From Waveny to Welles, the route Fotis Dulos may have taken
NEW CANAAN — A group of joggers ran along the westernmost border of Waveny Park as the sun crept above the clouds Wednesday morning. A pair of dog walkers followed in the runners’ wake, and about 200 feet away, on Lapham Road, a biker whizzed by.
It was a sunny morning, warm
for the time of year, and despite the earlymorning hours, the park was bustling with activity. Several cars lined the dirt turnoffs along the road, where more than three months ago, police found Jennifer Dulos’ abandoned Chevrolet Suburban.
It is here on Lapham Road where police also believe Fotis Dulos parked his employee’s 2001 red Toyota Tacoma nearly an hour before his estranged wife was last seen on May 24, according to the latest arrest warrants.
Footage captured by a school bus places the Tacoma at the Lapham Road turnoff at 7:40 a.m.
May 24 — just 100 feet from where the empty Suburban was later found, the arrest warrant states.
The truck was caught on camera earlier that morning at 7:03 a.m. driving south past the New Canaan rest area on the Merritt Parkway, about three minutes away from turnoff, the warrant said. Less than an hour later, at 8:05 a.m., Jennifer Dulos was seen returning home, where police believe Fotis Dulos was “lying in wait.”
How Fotis Dulos allegedly arrived at his wife’s house at 69 Welles Lane, about threeandahalf miles away from where police say the Tacoma was parked, remains unclear. The belief is that he either walked, ran or rode a bike to the home, sources close to the investigation said.
The most likely routes for Fotis Dulos, 52, however, would have taken him down highly trafficked and narrow streets, like Old Stamford Road and Weed Street, which are particularly busy at that time of the day.
On foot, the quickest route would’ve been down Old Stamford Road to Weed Street, where he could’ve turned on to Indian Waters Drive, a private road ending in a culdesac. From here, he could have cut across woods into the Welles Lane property’s backyard in a total of about 40 minutes.
The secondquickest route would have been from Old Stamford Road, down Jeliff Mill Road, to Spring Water Lane, which ends about a third of a mile short of Jennifer Dulos’ backyard. This trip, however, would’ve taken close to 50 minutes while walking.
On Wednesday, around the time Fotis Dulos would have allegedly been walking in the area on May 24, parents and their children could be seen waiting at the end of their driveways for school buses.
Police have not said whether anyone saw Fotis Dulos along any of these routes that morning or if he was captured on residential security systems along the way. But, based on the latest arrest warrants, police believe he was in New Canaan the morning his wife vanished.
New charges filed last week against Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis, 44, are related to their efforts to clean up the Tacoma, according to their arrest warrants.
The truck belonged to a former Fore Group employee who told investigators Fotis Dulos ordered him to swap out the seats in the vehicle, according to the warrant. However, the employee kept the seats without Fotis Dulos knowing and turned them over to investigators who found Jennifer Dulos’ blood on one of them, the warrant said.
Police believe Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” based on evidence found in the garage of her New Canaan home, the warrants state.
Fotis Dulos will be arraigned Thursday at state Superior Court in Norwalk on the new charge and will appear at the Stamford courthouse Friday for his next pretrial hearing. Troconis will be arraigned on the new charge Wednesday in Norwalk and will have her next pretrial hearing Sept. 20 in Stamford.
They have each pleaded not guilty to the original tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges.
Police said those charges stem from Hartford video surveillance the night of the disappearance that show two people resembling Fotis Dulos and Troconis making a series of stops in a fourmile stretch of busy Albany Avenue. The videos also show the man resembling Fotis Dulos dumping bags that were later determined to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood, according to arrest warrants.