(NewsInsights.org) – Put succinctly, Michelle Traconis was the other woman. In 2017, she began dating and then moved in with Fotis Dulos, a married man whose wife, Jennifer Dulos, filed for a contentious separation that same year after accusing the two of having an affair. In May 2019, Jennifer disappeared under circumstances that prompted authorities to suspect the mother of five had met with foul play, although they never found her body. On Thursday, January 11, Troconis faced charges in court of covering up her rival’s murder and disappearance.
Prosecutors allege that Fotis Dulos, a luxury real-estate developer, took a company truck to New Canaan, Connecticut, where Jennifer Dulos had rented a home for herself and the children. They suggest he rode a bicycle from where he parked the truck to the rental house and awaited his estranged wife’s return after she took the children to school.
Police and prosecutors assert the developer attacked Jennifer Dulos in her garage, bound her, and placed her inside her SUV. Investigators reported finding evidence that someone tried to clean up the crime scene. Authorities found the SUV abandoned at Wavenly Park in New Canaan. Yet despite extensive searches in and around the park, the home, and other locations, police could not find Jennifer Dulos or her remains.
However, traffic and security surveillance cameras in Hartford, Connecticut, captured Fotis Dulos using his pickup truck to deposit trash bags in dumpsters at several locations later that evening. His live-in girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, was in the truck with him. Troconis later told police she had no idea what was in the bags, what might have happened to Jennifer Dulos, or where she might be.
Investigators pointed out that Troconis helped Fotis Dulos write out a detailed hour-by-hour schedule, accounting for his whereabouts the day his wife disappeared. Prosecutors called it the “alibi script.” Yet, it didn’t include entries when traffic cameras caught Dulos and Troconis dumping trash bags.
In January 2020, Fotis Dulos committed suicide, but prosecutors pursued a murder conspiracy case against his former lawyer, Kent Mawhinney, and Troconis. Police recovered bags from dumpsters containing DNA from both Fotis and Jennifer Dulos and also from Troconis. Yet, in a March 2020 court hearing, Norm Pattis, Fotis Dulos’s attorney, claimed someone had framed his client by dumping a pile of Jennifer’s bloody clothing on his porch. Pattis claimed the captured footage was his client trying to dispose of those items.
Troconis and her family have insistently claimed she’s innocent. Experts expect the trial will last about four weeks.
Copyright 2024, NewsInsights.org
