty twenty saying that she knows nothing of Jennifer's whereabouts. While she professes sympathy for the Doulo's children, the statement quickly turns down how unfairly she's been treated. She also said, quote, whether or not Fotus Dulos was capable of doing the things the police and prosecutors accused him of doing, I do not know, but based on what I've learned in the last year, I think it was a mistake to have trusted him unquote. Michelle's trial is scheduled to start on January eighth of twenty twenty four in Stamford, Connecticut. Jury selection is actually already complete, So it sounds like, yeah, they did. I thought they usually did jury selection right before the trial, but they actually just finished it maybe a couple of weeks ago. It seems really odd because then you know, you're curious, you're a human, Yeah, you're probably going to do something. They would probably do some googling. Yeah, I'm sure they're told not to, but yeah, that would be kind of human nature, wouldn't it. So it sounds like the trial is likely to go forward without further delay. The judge has said that the trial may last until March first. I'll be sure and provide updates once it begins. She's currently free on bond as she awaits trial.

52:00 So the evidence against Michelle is like, there's video of her in the Tacoma yeah, with with potus and composing of the trash. Yeah. And there's also DNA of hers on some of the trash bags. It's not on like the items that had Jennifer's blood on them, but it is on the trash bags themselves. So so I guess she could potentially say, oh, I was just helping throw away the trash. Yeah, I think so it's possible. I don't know what other evidence they have against her other than you know, she lied. She clearly lied in the police interviews that she did. You know, they caught her in those lies. They know, they know for a fact that she was not being honest with them during those interviews.

52:43 So they definitely have that against her as well. But yeah, I'm not sure, like if they've you know, the case against her for conspiracy to commit murder, if that's going to be strong enough. So I'll be I'll be really curious to see what happens with that trial. Yeah, I'll definitely keep her eyes open. I don't believe that Kent mawinney has a trial date yet, and I kind of wonder if prosecutors are waiting to see whether he follows through and testifying against Traconis, and maybe some type of a deal is in the works pending that testimony him. I mean, really, I haven't read a lot. Yeah, I think he helped kind of provide an alibi for Fotus. I didn't read a lot about his questioning of the police, but I think that he originally may have told them that he met with Photos that morning to try to give him an alibi. So I think he may have lied for Fotus, and then there's the whole thing with the rod and gun club, which didn't lead anywhere, but it's still very suspicious but not necessarily evidence. Yeah, exactly what was he charged with? Conspiracy to commit murder? Yeah? So yeah, again, I don't know what when he is going to go on trial, if ever he met. Like I said, I my speculation is that he had some kind of a plea agreement to maybe help in the case against Michelle. But again, I'll provide updates as we learn more about that. We may never know exactly what happened to Jennifer Farber Dulos. It's clear that Fords killed her, but we don't know exactly how. The fact that he had brought zip ties, a rain poncho, gloves, and other items tell us that he planned to restrain her before killing

54:14 her, which is horrible to think about. I can only imagine the terror that Jennifer felt in her last moments. The fact that there was a large amount of blood in the garage and that Fotus made an attempt to clean it up with a bunch of paper towels tells me that things didn't go according to plan. I'm sure he didn't intend to leave that much physical evidence at the scene. Investigators have searched extensively for Jennifer's body, as we've talked about it. They searched the pond where Potus taught the kids how to water ski. They searched several properties owned by Potus's company. They searched the property of a home that Jennifer's mom owned near New Canaan. They've used cadaver dogs and also dogs trained to sniff out electronics, which I didn't even know as a thing, because Jennifer's phone has also been recovered. They shut down an incineration plant in Hartford. Fotus was not the smartest criminal in the world, given all the evidence they left behind, but the fact that he was somehow able to disappear Jennifer's body and the relatively short window of time that he had is baffling, as we've talked about already. But wherever you are, Jennifer, I hope that you're able to rest in peace. Oh for sure. That's that's heartbreaking. You know how I feel about these cases When these kids are left, Yeah, and no closure, it's just Yeah, it's incredibly sad.

