Community still wonders: What happened to Jennifer Dulos?

NEW CANAAN — Sunday will mark one year since Jennifer Dulos was last seen on a neighbor’s security camera returning home from dropping off her five children at school.

Her Welles Lane home’s address has been changed and new renters have moved in. Surveillance cameras are planned for Waveny Park, where her SUV was found abandoned the night she disappeared. And her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, has died from an apparent suicide while facing murder and other charges in connection with her death and disappearance on May 24, 2019.

A lot has happened in the past year, except for the closure Jennifer Dulos’ family and neighbors have been seeking.

“There are so many unanswered questions. I want to know where Jennifer is. I want justice for Jennifer,” Norwalk resident Sarah O’Connor said last week in Waveny Park. “It’s really frustrating.”

The crime that has drawn international attention remains the greatest mystery in New Canaan.

“It is sad,” New Canaan resident Maria Miller said while in Waveny Park. “What happened to her? Where is she?”

Some believe these questions died with Fotis Dulos, whose attorneys say he attempted suicide on Jan. 28 because he feared a judge would revoke his $6 million bond and send him back to jail. He died two days later in a New York hospital.

“After he took his life, no one will know what happened,” said Cristina Thompson, of New Canaan, as she visited the park.

Waveny Park was the first glimpse many people had of the case last May. It was a few days after Memorial Day weekend and the search for Jennifer Dulos was intensifying with local, state and federal authorities scouring the 300-acre park with dogs, some specifically trained to locate her phone, while police helicopters and drones flew overhead. The scene played out for days as the town became the focus of national attention, but nothing significant was ever found there.

“I feel it’s strangely eerie being here,” Stamford resident Christie Carnes said last week as she walked by the memorial set up for Jennifer Dulos in the park.

In the area near where the 50year-old mother’s Chevrolet Suburban was found on Lapham Road, silk flowers have been left with rocks painted blue and pink with the words: “Justice for Jennifer.”

The rocks are also a reminder for many of the murder case that lost momentum when Fotis Dulos died and has faded amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The coronavirus has changed things so much,” New Canaan resident Ken Oxman said as he and his wife walked on Thurton Drive. “It got a little lost. It was on our minds all of the time.”

Thurton Drive, a quiet street that ends in a cul-de-sac adjacent to the backyard of Jennifer Dulos’ former home, remains the focal point of another unanswered question in the case.

Included in the more than 450 pages of search warrants that were released in January was the mention of Fotis Dulos’ black Chevy Suburban caught on a Thurton Drive home security camera sometime around May 24, 2019. However, the search warrants do not state precisely when the vehicle was seen parked there or why police believe it was in the neighborhood.

According to arrest warrants, police believe Fotis Dulos drove a pickup truck belonging to one of his employees from his Farmington home to New Canaan the morning of the disappearance. Fotis Dulos parked the red Toyota Tacoma on Lapham Road, near where police later found his wife’s SUV, the warrants state.

Fotis Dulos then rode his vintage French bicycle to his estranged wife’s home, where he attacked her in the garage, according to the warrants. With his wife’s body inside, Fotis Dulos drove her SUV back to Lapham Road where he ditched the vehicle and drove off in the pickup, the warrants state.

It remains unknown, however, what happened to Jennifer Dulos’ body.

The case has stalled since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Connecticut in March. Fotis Dulos’ former girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, remains on house arrest charged with conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. His former attorney, Kent Mawhinney, remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bond on a conspiracy to commit murder charge.

And the five Dulos children — who had been the focus of a heated custody dispute during the couple’s divorce that spanned more than two years — have been staying in New York with their grandmother, Gloria Farber, who is seeking permanent custody of them.

“The children don’t have any parents and they are so young,” Norwalk resident Elinor Sapp said as she visited Waveny last week. “It’s painful.”

Contributed photo Jennifer Dulos