FOTIS DULOS DIES
Accused Connecticut wife-killer Fotis Dulos died Thursday, two days after he locked himself in his garage with his car’s engine running — as police revealed he left a suicide note declaring his innocence.
Dulos had been in the hyperbaric chamber at Jacobi Medical Center in The Bronx since Tuesday — the day of his scheduled bail hearing — after being transferred from a hospital near his Farmington home.
His lawyer, Norm Pattis, who told reporters outside Jacobi that Dulos died at 5:32 p.m., said the accused killer’s organs will be donated.
“His family came in from Greece and decided today to donate his organs so that he will live on in some form in the assistance that he can provide to others in their own individual struggles,” Pattis said, adding that it’s “been a truly horrific day for the family, filled with difficult decisions, medical tests and meeting the requirements to determine his death.”
He also said that Dulos’ family, including his sister, still wanted to fight the charges against him.
The family plans to do so by filing an unusual court motion asking to substitute Dulos’ estate for him as a defendant.
“The family is adamant that his name be cleared,” he said. “We intend to proceed on as if he were alive to vindicate him because we think he’s wrongfully accused. We will be seeking the discovery that we were supposed to get just the other day.”
Friends and family of Jennifer Dulos, Fotis’ estranged wife, said the news of his death was a “horrific tragedy all around.”
They also asked for privacy of the families and loved ones involved.
The mystery of what happened to Jennifer — who disappeared without a trace on May 24 — now only deepens with his death. She and Fotis were in the midst of a bitter divorce battle when she vanished.
The couple had five children — three boys and two girls ages 8 to 13 — who are now being raised by Jennifer’s mother, Gloria Farber, in Manhattan.
Dulos’ suicide note insisted on his innocence. It was found Wednesday night during the latest state police search of Dulos’ sprawling, red-brick property, the Hartford Courant reported.
Additional details of the note were unavailable, and the house search turned up no new clues as to what happened to the still-missing mother of five, the Courant reported.
Dulos had been under house arrest and facing bail revocation due to multiple foreclosures on his properties when he missed a court hearing Tuesday and was instead found near death inside his garage.
His ex-girlfriend Michelle Troconis and his close friend, lawyer Kent Mawhinney, were also arrested with him earlier this month on conspiracy to commit murder charges.
Both Dulos and Troconis, 45, were previously arrested twice in the case, on charges of tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution.
In addition to his family, a woman who posted his bail, Anna Curry, was at Dulos’ bedside when he died.
The 42-year-old North Carolina woman is listed as his “best friend” on bail paperwork, the Courant reported.
Curry was at Dulos’ property early Tuesday morning — and returned to the house to find police attempting to revive him, according to the Courant’s report.