55:31 Recently, Jennifer's family issued a statement, quote, we continue to grieve the loss of her loving devotion to her children and family, her friendship, courage, brilliance, humor, and singular ability to touch the lives of the people she encountered. The statement went on to say that quote intimate partner violence cuts across gender, economic, and racial ethnic lines, and it disproportionately affects women of color and asks the public to help change the disparity by don't to the Black and Missing Foundation. Jennifer's five children, who at this point range in age from seventeen to thirteen, have been living with Jennifer's mom, Gloria, who is now eighty eight years old. Wow. I'm sure they have a privileged upbringing, given Gloria's wealth, but they've been deprived of a mother who loved them more than anything in the world. And I really hope that they're doing okay. And that is all I have on the story of Jennifer Farber Dulos. Oh. That was really that's very sad. The kids, so it was their extended family. Do they see his family at all? I do not know. I suspect that they don't, though I think a lot of his extended family are overseas in Greece anyway, So I'm just guessing that there's probably not a lot of warm relations there between Jennifer's mom and his family, but I don't know for sure. Well, I know you're not feeling well today, so you did it a spectacular job. So thanks for hanging in there for us. And a lot of listeners always say that we or

57:01 you have soothing voices. And I was feeling today because I almost sowned are supposedly for a second there. I have to be careful because I always I like to fall asleep to dateline. Yeah, usually, but I was getting a little sleep there. But heartbreaking case, yeah for sure. And I again, I will update everyone when Michelle Traconis goes to trial and if there are any other developments, because the case is still not resolved yet. Where do you think her body could have been taken? I really, I mean I I wish, I wish I did know, But yeah, I mean it's got to be somewhere within like a forty five minute you know, radius of Farmington where Photus's house was. But that leaves a lot of space.

57:45 I mean, there's a lot of open areas in that part of Connecticut, so really hard to say, just heartbreaking and baffling. And yeah, you just wish that there could be some closure there, that it would at least help to find her body and have at least that much closure. But you know there will never be real justice in this case because you know, Photus is not there to stand trial either, So that's too bad. So we're having our first snow out there we are. The ground is white outside our window. It looks like we could have an up to an inch right now. What do you think? I would say? It looks like about close to an inch. Yeah, and our little baby boy he's driving. He's driving back to Marquat today, which seven hour I'm not happy about, but hopefully he'll get there safely. Yeah. We tried to talk him into staying an extra day and skipping your classes on and he wouldn't do it. You would think he'd be all over that, oh, skip my classes on Monday and stay extra day, but no, he wanted to get on the road.

58:46 Was sad. We'll be waiting with baited breath until he arrives. Yeah, so do you want to talk about your favorite new show? The Golden Bachelor you've been give me to watch it. You just can't get enough of it. You're like, honey, when can we watch Golden Match? Though I know, I just can't get off cool. So I haven't watched The Bachelor in a long time. I used to watch it pretty religiously, but for the last four to five or six seasons, I haven't watched. But I heard a lot of people talking about is it Cherry or Gary? It's Cherry? I think I think it's Gary. Is Gary? I think? So okay, Yeah, it's okay Gary. Sorry, if I'm getting this run, it's really heartwarming, it's nice. I think there needs to be a better representation of the world on TV. Sometimes I will agree with you there that it's good to have older people represented on TV. But he seems like a lovely to be fair, I don't know what's going to happen because I think we've watched two episodes and if there's too much, too much it's like kissing these women like Ry first up, So it was like Garry or Jerry. Remember Parks and Recreation where there was that one guy and they always called him Larry or Jerry or you can never get Jerry. His name is Jerry. But they Yeah, these women on the Golden Bachelor are so aggressive though, that's that's what that's okay. I was going to go with beautiful

1:00:20 and amazing. They are, but like every one of the mom is up there like fall in love with me, I know. So no spoilers because Riches he's just been bugging me. Like I said, to watch another episode of the Golden Bachelor. But if you haven't watched it, I mean admit that, maybe you can't even admit it. What do you want me to admit that you enjoyed it? No, I haven't enjoyed it. Oh really I thought you did? All right? Well really okay, I think it's sweet. So if you haven't watched it, you can let me know if you what you think, because I think it's heartwarming and sweet. Just see people have a second chance. Yes at Love? Yes? All right?

1:01:02 Well, thank you everyone for listening. We appreciate each and Kelly for recommending this episode. Yeah, super interesting case, Kelly, thank you for letting us know about it. Well, please like, rate, review, subscribe, follow us on social media, send us an email at lovemarykill at gmail dot com. We love you, guys, and we appreciate all your feedback. I'd love to talk to you guys on social media. So thank you so much for your support. It means everything. It does. Until next time, don't kill your husband and don't kill your wife. The accumpant, the comp