A “bloodlike substance” that contained Jennifer Dulos’ DNA was found in the vehicle her estranged husband had access to the day she disappeared, according to a new warrant released Wednesday by the Connecticut State Police.
Fotis Dulos’ girlfriend Michelle Troconis told police he had the truck cleaned days later, “because the body of Jennifer at some point was in there,” according to the warrant, which details the vehicle’s movements on the day Jennifer Dulos disappeared and subsequent days.
The 38-page state police warrant contains explosive new details on the missing case.
Dulos was re-arrested Wednesday and charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, according to the warrant. This is in addition to previous charges in the case. He has denied any connection to Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance.
The vehicle the warrant says Fotis Dulos is believed to have driven on the day of the disappearance belongs to one of his employees, who told police Dulos urged him to replace the seats. Over the course of several days, Dulos was insistent, “pushy” and angry that the seats had not been changed out, the employee told police.
According to the warrant, the employee said Dulos eventually told him that he was worried hair evidence might be in the vehicle because he’d hugged his estranged wife days before she disappeared.
After the employee switched the seats out, he told police he decided to keep them without telling Dulos, in case police needed them, according to the warrant. Police later found the “bloodlike substance” that contained Jennifer’s DNA on one of the seats.
Police say they don’t believe the employee was involved in the crime, according to the warrant.
‘Alibi Scripts’
Police also found what detectives called “Alibi Scripts,” in the business office of Dulos’ company, according to the warrant.
The handwritten notes outlined specific times and activities for the day Jennifer Dulos was reported missing and the day after, according to the warrant. The notes were written by Dulos and Troconis to “help them remember” their activities, Troconis said, according to the warrant. The notes also listed the times and duration of phone calls and individuals called, according to the warrant. The notes were proven to be inaccurate and “included alibi witnesses who were later determined to be false,” according to the warrant, and Troconis later admitted the events did not happen.
In the warrant, police also presented still photos of Jennifer’s vehicle heading toward her residence at 8:05 a.m. on the day she was reported missing. The image is captioned: “This photograph is the last known photograph of Jennifer alive. At the time this footage was recorded, Dulos is believed to have been lying in wait at 69 Welles Lane for his wife to return home. The crime and clean-up are believed to have occurred between 8:05 AM and 10:25 AM”
Fotis Dulos briefly meets with the police
The day after Jennifer Dulos was reported missing, police asked Dulos to come to the New Canaan Police Department and assist investigators in the missing person case, according to the warrant. Dulos arrived with his attorney, but Dulos briefly met with investigators by himself in the lobby of the building. Dulos’ attorney joined his client shortly thereafter and told investigators that he and his client were leaving and would not provide an interview to police, according to the warrant. Police asked to see Dulos’ cellphone and asked him to unlock the phone, which he did, and detectives told him his cellphone was being secured as evidence. Dulos refused to consent to police examining his phone and left “without providing any information on his wife’s disappearance,” according to the warrant.
A warrant to search the phone was later obtained and further linked Dulos to the disappearance, the arrest warrant states.
Jennifer Dulos, 50, was last seen driving a 2017 Chevrolet Suburban on May 24 in New Canaan, police said. Her friends reported the mother of five — who was in a contentious child custody battle with Fotis Dulos — missing after she missed appointments and they hadn’t heard from her for 10 hours. Authorities found her car near a park, not far from her house.
Images in the new arrest warrant show a vehicle believed to be Dulos’ employee’s truck parked about 100 feet from where the missing woman’s Suburban was later found abandoned.
The warrant alleges Fotis Dulos parked his borrowed truck, then went to his estranged wife’s home to lie in wait for her to return. It alleges he drove her body away from her home in her car, then put the body into the borrowed truck.
Her body has not been found.
‘When do we get the chance to question these folks?’ Dulos’ attorney asks
Dulos’ attorney Norm Pattis reacted to the new arrest.
“It sounds like the state is trying to convince itself that Fotis is responsible for Jennifer’s disappearance. When and if the state decides it can prove its case, we will welcome the chance to meet the case in open court. The new warrant speaks of a lying lover and handyman with something to hide. When do we get the chance to question these folks?”
CNN has reached out to the attorney for Michelle Troconis for comment.
Previous Arrests
Dulos and Troconis were arrested in June and charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence after arrest warrants said officers found “(m)ulitple areas of suspected blood spatter” in Jennifer Dulos’ home.
Investigators discovered stains that tested positive for human blood on the mother of five’s garage floor, the arrest warrants said, and evidence of attempts to clean up the scene of what investigators concluded was “a serious physical assault … and Jennifer Dulos was the suspected victim.”
And the day she went missing, surveillance cameras captured someone matching the description of her estranged husband getting out of his truck and putting “multiple garage bags into various trash receptacles” in the Hartford area, authorities said. Detectives later recovered clothing and household goods from trash receptacles with Jennifer Dulos’ blood on them.
Both Dulos and Troconis have pleaded not guilty to those charges. Both were released on bond, surrendered their passports and were forced to wear GPS monitoring devices.
Dulos posted $500,000 bail on the new charge Wednesday, according to the warrant, and is scheduled to be back in court on this new charge on September 12.