Warrant: Jennifer Dulos’ body was in truck

Police release document, charge husband with evidence tampering

BRIDGEPORT — State police say a truck Fotis Dulos had access to the day his wife disappeared contained a “bloodlike substance” found to contain Jennifer Dulos’ DNA.

Five days after the disappearance, Fotis Dulos had the vehicle cleaned. In an interview with police, his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, allegedly said he had the truck washed “because the body of Jennifer at some point was in there.”

The new information comes from an arrest warrant charging Fotis Dulos with a single count of evidence tampering.

State police said members of the Western District Major Crimes Squad arrested Fotis Dulos around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at his Farmington home. He was transported to Troop G state police barracks in Bridgeport, where he was processed and released after posting bond just before 7 p.m.

The warrant — totaling 38 pages — contains a myriad of new information in the highly publicized case, and a more detailed timeline from police the day Jennifer Dulos disappeared.

For example, a residential camera still released in the warrant is the lastknown photograph of Jennifer Dulos as she was walking toward her house at 8:05 a.m on May 24 after dropping her five children off at their nearby school.

“At the time this footage was recorded, (Fotis) Dulos is believed to have been lying in wait at 69 Welles Lane for his wife to return

home,” the warrant released Wednesday night said.

Police said there were signs Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” after finding blood stains and spatter in the garage of her home.

Fotis Dulos, 52, and Troconis, 44, have pleaded not guilty to hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence charges in connection with Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance.

The original charges stem from Hartford surveillance videos that police said show two people resembling Fotis Dulos and Troconis making more than 30 stops in a fourmile stretch of Albany Avenue around the time Jennifer Dulos was reported missing on May 24. Videos also showed Fotis Dulos tossing garbage bags that were later found to contain his wife’s blood, police said.

Defense attorney Norm Pattis tried to minimize the significance of the new arrest outside the state police barracks where Dulos was released after posting $500,000 bond on the new charge.

Fotis Dulos also spoke briefly.

“It’s an exhausting fight. I love my children. That’s about it,” he told reporters outside the state police barracks.

Pattis said his client would plead not guilty to the new charge when he is arraigned Sept. 12 at state Superior Court in Norwalk and called Wednesday’s arrest a stunt.

“If this were Christmas morning, I’d be saying ‘I’ve waited all these months for this paltry gift?’ ” Pattis said while holding up paperwork detailing the new arrest. “There’s not much here that we haven’t heard before.”

“Where’s the murder charge?” Pattis asked.

In comments later Wednesday night, Pattis said, “it sounds like the state is trying to convince itself that Fotis is responsible for Jennifer’s disappearance.”

“When and if the state decides it can prove its case, we will welcome the chance to meet the case in open court,” he said. “The new warrant speaks of a lying lover and handyman with something to hide. When do we get the chance to

question these folks?”

A reading of the warrant, written by State Police Detective John Kimball, indicates more serious charges against Fotis Dulos could be coming soon.

Kimball wrote in the warrant “the crime and the cleanup are believed to have occurred between 8:05 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.”

At 10:25 a.m., Jennifer Dulos' Chevy Suburban is seen driving away from the Welles Lane home. According to cellular data obtained from Jennifer Dulos' phone, authorities believe the car — along with her body and bags of evidence — were brought to Lapham Road, the warrant said.

The warrant said video surveillance from New Canaan school buses placed a truck owned by Fotis Dulos’ coworker 100 feet from where investigators found Jennifer Dulos’ SUV abandoned near Waveny Park.

Fotis Dulos later told his employee, who owned the pickup truck, to switch the seats with those of a Porsche he owned, according to the warrant. The warrant said the truck’s owner was eliminated as a suspect by cellphone data that was “inconsistent with his involvement in the crime.”

The red Toyota Tacoma — which Fotis Dulos allegedly had access to the day of his wife’s disappearance — was later caught on camera heading north on the Merritt Parkway around 11:12 a.m., the warrant said.

The vehicle was seen driving north on the Merritt in New Canaan and Fairfield, on Route 8 in Derby and on I84 East in Waterbury before it was seen pulling into the driveway at 80 Mountain Spring Road in Farmington at 12:22 p.m., the warrant said.

The employee said he arrived at Fotis Dulos’ home in Farmington to find to his surprise no one was there.

The employee said he drove Fotis Dulos’ Ford Raptor — the same vehicle later seen in Hartford that night — to 80 Mountain Spring Road, where he claimed he found Fotis Dulos and Troconis “cleaning” the home, the warrant said. The employee claimed that Fotis Dulos offered multiple times to let him borrow the Raptor for the weekend, but he declined.

Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend also allegedly wrote notes of what they were doing at specific times the day Jennifer Dulos disappeared in an effort to “help them remember” their activities that day, according to the warrant.

But police investigating the disappearance of the New Canaan mother said the notes, which they referred to as the “Alibi Scripts,” included information proven to be inaccurate and witnesses later determined to be false.

According to the warrant, Troconis was interviewed by police June 2 and “provided substantial amount of information which was selfcontradictory and did not bear up under the scrutiny of the investigation.”

For example, Troconis could not account for Fotis Dulos’ whereabouts from 8 a.m. to between 1 and 2 p.m. the day his wife disappeared. Pattis has previously contended Troconis could alibi his client.

The warrant says police showed Troconis screenshots from the Hartford surveillance footage, which she allegedly said depicted her and Fotis Dulos on Albany Avenue. However, Troconis said she had no knowledge of what Fotis Dulos was doing as he dumped garbage bags, which were later found to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood, the warrant said.

During another interview, Troconis allegedly said she saw Fotis Dulos cleaning what he described as a coffee spill out of his employee’s truck the afternoon of the disappearance, the warrant said. She told police a towel Fotis Dulos handed her “did not smell of coffee,” according to the warrant.

Police asked Troconis why Fotis Dulos had the Tacoma cleaned five days after his wife disappeared. She allegedly replied, “Well obviously … all the evidence says because … you showed me the picture of the blood in the door it’s because the body of Jennifer at some point was in there,” the warrant said.

State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo said Fotis Dulos’ DNA was also found mixed with his wife’s blood on the faucet of her kitchen sink.

In July, Pattis filed a motion to dismiss the case, on the grounds that the state did not have sufficient evidence. On Tuesday, Colangelo struck back in a memo, calling the effort a “poorly constructed Trojan Horse.”

Pattis has been criticized for his theories about the disappearance. He said Jennifer Dulos could have authored her own disappearance a la the novel “Gone Girl” and has also suggested that the 50yearold New Canaan mother might have perpetrated a “revenge suicide” plot. The theories have drawn sharp rebukes from Jennifer Dulos’ family and friends and “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn.

Troconis is next due in court on Sept. 20.

Fotis Dulos