Authorities describe what Michelle Troconis was doing the day Jennifer Dulos vanished

STAMFORD — Surveillance footage and cellphone data captured much of Michelle Troconis’ whereabouts on the day Jennifer Dulos disappeared.

Some of this evidence contradicted statements that Troconis made in her three interviews with police, as well as what she wrote in a timeline police and prosecutors dubbed as “alibi scripts.” This evidence was shown to a jury, who on Friday convicted Troconis on all six counts she was facing in the death and disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.

Troconis, 49, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit tampering with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and one count of second-degree hindering prosecution.

After closing arguments Tuesday — which encompassed several weeks of evidence, including new revelations — the jury continued its deliberations Wednesday and Thursday. The jurors were dismissed after not reaching a verdict Thursday and returned a verdict after deliberating for less than an hour Friday morning.

The trial has been more than four years in the making. What started as a missing person case ballooned into a massive investigation that brought in several law enforcement agencies and captured media attention from around the world. The disappearance also inspired numerous documentaries, a Lifetime movie and a law that broadened the definition of domestic violence in Connecticut.

Jennifer Dulos, 50, vanished amid a contentious two-year divorce and custody dispute with her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, who quickly became a prime suspect in her disappearance. Troconis was living with Fotis Dulos, her then-boyfriend, in Farmington at the time, and is accused of trying to create an alibi for him the morning his estranged wife disappeared and helping to clean a pickup truck police believe was used in the crime.

Fotis Dulos died by suicide in January 2020 while facing murder, kidnapping and other charges in the case.

Despite law enforcement’s widespread searches, even crossing state lines, police have not found Jennifer Dulos’ body. She was presumed dead by police and her family for years and was declared legally dead in October.

During the investigation, police said they found timelines that Troconis and Fotis Dulos created for their whereabouts on the day of the disappearance on May 24, 2019. These timelines omitted some details police deemed crucial to the investigation, such as a trip the couple took to Hartford where Fotis Dulos was seen on video dumping trash bags in receptacles along Albany Avenue.

Police later discovered a bloodstained shirt and bra in the trash, along with zip ties, duct tape and ponchos that forensic scientists indicated had Jennifer Dulos’ DNA. There were also altered license plates, which previously belonged to Fotis Dulos, in a storm drain nearby.

When police interrogated Troconis about the inconsistencies in her statements and her timeline, she said Fotis Dulos told her what to write in her timeline.

Here’s where Troconis was on May 24, 2019, according to evidence shown at trial:

6:40 to 8:15 a.m. — 4 Jefferson Crossing

According to Troconis’ timeline and police interviews, she woke up at 6:40 a.m. She told police she woke up in her daughter’s bed because her daughter was scared of the storm overnight.

The timeline states Troconis then took a shower with Fotis Dulos, but later she told police she didn’t see him that morning.

At 7:10 a.m., Troconis wrote she made scrambled eggs for her daughter, and at 7:20 a.m., took the girl to school. She was back at 4 Jefferson Crossing in Farmington — the home she shared with Fotis Dulos and her daughter — by 8:12 a.m., according to the timeline.

Police said around this time Fotis Dulos was attacking his estranged wife in the garage of her New Canaan home when she returned from dropping off their five children at school.

At 8:26 a.m., Fotis Dulos received a call from a friend in Greece, according to cellphone records shown in the trial. Troconis later told investigators that she picked up this call, at Kent Mawhinney’s suggestion. Police believe this was a pre-planned phone call that Troconis picked up to solidify Fotis Dulos’ alibi while he was in New Canaan.

Mawhinney, a lawyer who police say also helped to create the alibi for his friend and former client Fotis Dulos, is awaiting trial on a conspiracy to commit murder in the case.

The call that Troconis answered was included on Fotis Dulos’ timeline, but not on hers.

Many other calls and texts to Fotis Dulos’ phone went unanswered and unopened, phone data showed. The first outgoing call from his device was at 1:19 p.m., investigators said during the trial.

The timeline continued, stating she cooked an omelet at 8:30 a.m.

9:02 a.m. to 1:19 p.m. — Errands

Cell tower data showed Troconis’ device traveled north toward Canton before eventually returning home.

