2 Conn. cases where suspicion fell on husband

In his only interview since being charged in connection with the disappearance of his wife, Fotis Dulos said it’s only natural suspicion has fallen on him.

“Statistically, when this happens, 90 or 95 percent (of the time) it’s the spouse,” Fotis Dulos told NBC New York. “So I understand why people feel like this.”

But, he added, “It’s 90 percent, it’s not 100 percent — I’m in the 5 or 10 percent.”

Dulos, 52, and Michelle Troconis, 44, have each pleaded not guilty to tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges in connection with the disappearance. Police concluded Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” after they found blood inside the garage of the New Canaan home she had been renting.

According to arrest warrants, two people resembling Fotis Dulos and Troconis were seen making more than 30 stops in a fourmile stretch of Albany Avenue in Hartford around the same time Jennifer Dulos was reported missing May 24. Videos also showed Fotis Dulos tossing garbage bags that were later found to contain his wife’s blood, police said.

But he has not been charged with murder, or any other charges directly related to his estranged wife’s disappearance.

He is also not the first spouse in a highprofile disappearance to have suspicion fall on him, and won’t be the last.

Connecticut has seen its fair share of highprofile cases in which women have disappeared and investigators have focused on their husbands, with various outcomes.

Here are a few examples of some of the notorious cases:

Richard Dabate

Connie Dabate, a mother of two and pharmaceutical sales rep, was found dead in her family’s Ellington home two days before Christmas 2015.

Her husband, Richard Dabate, claimed they were victims of a home invasion, and that a masked intruder tied him to a chair and shot his wife with his own gun.

But investigators found that Connie Dabate’s Fitbit kept tracking her movements for about an hour after the time her husband said she was murdered. Her Facebook account also showed she had posted on her profile while at home nearly 45 minutes after her husband said she was killed.

The case went without an arrest for more than a year before Richard Dabate was charged with murder in April 2017.

Dabate, who has pleaded not guilty in the case, rejected a plea deal last January. His case is awaiting trial at Superior Court in Vernon.

Robert Durst

New York real estate heir Robert Durst’s wife, Kathleen McCormack Durst, went missing after attending a dinner party at a friend’s home in Newtown in January 1982. She had also attended Western Connecticut State College, now Western Connecticut State University, in the 1970s.

Robert Durst said he dropped his wife off at a train station in South Salem, N.Y., to get on a train headed for Manhattan. There was never another confirmed sighting of her.

Friends and family said the couple was having marital problems and that Robert Durst had been abusive toward his wife, who was allegedly preparing to divorce him.

Nearly 20 years after his wife’s disappearance, a longtime friend of his, Susan Berman, was found shot to death in her Los Angeles home. Berman had served as Durst’s unofficial spokeswoman when his wife disappeared. Prosecutors believe Durst killed Berman when he grew concerned she would reveal his involvement in his wife’s death. He has pleaded not guilty.

Less than a year after Berman’s death, Durst was arrested for killing an elderly neighbor in Galveston, Texas. Durst claimed he acted in selfdefense and was acquitted of murder.

Durst, who was the subject of an HBO documentary series, “The Jinx,” in which he was caught on a hot mic during filming saying, “What did I do? I killed them all,” was sued by his wife’s sister for wrongful death, but a judge threw the case out of court Wednesday after ruling it was barred under the statute of limitations.