Juror dismissed in Troconis trial over ‘Gone Girl’ reference
STAMFORD — A second juror in the Michelle Troconis trial was dismissed Friday after referencing the novel “Gone Girl” in relation to the Jennifer Dulos case.
Judge Kevin Randolph said he received an anonymous note from a juror, handed to him from a marshal, saying that an alternate juror had discussed something about the case.
“One of the jurors discussed something about the case and it was all over social media,” Randolph quoted the note as saying. “Said it was like ‘Gone Girl.’ A brief mention, several other jurors said, ‘Don’t discuss this.’”
After reading the note, Randolph closed the courtroom for about 45 minutes, but did have a court reporter transcribing the proceeding, as he questioned the jurors. While talking to the juror who made the “Gone Girl” reference, Randolph said the comment could have affected other jurors’ abilities to be fair and impartial to the state and defense.
Randolph said he dismissed the juror and also asked the other jurors if they could still be fair. He said the other jurors assured him they could be fair and would avoid news and social media posts about the case.
The “Gone Girl” novel and movie was first referenced in the case by attorney Norm Pattis, who represented Fotis Dulos on murder and other charges in his estranged wife’s death and disappearance until his client died by suicide in January 2020.
About a month after Jennifer Dulos vanished, Pattis suggested the mother of five could have staged her own disappearance to frame her husband, similar to the plot of “Gone Girl.”
Shortly after the claims, an attorney for Jennifer Dulos’ mother, Gloria Farber, called Pattis’ comments a “classic act of desperation to slander the victim,” the New York Post reported. A friend of Jennifer Dulos also told the Post that the New Canaan mother was “afraid for her life” before she disappeared.
Troconis, 49, was living with Fotis Dulos when police said he attacked his estranged wife in the garage of her
home and then disposed of her body and evidence. Troconis is accused of conspiring with her former boyfriend to kill his estranged wife. Troconis is accused of trying to create an alibi for Fotis Dulos the morning of the disappearance and helping him to clean a truck belonging to one of his employees that police said was used in the crime.
The juror on Friday was the second dismissed in the trial. The first juror was dismissed after making a comment to prosecutors that could be perceived as favoring the state's case, Randolph said.
After the juror was dismissed on Friday, Kristen Madel, a nearly 20-year employee with the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory, returned to the stand. Madel spent the entire day on Thursday testifying about DNA evidence collected at Jennifer Dulos' New Canaan home and inside her Chevrolet Suburban after she vanished in May 2019. Her testimony concluded Friday, though prosecutors said she is expected to return later in the trial.
Defense attorney Jon Schoenhorn continued cross-examining Madel on Friday, first emphasizing that his client's DNA was not found in the home or in Jennifer Dulos' Chevy Suburban.
“All of those results were negative as to Michelle Troconis, isn't that right?” Schoenhorn asked Madel.
“Or insufficient or inconclusive,” Madel answered.
Schoenhorn also asked Madel about the so-called “transfer” of DNA and how long DNA can be detected when impacted by factors such as weather.
The state then called Lt. Col. Mark Davison, the commanding officer of Connecticut State Police's Office of Administrative Services, to testify. He described how he used bloodstain pattern analysis to evaluate Jennifer Dulos' Welles Lane garage the day after she went missing.
Davison told Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney Michelle Manning that he found “altered stains” on the garage floor and some had “characteristics of a swipe mark.” Manning displayed photos of the stains, one of which Davison said seemed to have been transferred to another object.
Davison said there was a minimum of 26 stains found on the left side of the garage. He used seven of these suspected blood stains to create a reconstruction of what he called the “bloodshed event.” The reconstruction showed pink strings coming from each stain, demonstrating the suspected blood's path of travel and coming together in front of the driver's side door of the Range Rover parked in the middle of the garage's three bays.
After analyzing the stains found on Jennifer Dulos' Suburban, which was found abandoned on nearby Lapham Road the night she disappeared, Davison said it was likely that the vehicle was parked on the left side of the garage facing forward at the time of the bloodshed event.
Davison also reconstructed suspected blood stains found on the Range Rover.
Based on his analysis of the scene, Davison determined there were mutually exclusive, or separate, bloodshed events. When Manning asked if there were two of these events, Davison replied “at the minimum.”
Near the end of the day, the state called Sgt. Kenneth Ventresca, who has been with the Connecticut State Police for 18 years. He recalled how, in the first 48 hours of Jennifer Dulos' disappearance, his team was called to help New Canaan police in their investigation.
On May 26, 2019, Ventresca said New Canaan police provided some preliminary location data from Fotis Dulos' cellphone. The phone was in Farmington for most of the day Jennifer Dulos went missing, but at around 7 or 7:10 p.m., Ventresca said Fotis Dulos' phone was in the Albany Avenue area of Hartford.
Ventresca recalled that Alabany Avenue was a “high crime area” and detectives weren't sure whether Fotis Dulos had a housing development in the area.
“We don't know what business he had doing in Hartford,” he noted.
Ventresca said he and another detective drove down Albany Avenue on May 27, 2019, to conduct a “cursory canvas,” looking for video cameras and other evidence related to the missing persons investigation. He noticed a video camera on the front awning of a Jamaican restaurant, but was unable to obtain footage that day because the restaurant was closed.
In the early days of the investigation, Ventresca said he and detectives looked at Fotis Dulos' company, social media and what vehicles he had access to, including a Ford Raptor, a white Jeep Grand Cherokee, a black Suburban, a Porche and a red Toyota Tacoma.
In arrest warrants, police said Fotis Dulos and Troconis were seen on Hartford surveillance cameras making a series of stops in his Raptor on Albany Avenue around 7 p.m. on the night of the disappearance. The warrants said Fotis Dulos was seen dumping bags that were later found to contain his estranged wife's blood and DNA.
The warrants have also said police believe Fotis Dulos drove his employee's red Toyota Tacoma to and from New Canaan the morning of the disappearance. The warrants said Troconis was also seen on video days later with Fotis Dulos as they took the Tacoma to a car wash to get detailed.
While leaving court following the conclusion of testimony, Schoenhorn said he would continue to object to police characterizing what the footage depicted, but not videos themselves being shown to the jury, which he said will “speak for themselves.”
He said the trial was “extremely stressful” for Troconis, who he said has only been linked to the case thus far by testimony from the Dulos family's former nanny.
“The state's apparently going to try and prove that Fotis Dulos murdered his wife. My client's not charged with that,” he said. “So even if they prove all that, that doesn't necessarily lead to any other conclusion.”