She told police she returned a purse to friend Hutch Haines. His wife had left the purse at 4 Jefferson Crossing during a dinner party the evening before. Haines corroborated this in his testimony.

Troconis then went to Stop & Shop where she bought parsley and took selfies with the store’s robot, Marty.

Clara “Petu” Duperron also testified that Troconis visited her at her shop that morning to say goodbye before Duperron departed for a trip.

In the timeline, Troconis wrote she went to a pond in Avon to water ski around 11:30 a.m., but no one was there to pull her. She then wrote she had lunch with Fotis Dulos between noon and 1 p.m. The timeline indicated she was home from noon to 3 p.m.

1:36 to 5:27 p.m. — Trips between 80 Mountain Spring Road and 4 Jefferson Crossing

That afternoon, Troconis made a series of trips between 4 Jefferson Crossing and 80 Mountain Spring Road, a Fore Group property that was shown by a real estate agent the next day.

Troconis told police Fotis Dulos asked her to clean the home. She said she brought sponges, garbage bags and cleaning solutions. In her third police interview, Troconis said she saw Fotis Dulos cleaning out Pawel Gumienny’s Toyota Tacoma. Police believe Fotis Dulos used his worker’s pickup truck to travel to New Canaan to kill his estranged wife. She said Fotis Dulos asked for paper towels because he spilled coffee.

The first trip to Mountain Spring Road occurred at 1:36 p.m., surveillance footage showed. She stayed for five minutes before returning to Jefferson Crossing at 1:41 p.m.

Cell tower data showed Troconis received a call from Fotis Dulos through a cell site associated with their residence at 1:53 p.m.

Troconis then returned to Mountain Spring Road again at 2:01 p.m., stayed for 23 minutes, and then went to Jefferson Crossing at 2:24 p.m., according to surveillance footage prosecutors presented in the trial.

Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Manning noted how Troconis stayed at Jefferson Crossing until she left for her third trip to Mountain Spring Road at 3:55 p.m. — more than an hour and a half later.

“What is she doing between trips two and three?” Manning asked in her closing arguments Tuesday. “Between 2:24 and 3:55 when she is alone at 4 Jefferson Crossing. She’s burning something, then she’s not burning something, and then she’s burning something again.”

Security video footage from a neighbor’s home showed smoke coming from the chimney at 2:56 p.m. There was no smoke at 3:12 p.m., but the smoke could be seen again at 3:25 p.m.

While at 4 Jefferson Crossing, Troconis exchanged two phone calls with Fotis Dulos at 3:16 p.m. and 3:35 p.m., according to cell tower data shown in the trial.

Troconis made her third trip to Mountain Spring Road at 3:55 p.m. and exchanged another phone call with Fotis Dulos at 3:57 p.m., cell tower data shows.

Troconis went back to Jefferson Crossing at 4:04 p.m. She then returned to Mountain Spring Road at 4:23 p.m. and Gumienny showed up about 30 minutes later, according to surveillance footage.

At some point during these trips, Troconis told police Fotis Dulos attempted to fool around with her against the passenger door of the Toyota Tacoma.

“There’s something unsettling about the defendant and Mr. Dulos fooling around on the passenger side of that Tacoma on May 24, 2019,” Assistant State’s Attorney Sean McGuinness told jurors in his closing arguments.

Troconis, Fotis Dulos and Gumienny then left Mountain Spring Road at 5:02 p.m. At that point, Manning said Troconis took Gumienny’s truck keys so her and Fotis Dulos could clean the vehicle of any evidence.

But Gumienny insisted he wanted his truck for the weekend. Troconis and Fotis Dulos exchanged another phone call at 5:16 p.m., according to cell tower data. Troconis went back to 80 Mountain Spring Road for a fifth time at 5:23 p.m. to return Gumienny’s keys, and after four minutes, returned to 4 Jefferson Crossing, video footage shows.

In Troconis’ written timeline, the last entry states she drove to pick up rugs at 5:10 p.m., but the store had closed by the time she got there.

The last clip of smoke could be seen wafting from a chimney at 4 Jefferson Crossing at 6:42 p.m., Manning said.

7:31 to 7:49 p.m. — Trip to Albany Avenue

Troconis told police that Fotis Dulos suggested the two take a trip to Starbucks around 6:30 or 7:30 p.m.

