Michelle Troconis
The defense for Connecticut woman Michelle Troconis moves forward, and her attorney is attacking the state’s evidence. Lawyer Jon Schoenhorn claimed in court filings filed Monday that his client was strip-searched and photographed in her underwear, and authorities never even turned these photos in as evidence, according to The Stamford Advocate.
“What happened to those photos?” he asked. “It is insane that they did this.”
“I also find it most disturbing that after engaging in this dehumanizing behavior, the officers did not seal or return these photographs to the court, as required by law, leaving open the possibility that they have been shared with others,” the attorney told Fox 61 in a statement.
A spokesperson for the New Canaan State Police asked Law&Crime to discuss this with state police.
“Standard operating procedure for murder cases or serious injuries are search warrants, to search the body, gather DNA, photographs, etc.,” Trooper First Class Christine Jeltema, a Connecticut State Police spokesperson, told Law&Crime in an email. “Investigators look for any scar/marks, bruises, etc. They will also swab for DNA, gather fingernail clipping, etc.”
Schoenhorn recently became Troconis’s attorney. The defendant helped her then-boyfriend Fotis Dulos cover up evidence that he murdered estranged wife Jennnifer Dulos on May 24, police say. She and the alleged killer’s former attorney Kent Mawhinney were also charged with conspiracy. As for Fotis Dulos, he died by suicide, and went to his grave insisting on his innocence.
But authorities say that there’s evidence that Jennifer Dulos left behind copious amounts of blood at her New Canaan home, and that her husband went to great lengths to hide evidence. There’s surveillance footage of Troconis accompanying Fotis Dulos when he dumped evidence in Hartford on May 24, cops say. Defendant Dulos’s legal team have argued that he didn’t kill his wife. He had found that debris in his yard on May 24, and panicked, they said.
Schoenhorn is arguing that the search warrants seeking evidence from Troconis were filed under a fake or misleading context: footage showed she wasn’t participating in the dumping of the garbage bags in Hartford, he said, according to the Stamford Advocate. The attorney wants evidence suppressed, including his client’s DNA sample, and cellphone records.
Jennifer Dulos’s whereabouts remain unknown.
[Image via Michelle Troconis]
