FOTIS DULOS PLOT REVEALED
Lead investigators: Dulos may have shaved his head to frame colleague; new evidence could lead to Jennifer’s body
NEW CANAAN — The two lead investigators in the Jennifer Dulos case have revealed how they believe her estranged husband may have tried to frame his former employee and how new evidence with “high potential” could finally lead them to the 50-year-old mother’s remains.
In an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media, Det. John Kimball, of the Western District Major Crimes Unit, and New Canaan Police Officer Thomas Patten provided new details into the case that rocked the New Canaan community and grabbed international headlines.
Fotis Dulos faced murder and other charges when he died of an apparent
suicide in January. He was accused of attacking and killing his estranged wife in the garage of her home when she returned from dropping off their five children at school on May 24, 2019, according to his arrest warrant.
Jennifer Dulos’ body has never been found, but police say she is presumed dead based on blood and other evidence found in her garage, according to the arrest warrant.
However, Kimball said new evidence could soon lead them to a development in the case “in the relatively near future.”
“We’re actively investigating, and it’s not New Canaan, but we haven’t ruled New Canaan out,” he said of the potential location of the remains.
The 16-month investigation has generated more than 1,500 leads and many “valuable” tips that continue to come in each day.
Early in the investigation, it was Fotis Dulos’ sudden change of appearance that caught the police attention, Kimball said. In the days before the disappearance, Fotis Dulos shaved his head, possibly in an attempt to look more like his employee, Pawel Gumienny, who had closely cropped hair, Kimball said.
“Whether that was the primary reason or not, it was the end result,” Kimball said.
The new look surprised Gumienny, who told investigators he even made a comment about it to Fotis Dulos when he first saw him with the shaved head, Kimball said.
“He did end up looking like Pawel, to the extent that Pawel commented, ‘Hey, you look just like me.’ That goes along with the planning and that goes along with creating a diversion,” Kimball said.
Kimball said police knew Gumienny worked for Fotis Dulos’ high-end real estate development company, Fore Group, and drove a red pickup truck.
According to his arrest warrant, Fotis Dulos used Gumienny’s red Toyota Tacoma to drive to New Canaan the morning of the disappearance. He also told Gumienny to head straight to New Canaan that morning to work on a property they were developing instead of stopping at his home office in Farmington, the arrest warrant stated.
“You have several pre-planning steps in the warrant. One of which is that he didn’t use his own vehicle for the commission of the crime. He used the vehicle that was available to him — an employee’s vehicle,” Kimball said. “At the time he was using this employee’s vehicle, the employee, we believe, had no knowledge of this. He didn’t give him permission to use it. And Fotis had actually altered his appearance to resemble this employee, so if someone saw this vehicle, they might not associate it with Fotis Dulos. They might associate it with the person whose vehicle it actually was when in fact it was Fotis Dulos.”
Attorney Lindy Urso, who represents Gumienny, acknowledged Fotis Dulos might have been trying to frame his client.
“That’s been part of their theory,” Urso said. “He used (Gumienny’s) truck and knew he was going to be in New Canaan working for him, so that’s a possibility.”
A New Canaan police officer examining hundreds of hours of footage from school bus security videos spotted the pickup truck parked the morning of the disappearance near where Jennifer Dulos’ abandoned Chevy Suburban was found that night, Patten said.
“That’s still something that stands out to me as far as a key moment in uncovering evidence that led us then to a whole other path,” Patten said.
“The hair on the back of my neck just went up,” Kimball said. “Finding a piece of information like that is highly significant.”
It was a break in the case that allowed investigators to trace the movements of the vehicle between Farmington and New Canaan by using
highway and rest-stop videos, Patten said.
“It definitely cemented some of our theories that we had as far as how did he transport himself from Farmington to New Canaan, and then back,” Patten said. “Because prior to that, it was just sort of a possibility and then once we were able to turn that into a definitive, that changed a lot.”
As police were gathering this evidence in New Canaan, they say Fotis Dulos was tampering with other key evidence involving Gumienny.
In the days after the disappearance, Fotis Dulos took Gumienny’s phone and likely erased some of the contents, including the web search history and phone calls made on May 25 and 26, Kimball said.
After taking Gumienny’s pickup truck to be detailed at an Avon car wash, Fotis Dulos told his employee to throw out the back seats, the arrest warrant stated. Fotis Dulos continued to pressure Gumienny, who eventually removed the seats but never discarded them because he became suspicious of his employer’s behavior, the warrant stated.
After speaking with investigators, Gumienny turned over the seats and tests revealed one of them contained Jennifer Dulos’ blood, according to the warrant.
Gumienny expects to be called by the state to testify if Michelle Troconis and Kent Mawhinney take their cases to trial, Urso said.
Troconis, the former girlfriend of Fotis Dulos, is on house arrest while charged with conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution.
Mawhinney, a former attorney for Fotis Dulos, remains jailed on $2 million bond while charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
They have each pleaded not guilty to the charges, but the criminal proceedings have been slowed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Mawhinney has not appeared in court since February and his next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 24. Troconis has only had one court appearance in recent months and is scheduled for a hearing on Oct. 1.
The investigators declined to discuss specific information because of the pending cases, but said they are continuing to pursue leads.
“This is definitely an active investigation,” Kimball said. “Every day, there is new information. We just got information in this morning. Some of the new information is more valuable than some other new information. There is definitely work that remains to be done in this case. We are very positive and very hopeful that we will be able to locate Jennifer and bring some closure to her family.”
Last weekend, when police discovered a woman’s remains in Watertown, Patten and Kimball immediately became interested. But it wasn’t Jennifer Dulos — a familiar letdown that occurs every time a body is found.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” Patten said. “Our goal from the outset has been to find Jennifer. Any news that comes forward is always viewed hopefully. But there has been many ups and downs. There have been a lot of hopeful times and there has been a lot of disappointment.”
Kimball believes the amount of plotting that occurred leading up to the crime has affected their ability to find Jennifer Dulos.
“There has been several indications in this investigation that there was a lot of pre-planning,” Kimball said. “I would not be surprised if this was a case where we would not have a hiker happen upon something. I think it’s more likely that Jennifer is going to be located as a result of overt investigative efforts. … I think it’s very likely that she was placed somewhere where we’re going to have to find her rather than someone just stumbling upon her.”