Dulos search continues at trash plant, pond
NEW CANAAN — Police on Friday continued to search a Hartford trash facility and a pond in Avon for evidence related to the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.
The search of the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority has been ongoing for nearly two weeks with investigators focused on trash that was hauled from the Albany Avenue area of Hartford where police say Fotis Dulos was seen throwing garbage bags the night his wife disappeared. Police said some of the bags contained Jennifer Dulos’ blood.
The state police dive team returned Friday to the pond on Old Farms Road in Avon where they had also searched earlier in the week. In divorce documents, Jennifer Dulos claimed her husband pushed their children on the pond to “dangerous” limits in competitive water skiing.
New Canaan police say they have received hundreds of tips from around the world and nearly
100 security videos from local residents and business owners.
“We will not rest until we find Jennifer,” New Canaan Police Chief Leon Krolikowski said in a statement released Friday.
It’s been three weeks since Jennifer Dulos was last seen.
Fotis Dulos, 51, and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, 44, have been charged with tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in connection with the disappearance.
State and local police have searched Waveny Park, the Hartford garbage dump, an Avon pond and all of the properties associated with Fotis Dulos’ real estate development company, the Fore Group.
A 7-year-old Connecticut boy even offered to give up a trip to Disney World to help find the
50-year-old mother of five.
But there’s still been no sign of Jennifer Dulos.
Her family and friends released a statement in response to the boy’s initiative, appreciating the gesture, but calling for everyone to take action.
“The impact of Jennifer’s disappearance on her five young children, family, and friends is affecting many people in similar ways,” the statement read. “We urge this young man to keep his savings, but we honor his impulse. This is about more than a reward — it is a call to do something.”
Norm Pattis, the controversial New Haven attorney hired last week to defend Fotis Dulos, said his legal team has hired a private investigator to find out for themselves what happened.
"The state has wedded itself to the proposition that he’s the killer,” Pattis said Thursday on WPLR’s Chaz and AJ Show. “We are challenging that proposition and we are seeing where the evidence leads in our view."
Around the time Jennifer Dulos was reported missing, Fotis Dulos was seen throwing garbage bags into more than 30 trash bins in a four-mile span in Hartford about 7:15 p.m. on May 24, according to arrest warrants.
Police said Troconis was seen in the passenger seat and both of their cellphones placed them in the area at that time.
At Jennifer Dulos’ Welles Lane home, police said they found blood spatter in the garage and signs of a “serious physical assault,” the warrants said.
State’s Attoney Richard Colangelo on Tuesday announced new evidence that Fotis Dulos’ DNA was found mixed with his wife’s blood in a faucet in a kitchen sink in her home.
Fotis Dulos’ black Ford Raptor pickup truck, which was seen on video when police say he dumped the garbage bags in Hartford, was also spotted in New Canaan the day Jennifer Dulos went missing.
However, a Fore Group employee was driving the truck to work on a home on Sturbridge Hill Road. An attorney for the man said his client has cooperated with police and has been ruled out as a suspect.
Police searched a metal dumpster outside the Sturbridge Hill Road home where neighbors heard loud banging during the predawn hours the day after Jennifer Dulos disappeared.