Surveillance footage showed Fotis Dulos, with Troconis as his passenger, driving his 2014 Ford Raptor pickup truck down Albany Avenue. Several plastic bags could be seen in the bed of the truck, police said in the warrant.

Around 7:32 p.m., the vehicle turned south onto Milford Street and traveled for about seven minutes. The vehicle drove through a portion of city streets not covered by surveillance cameras, the warrant states.

The Ford Raptor could be seen again on Albany Avenue at 7:39 p.m. At that time, the vehicle stopped at Garden Street, where a man believed to be Fotis Dulos got out of the driver’s seat, grabbed a black plastic bag and placed it into a trash can on the sidewalk. He then took what appeared to be a floor mat and leaned it against a nearby building, before climbing back into his truck and driving away, according to video shown during the trial.

The truck, believed to be driven by Fotis Dulos, then did a U-turn at Center Street, going west along Albany Avenue. The truck stopped at Garden Street at 7:41 p.m. and Fotis Dulos could be seen discarding a garbage bag in the trash can.

The last stop could be seen at 7:49 p.m. at a sewer grate at the intersection of Albany and Blue Hills Street. Fotis Dulos opened the driver’s side door, waited a bit, and then got out to put more trash into a nearby receptacle. As he did that, Troconis could be seen opening the passenger’s door and reaching down to the sidewalk. She told investigators she was wiping gum off her hand onto the sidewalk.

After throwing away a garbage bag, Fotis Dulos was seen walking to the passenger’s side door, which was located right above a sewer grate. In the footage, it appeared Fotis Dulos dropped an envelope into the sewer grate. Police later drained the sewer and recovered a FedEx envelope containing license plates, once registered to Fotis Dulos, that were doctored with adhesive tape.

Police retrieved trash from the three intersections, and found a bloodstained shirt and bra that they believed belonged to Jennifer Dulos. They also seized two ponchos, zip ties, a bent mop or broom handle, a razor blade, a set of keys, a pair of black gloves, a black bag, a white T-shirt and a white bath towel. The gloves, the bag, the white T-shirt and the white bath towel had what appeared to be blood-like stains, a police officer testified.

Jon Schoenhorn, Troconis’ attorney, has claimed that his client didn’t know what was in those bags. Troconis told police she was on the phone with her mother and later her daughter while on Albany Avenue, and was just along for the ride for a trip to Starbucks. She told police that Fotis Dulos had thrown away trash in a similar manner in the past, but the location was odd to

her.

7:59 p.m. — Starbucks

Prosecutors showed three clips of surveillance footage from a Starbucks in West Hartford. The videos, which had no sound, showed Troconis and Fotis Dulos entering the establishment, ordering and choosing items, then paying for them at a register before Troconis gave a sandwich to Fotis Dulos. During interviews, she told police the food was “horrible” and that she threw out the sandwich, although the video clips didn’t show her eating anything.

While standing near the register, Fotis Dulos paced back and forth and, at one point, put both of his hands on the counter and leaned over slightly before standing up straight again, crossing his arms and checking his cellphone. Another angle showed the two talking while waiting for their orders, with Troconis standing with her arms crossed and Fotis Dulos moving his arms in the air while speaking.

The rest of the evening

After they returned to 4 Jefferson Crossing, Troconis said in her interviews with investigators that police came to the house at one point in the night and spoke to Fotis Dulos for about 15 minutes. Afterward, he told her his estranged wife was missing, she said.

Troconis noted that he seemed calm after speaking with police.

Manning said, in her closing argument, that Troconis hid in her bedroom when police came that night.

“The police knock on her door that night, May 24, 2019, when her daughter is not home,” Manning said. “The police want to talk about her boyfriend’s wife being missing, and they are in the middle of contentious divorce and custody battle. She didn’t know anything, so why would she hide in her bedroom?”

“She was hiding from the police that night, she was hiding from the truth,” Manning said.

Fotis Dulos repeatedly told Troconis not to worry, and Jennifer Dulos had “done it in the past,” in an apparent reference to her not speaking with her family for a period of time years earlier. Fotis Dulos then started calling his lawyers and insisted on going with Troconis to pick up her daughter from a school play, which she noted was unusual for her then-boyfriend.

Associated Press An undated photo of Jennifer Dulos.