A painful anniversary
No closure for Jennifer Dulos’ family, friends 1 year after her disappearance
NEW CANAAN — Jennifer Farber Dulos grew up in New York, the second daughter of two parents who achieved financial success through education and hard work.
She was “gentle, kind, brilliant and courageous,” family friend Carrie Luft said of the 50-year-old mother of five.
“We still cannot believe she’s gone,” Luft said.
Jennifer Dulos was last seen on the morning of May 24, 2019. She is presumed dead, according to police, but her body has not been found.
One year has passed, but the time hasn’t eased the pain for her family and friends.
“The ache of her absence doesn’t go away,” Luft said. “Countless questions remain unanswered. The brutality and inhumanity of her death and disappearance continue to haunt us, without subsiding.”
Jennifer Dulos was on her way to New York for several doctors appointments before planning to spend time with her children at her mother’s Manhattan apartment last Memorial Day weekend.
But she never made it there. Police say Fotis Dulos was waiting for his estranged wife when she returned to her Welles Lane home from dropping off their children at school around 8 a.m. May 24, 2019. The state’s medical examiner determined Jennifer Dulos suffered injuries in the attack that were so severe that she could not have survived without immediate medical attention, according to arrest warrants in the case.
Fotis Dulos, 52, faced murder, kidnapping and other charges when he died in January from an apparent suicide.
Michelle Troconis, the woman he had an affair with and who became his live-in girlfriend when Jennifer Dulos left for New Canaan with her children and filed for divorce in 2017, faces conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges in the case. His former attorney, Kent Mawhinney, also faces a conspiracy to commit murder charge.
Jennifer and Fotis Dulos had been embroiled in a prolonged divorce and heated custody dispute. When her daughter vanished, Gloria Farber, a woman in her mid-80s, stepped in to become the primary caretaker for the children and is seeking permanent custody of them.
Luft said the children have grown and have formed a support system for each other in the past year.
“The earth keeps spinning, and somehow an entire year has elapsed,” Luft said. “We can see it, measure it, in the growth of her children, who are taller, stronger, wiser, and more like their mom every day. And we continue to see and sense her in their expressions, their gestures, their laughter, their hugs.”
As the director of education for Columbia University’s Head Start program, Farber spearheaded the drive to ensure the children of West Harlem and Washington Heights started school on a level playing field with their middle- and upperincome peers.
Farber’s brother, Arthur Ortenberg, and his wife, Liz Claiborne, were known for revolutionizing the clothing design industry during the 1970s.
Jennifer Dulos’ father, Hilliard Farber, became the youngest senior vice president, heading the bond trading desk, for Chase Manhattan Bank. He founded the Hilliard Farber Company, an inter-dealer brokerage firm in 1975, serving as chairman and chief executive officer until retiring in 2008.
Her parents, who were known philanthropists, were married for 58 years until Hilliard Farber’s death in 2017 following a long illness.
Jennifer Dulos was a nationally ranked junior squash player, according to her family. She also graduated with honors from Brown University and earned an MFA in writing from New York University.
But most importantly, she was a deeply genuine person, compassionate and trustworthy, they have said.
“She is also subtly hilarious,” the family said in a statement last year. “She loves silly movies as much as she loves great literature. An avid traveler, she delights in learning about other people and has imbued her five children with this love of discovery. She cares about her children more than anything in the world.”
Jennifer Dulos met her future husband at Brown University. But the two didn’t get together until a chance encounter in a Colorado airport years later. Fotis Dulos, a top-flight water skier, was flashy and handsome. He was working in finance, but was on the verge of starting his own high-end real estate development company.
They married in Manhattan in 2004, one month after Fotis Dulos divorced his first wife.
Jennifer and Fotis Dulos had five children, two sets of twins and a young daughter. They moved to Avon and then Farmington that was documented in Jennifer Dulos’ blog, “Five Makes Seven.”
They appeared to have a happy life. The children learned to water ski at a young age, with two of the boys showing international promise. They went to Greece often to visit Fotis Dulos’ family.
Every morning, the five Dulos children would tumble out of their mother’s black Chevy Suburban ready to greet the day, recalled Jeffrey Tremblay, the former head of the Lower School at Renbrook School in West Hartford.
“Her kids would come bounding out of the car ready to learn,” said Tremblay, who now leads the Levey Day School in Portland, Maine. “The children were very happy, they loved, loved, loved their mother.”
Fotis Dulos launched his real estate development company, Fore Group, with the financial backing of Hilliard Farber. But by the time her father was gravely ill in late 2016, Jennifer Dulos knew it was time to end her marriage.
“I know that filing for divorce, and filing this motion will enrage him,” she wrote in a motion seeking emergency custody of the children in June 2017. “I know he will retaliate by trying to harm me in some way.
“He has the attitude that he must always win at all costs. He is dangerous and ruthless when he believes that he has been wronged. During the course of our marriage, he told me about sickening revenge fantasies and plans to cause physical harm to others who have wronged him.”
The couple’s acrimonious divorce was still pending two years later when she disappeared. The investigation into her death and disappearance remains ongoing. The children are surrounded by love and support from their 85year-old grandmother, family and friends, Luft said.
“It is a testament to her deeply loving influence as a parent that Jennifer’s children are healthy and well,” Luft said.
Family and friends of Jennifer Dulos are asking others to mark the one-year anniversary of her disappearance by reaching out to victims of intimate partner violence with donations to women’s shelters, family shelters and food banks.
“The calls for Justice for Jennifer are powerful and moving,” Luft said. “We urge that their scope be extended to all victims of intimate partner violence, many of whose stories are never told and who are now even more at risk.”