‘Bone Finder’: Questions about pool raised suspicion about Dulos property

Considered to be one of the most extensive investigations in Connecticut history, the search for Jennifer Dulos took a new twist last week.

Known as the “Bone Finder,” Bob Perry joined Connecticut State Police to examine whether the New Canaan mother’s remains could be buried on a Farmington property once associated with her estranged husband.

In an in-depth interview with Hearst Connecticut Media, Perry explained his examination of the property and shared exclusive photos and videos of the locations where he discovered the anomalies.

Perry, a U.S. Army and Navy veteran, has made a full-time business out of mapping cemeteries and some crime scenes by using ground-penetrating radar.

Connecticut State Police contacted him to examine several areas along the wood line at 80 Mountain Spring Road, a property formerly owned by Fotis Dulos that is now under contract to be sold.

The property went into foreclosure after Fotis Dulos died from an apparent suicide last January while facing murder, kidnapping and other charges in the death and disappearance of his estranged wife who vanished in May 2019.

The 73-year-old Perry believes Jennifer Dulos’ mother, Gloria Farber, alerted state police to his services. Perry has appeared on the History Channel and other television shows looking for the dead with his equipment that shows anomalies in the ground where unmarked graves or remains may be located.

It’s fairly painstaking work that has led him to map out the 35-acre Historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington D.C, and places like Micronesia, where he was on the hunt for 15 slain Americans believed to be connected with a $3 million ransom for the kidnapping of Amelia Earhart, according to Perry’s website.

Questions about constructing pool

Perry said Connecticut police wanted him to examine a few areas of the property that Fotis Dulos had discussed with surveyors after his estranged wife disappeared. The 5-acre property, which was listed for sale at $1.7 million, was among those that Fotis Dulos was developing to sell as part of his high-end real estate company, Fore Group.

Fotis Dulos and his former girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, spent the afternoon at the property in the hours after Jennifer Dulos vanished, according to arrest warrants in the case.

Perry said he was told that while Fotis Dulos was trying to sell the house after his wife vanished, he asked surveyors about the possibility of future owners constructing a pool at the wood line that abutted a land trust parcel. It was an unusual location, Perry thought, considering the expanse of the lawn at 80 Mountain Spring Road.

“He wanted to know if anyone would be able to dig the area up,” said Perry, who lives in Litchfield, N.H. “That was suspicious to the surveyors, so they reported it.”

Using his ground-penetrating radar equipment, Perry joined state police investigators last week for another look at the property before it’s turned over to new owners.

Perry said he identified four areas at the wood line that showed anomalies or some disruption of the soil. He spotted a fifth location under a staircase in the basement of the home that he believes is likely a long pipe.

Perry said he designated each of the five locations as “low probability” for the presence of a body or human remains. Perry said there was evidence the areas had been disturbed, but he determined there likely was not a body buried there based on the readings on his machine.

As he was identifying the areas, he said investigators began digging with shovels. But they realized they needed heavier equipment and returned the next day with an excavator.

State police and Chief State’s Attorney Richard J. Colangelo Jr. have declined to say if anything was found. Perry said he also hasn’t been told if the searched turned up anything.

On the day of his wife’s disappearance, Fotis Dulos told Troconis to meet him at 80 Mountain Spring Road with supplies so they could clean the property “in preparation for a client meeting the next morning,” according to arrest warrants.

Troconis told police Fotis Dulos spent time that day in the yard setting up stakes so people couldn't walk on the "newly seeded" grass, the warrants state. The warrants do not say what part of the yard Fotis Dulos had been working on or if police had checked the area as part of the investigation.

At one point, Fotis Dulos went into the basement, Troconis told investigators, according to the warrants. But she contended she was unaware of any suspicious activity at the house, the warrants state.

Troconis also told police Fotis Dulos asked her for more paper towels because he “spilled something” in a pickup truck that belonged to one of his employees, the warrants stated.

Police said Fotis Dulos used his employee’s Toyota Tacoma earlier that day to drive to and from New Canaan, the warrants stated. Police said they traced the Tacoma that day through video surveillance footage and Jennifer Dulos’ blood was later found on one of the seats, the warrants stated.

Police said Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” in the garage of her home when she returned from dropping off her five children at school, arrest warrants state. Her remains have not been found, but police believe she could not have survived the attack without immediate medical attention, the warrants state.

Troconis and Fotis Dulos’ friend and former attorney, Kent Mawhinney, have each pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder charges. Troconis has also pleaded not guilty to tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges.

A Probate Court judge is scheduled to hear arguments next month whether to declare Jennifer Dulos dead. No person who has been missing for less than seven years has ever been declared dead in Connecticut.

Perry’s burial roots

Perry is paid $1,800 a day for cemetery jobs and $500 for police investigations, but said he’s not sure if he will charge for his work in the Dulos case.

Perry said he can tell with a fair amount of certainty what lies beneath disturbed ground, including headstones, bodies, tree roots and pipes. But the reality is, “you don’t know what you have in the ground until you dig it up,” he said.

In one instance, he said, “I would have bet my life there were bodies, and it turned out to be a 50-gallon drum and pieces of a broken water main pipe.”

In another case, when he was asked to review an area slated for a development in Manchester, N.H., he found a live hand grenade.

After leaving the armed forces in 1973, Perry worked for years as a technical illustrator until a client approached him in 1999 about redrafting maps for a cemetery. He agreed and planned to hire someone to do the mapping.

“I thought I’d pay them $2,500,” Perry said.

But a cemetery mapping company wanted $7,000 to do the work. That’s when he realized mapping cemeteries would be a profitable venture, so he began collecting addresses and mailing postcards to cemeteries around the country offering his services. His company, Topographix, is already booked with jobs through 2021.

He purchased his first ground-penetrating radar unit in 2002 after being hired to investigate a situation involving a cemetery that had twice sold a filled grave.

“I thought about using it because a lot of cemeteries I was working with had the same problem,” he said.

He paid $23,000 for the equipment and recovered the cost in less than three months with the number of cemetery jobs he received.

He’ll check areas where unmarked graves may be located or to make sure an area is pristine before a cemetery sells a plot.

The equipment includes a computer with a gray screen that indicates the possibility of disturbances in the soil with a series of blips and lines. Graves appear as bumps on the gray background. Tree roots show up as pointed shapes. A radar photo of a mass grave during the 1918 pandemic shows six bumps in roughly the same area.

He added police work to his resume about five years ago after turning down an initial request by the New Jersey State Police to inspect a hole for a swimming pool that had been filled in, Perry said. The location was connected to two crime families, he said.

“The New Jersey police thought the guy was buried in the ground in his car,” he recalled.

Perry did take the second case they offered, looking for the unmarked grave of a John Doe who was possibly identified through advances in DNA. He found two unmarked graves, including the one of John Doe.

“I feel very blessed that I have the opportunity to work with people like this,” Perry said. “I’ve seen people at the cemetery and there is nothing worse than trying to find a burial site.”