The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Prosecutor ‘very open-minded’ to offer deal to find Jennifer Dulos
NEW CANAAN — The chief state’s attorney says he’s willing to consider a deal in the Jennifer Dulos case if it leads to the missing mother’s remains.
“Believe it or not, I’m a very open-minded person,” Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. said in an interview with CBS correspondent Erin Moriarty that aired Saturday night on “48 Hours.”
“I’m not going to close the door on anything,” he said.
“I will take that as a ‘yes,’” Moriarty said. “That’s how much you would like to know where Jennifer is?” “Absolutely,” Colangelo replied. The nearly two-year investigation into the death and disappearance was the focus of “48 Hours,” which included comments from Michelle Troconis’ family for the first time.
The show also included video footage from inside Fotis Dulos’ Farmington home before his suicide last January. Fotis Dulos died while facing murder, kidnapping and other charges in his estranged wife’s death and disappearance. His sister and nieces were interviewed on the show and maintained his innocence.
Troconis, who is free on $2 million bond after pleading not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges, was included in the show but was not interviewed.
An attorney for co-defendant Kent Mawhinney, who has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and could testify against Troconis, declined to be interviewed.
Troconis’ family said she was not involved in any crime and does not know where to find Jennifer Dulos, who vanished on May 24, 2019.
“This has shattered our life because my sister is not the person that they’re saying and she would never be capable of anything they’re saying that she has done,” Troconis’ sister, Claudia, said.
“She wouldn’t harm anybody,” her father Carlos Troconis said.
Michelle Troconis’ mother, Marisela Arreaza, who lives with her and has appeared by her side throughout the case, was not included in the show.
The family said Fotis Dulos claimed to be going through an “amicable” divorce with his estranged wife while he was dating Troconis.
But arrest warrants indicated Fotis Dulos’ acrimonious relationship with his estranged wife was a source of contention between him and Troconis.
In arrest warrants, police said Fotis Dulos told his girlfriend, “sometimes I wish she (Jennifer Dulos) would disappear.”
However, Rena Dulos Kyrimi told CBS that her brother was not capable of killing his estranged wife even though they were involved in the contentious divorce and custody dispute.
“My brother was an easy target,” she said in the interview. “They accused him of murder from the beginning.”
In video footage CBS captured about 10 days before he was charged with murder and kidnapping, Fotis Dulos can be seen cooking and spending time with family in his Farmington home as they tried to support him around the holidays in late 2019.
Fotis Dulos declined to answer questions while CBS was inside his home, citing a gag order in the case.
About a month later, Fotis Dulos attempted suicide in his garage the day he was summoned to an emergency hearing where a judge could have revoked his bond and sent him back to jail. He died two days later at a New York hospital on Jan. 30, 2020.
“I could have never imagined this,” Dulos Kyrimi said. “He had such a tragic end.”
Dulos Kyrimi has previously claimed that she believed the conditions inside the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, where her brother was held for two nights after being charged with murder, contributed to his suicide.
While Dulos Kyrimi has maintained that her brother was innocent, investigators said he was quickly identified as a suspect.
State police supervisor Sgt. Kenneth Ventresca and Detective John Kimball outlined their case and provided new insight into their investigation during the hour-long CBS segment.
One week after the disappearance, Fotis Dulos and Troconis were arrested for the first time on tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges. Ventresca said investigators at the time were not sure if Fotis Dulos had committed the homicide.
“But we were convinced he was involved,” he said.
Ventresca said the case began with a missing persons report and it quickly became a criminal investigation when police found blood evidence in Jennifer Dulos’ SUV and in her garage.
Ventresca described how Jennifer Dulos’ Chevy Suburban was found on the side of Lapham Road near Waveny Park in New Canaan about an hour after she was reported missing.
The SUV was locked and had been backed up to a tree and left in reverse — but it wasn’t running and there was no sign of Jennifer Dulos, her cellphone or car keys, Ventresca said.
“You see the cleanup of the blood-like substance all over the passenger side,” Ventresca pointed out.
There were also “swirl marks” on the vehicles in the garage of her New Canaan home that indicated a cleanup had occurred, he said.
Ventresca said investigators believe Fotis Dulos and Troconis spent about two hours bagging bloody evidence at his 80 Mountain Spring Road property in Farmington the afternoon of the disappearance.
Ventresca said they then drove to Albany Avenue in Hartford, where video surveillance showed Fotis Dulos dumping bags and the trunk liner that police believe belonged to Jennifer Dulos’ SUV. The bags were later determined to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood and clothing, arrest warrants stated.
“It’s not every day that someone throws out bloody clothing, cut up — who does that?” Ventresca said in the interview with CBS.
Carrie Luft, a longtime friend of Jennifer Dulos, said in the interview that she recalled feeling “terror, fear, helplessness,” as the investigation progressed.
Luft said her friend had a keen mind and an infectious giggle. Jennifer Dulos was an accomplished writer and runner but her five children, who were between the ages of 8 and 13 when she vanished, were the real joy of her life.
The past 18 months have been “unfathomable,” Luft said. The children are now being raised by Jennifer Dulos’ 85-year-old mother, Gloria Farber.
Ventresca says investigators hope to bring closure for the family.
“Every day I ask myself, ‘where’s Jennifer?’” he said.