Investigators found blood-like stain, Porsche seats in truck
STAMFORD — A fingerprint on a garbage bag linked to the Jennifer Dulos case matched her estranged husband, an expert testified Wednesday on Day 14 of the Michelle Troconis trial.
State forensic science examiner Kevin Parisi said he found a match for a latent fingerprint on a garbage bag belonging to Fotis Dulos. The bag is connected with the Jennifer Dulos death and disappearance, but it is unclear if it was one of the bags found in Hartford on the night she went missing. Latent means that the print has been transferred from another object, Parisi said.
Two latent prints on tape found with the bag also matched the fingerprints of Fotis Dulos, but others were inconclusive, Parisi said.
Several other items of evidence that were tested for prints did not match Fotis Dulos or Troconis.
Earlier in the day, prosecutors continued showing evidence related to a pickup truck owned by a former employee of Fotis Dulos.
Retired Connecticut State Police Sgt. Matthew Reilly returned to the stand to discuss how he collected evidence from a 2001 red Toyota Tacoma. Police believe Fotis Dulos used the pickup truck, which belonged to his employee Pavel Gumienny, to drive to New Canaan on May 24, 2019 — the day Jennifer Dulos went missing.
Reilly said he first searched the Tacoma on June 11, 2019, and noted the vehicle was “very clean” for an 18-year-old truck. The truck had two black, leather Porsche seats positioned in the driver’s and passenger’s areas, though they weren’t installed to the floor.
The seats were “just kind of sitting there,” he said, and photos of the vehicle showed the driver’s seat leaning against a plastic bucket.
Reilly told prosecutors that he remembered seeing a Porsche in the garage at Deercliff Road in Avon — another property owned by Fotis Dulos at the time. He said the Porsche’s front seats were missing.
In the bed of the pickup truck, Reilly said police found two other seats from the Ford Motor Co.
Reilly testified that, while looking through the vehicle, he found a blood-like stain on the speaker grill of the driver’s side door. He said he used a Kastle-Meyer test, a presumptive test, that indicated the possible presence of blood, and took a sample from the area.
Investigators also used Luminol, which Reilly described as a search tool, to detect potential latent blood. The chemical shows a bluish glow in the presence of blood, and other substances, which alerts investigators to perform additional tests. The chemical, along with the Kastle-Meyer test, has been the subject of many objections from the defense during the trial.
Reilly told prosecutors how he also took samples from other areas of the vehicle, including under the control panel, the driver’s
side door and the passenger door.
Police searched the Toyota two additional times — on June 26, 2019, and again on Aug. 27, 2019. On June 26, 2019, Reilly said police unscrewed the license plates and took swabs from the threads of the screws. Police also seized the license plates and screws, which later were processed for latent fingerprints. Reilly testified that he was not able to find fingerprints on the plates.
On Aug. 27, 2019, Reilly said his team was tasked with seizing the entire door panel on the passenger side and the carpet from the
passenger area.
Much of the testimony and video footage presented Tuesday detailed the movements of this pickup truck on the day Jennifer Dulos went missing. It remains unclear when Gumienny, a onetime suspect in Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance, will take the stand.
Gumienny has received a subpoena to testify and was granted immunity, his lawyer said.
Troconis, 49, is facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. She
is accused of trying to create an alibi for Fotis Dulos the morning of the disappearance and helping to clean Gumienny’s pickup truck afterward.
Connecticut State Police Sgt. Michael Beauton testified on Tuesday about when investigators first encountered Gumienny, whom he described as “very nervous” and “soaked in sweat” when he arrived at Fotis Dulos’ Farmington home on May 31, 2019 — one week after Jennifer Dulos vanished.
Beauton testified that Gumienny later told investigators he had
just removed seats from a Porsche Cayenne at one of Fotis Dulos’ nearby properties. Gumienny said Fotis Dulos had instructed him to replace the seats in his Tacoma with the ones from the Porsche, Beauton testified. One of the seats in Gumienny’s truck later tested positive for Jennifer Dulos’ blood, according to arrest warrants in the case.
Investigators on Tuesday then testified as the prosecution played videos of a red pickup truck resembling Gumienny’s Tacoma that was captured on highway and school bus cameras on the morning Jennifer Dulos vanished. The footage showed the Tacoma driving from Farmington to New Canaan where it was seen parked on Lapham Road near where Jennifer Dulos’ SUV was later found. The videos then showed the Tacoma traveling back to Farmington where the driver, who could not be identified in the footage, arrived at Fotis Dulos’ Mountain Spring Road home.
Former Connecticut State Police Detective John Kimball, who was the lead investigator on the case, has suggested Fotis Dulos shaved his head in the days leading up to the disappearance to look more like Gumienny in a possible effort to frame his employee.
Fotis Dulos died by suicide in January 2020 while facing murder and other charges in the case. Jennifer Dulos has never been found, but has been declared legally dead.