Jennifer Farber Dulos
It has been one year since Connecticut woman Jennifer Farber Dulos, and officials don’t seem any closer to finding her. But that hasn’t stopped them from working to keep public attention on the case. Connecticut State Police Detective John Kimball, CSP Sgt. Kenneth Ventresca, and Chief State’s Attorney Rich Colangelo.
“The current status of the search for Jennifer Dulos is that it’s highly active,” Kimball told News12CT’s Marissa Alter in an interview on Thursday. “Every day we get tips that come in, and we triage those tips, and we follow up on every single tip that we receive.”
Dulos went missing May 24, 2019 after dropping her kids off from school. DNA and blood found at her home in New Canaan showed that she was the victim of a violent crime, officers said.
Suspicion fell on her estranged husband Fotis Dulos, with whom she was in the middle of an ugly divorce. First her spouse was charged with tampering with evidence, then he was being prosecuted as her alleged killer. Jennifer’s whereabouts remain unknown, but according to police, evidence shows that she’s dead.
Michalle Troconis (who had been the defendant’s girlfriend) and his attorney-friend Kent Mawhinney were charged as alleged accomplices.
But Fotis Dulos will never see trial. He died last January while out on bail. His attorneys said it was by suicide, and he left a note asserting his innocence.
Investigators still have their eye on the late husband. Kimball said he thinks that although Fotis Dulos is dead, there are still people who have evidence that could either lead to Jennifer Dulos’s whereabouts, or explain what happened to her.
“…that could lead us to the whereabouts of Jennifer or at least what happened to her so we have’t given. There’s more than one way to go about the investigation and we’re not giving up.” @News12CT
— Marissa Alter (@MarissaAlter) May 22, 2020
The surviving co-defendants have pleaded not guilty in their cases. Troconis recently released a statement asserting her innocence. She pretty much threw her former beau under the bus, in a statement obtained by NBC Connecticut.
“Whether or not Fotis Dulos was capable of doing the things the police and prosecutors accused him of doing, I do not know,” she said in a statement translated from Spanish to English, and issued by her attorney’s office. “But based on what I have learned in the last year, I think it was a mistake to have trusted him.”
Colangelo said he is still pursuing the co-defendants despite the death of Fotis Dulos.
Chief State’s Richard Colangelo Jr says he’ll move forward prosecuting Fotis Dulos’ co-defendants despite Dulos’ suicide. “With Mr. Dulos not being here, does it make it more difficult to do that? No, it really doesn’t because the evidence is the evidence.” @News12CT
— Marissa Alter (@MarissaAlter) May 22, 2020
Jennifer was a mother of five children.
“It is a testament to her deeply loving influence as a parent that Jennifer’s children are healthy and well,” said a statement from Carrie Luft on behalf of Jennifer Dulos’s friends and family, according to NBC Connecticut. “They are safe and surrounded by love and support. Gloria, their grandmother and guardian, is also healthy and well, for which we are so grateful during this precarious time.”
Police were thanked for their commitment to the case.
“The calls for Justice for Jennifer are powerful and moving,” the statement 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. Some community-based groups are organizing Candles for Jennifer on Sunday, May 24. Please support them—in Jennifer’s honor, and in honor of all those who have died by intimate partner violence.”
[Screengrab via New Canaan Police Department]
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