Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BLOOD-SOAKED BRA, SHIRT, ZIP TIES In Trial of 'Other Woman' in Jennifer Dulos Murder

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

The Connecticut State Police believe Fotis Dulos attacked Jennifer Dulos at her New Canaan home,  killed her, and then tried to dispose of the evidence in trash bins around Hartford. Michelle Troconis was with Dulos during the time he was dumping trash bags. Her attorney, Jon Schoehorn, says Troconis told police multiple times that she was on her phone, unaware of what her boyfriend was doing. The jury has now seen that recovered evidence, retrieved from the trash.  Connecticut State Police Sgt. Kevin Duggan testified about what was found in the trash bins and the process used for finding them.  He described how the items were taken from the trash bin, the contents spread out, photographed, and then placed into an investigator trash bag. The items were then taken for analysis. One of the items recovered from the trash bins was a bra with what appears to be blood stains. The bra's back clasp was still connected, but the front had been cut. A long-sleeved shirt is shown. It too, looks like it has bloodstains on it and has been cut in much the same way the blood-stained bra. Duggan also testifies that officers uncovered zip ties, plastic ponchos, a white t-shirt, a bath towel, black gloves, a screwdriver, and a box cutter, and all appeared to have blood-like stains. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Mark Sherman -  Managing Partner of Mark Sherman Law Dr. Angela Arnold – Psychiatrist, Atlanta, GA; Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women; Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University; Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital; Voted “My Buckhead’s Best Psychiatric Practice of 2022” Lisa M. Dadio – Former Police Lieutenant, New Haven Police Department; Senior Lecturer & Director of the Center for Advanced Policing University of New Haven’s Forensic Science Department  Jeff Gentry – Forensics Crime Scene Investigator, Certified bloodstain pattern analyst and death investigator, fmr. toxicology lab analyst; Author: “A Visual Guide to Bloodstain Pattern Analysis: Bloodstain Pattern Analysis for Death and Crime Scene Investigators;” TikTok: @jeffreygentryBPA, Facebook: Jeff Gentry Bloodstain Pattern Analyst Dr. Eric Eason – Board-certified Forensic Pathologist, Consultant; Instagram: @eric_a_eason, Facebook: Eric August Eason, LinkedIn: Eric Eason, MD Taylor Hartz - Criminal Justice Reporter for the Hartford Courant, Co-Host of the award-winning true crime podcast, “Looking For the Todt Family;" X: @taylorjhartz   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I took a shower with Fotis Dulos. Really? I personally, Nancy Grace, did not take a shower with Fotis Dulos. Really? I personally, Nancy Grace, did not take a shower with Fotis Dulos. I don't want to get near him with a 10-foot pole, but you know, a lot of people actually think he's attractive, was attractive. I never thought that. I think he looks like the devil. I guess that's because I know without a doubt he murdered his

wife, the mother of his five children. But let me get back to taking a shower with Fotis Dulos. Now, after Jennifer Dulos, the missing mom of five, let me break that down, the dead murdered mom of five. After she's murdered, Fotis Doulos' lover, his mistress, and he, that's Michelle Chaconis and he, get together and they write an alibi script. In other words, detailing every move they made according to them. And you can take that with a box of salt. Every move they made the day Jennifer went missing, translation was murdered. Every move they made filling up their whole day timer. And Michelle Triconis, who was sleeping with a man she knows to be married with five children, has to add in the raunchy detail, I took a shower with Otis. Really? Do I need to know that? Do I

have to imagine the two of them taking a shower just minutes before Jennifer Dulos is brutally murdered. A couple of hours before she comes home from the drop-off, leaving her children at school, a vast quantity of her blood is found in the garage, and she's never seen again. In the last hours, as we go to air, jurors have just been shown photos of where blood, Jennifer's blood, is in Fotis Dulo's trunk of his Chevy. Okay, but right now, Michelle Traconis, the mistress, is on trial. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111.

Wow. Okay. Let's just start with Jennifer Dulos, the murdered mom of five. We've never found her body. Was she dismembered? Was she burned? Were her remains burned somewhere? Was she dismembered? Was she burned? Were her remains burned somewhere? Was she buried?

Was she weighted down in water somewhere? Some body of water like I believe Stacey Peterson was? Where is Jennifer's body? Her five children are being raised without their mother. No body. Her five children are being raised without their mother. Nobody. Well, they go through life wondering, hey, was my dad telling the truth? Did my mom just leave, run off with some boyfriend? She's living, I don't know, Spain or Italy right now.

Did my mom abandon me? That's what they're going to be wondering the rest of their lives. But back to Michelle Triconis, the mistress. Showering, the mistress. Showering with the killer. I want to talk about Jennifer Dulos' bra.

And you'll see why. Take a listen. Sergeant Duggan. Is this the item that you pulled out of the garbage of Albany and Green on May 30th, 2019? It is. Now, with respect to, first of all, what is it? That's a bra.

The back of the bra is collapsed. Was it like that in the condition when you found it? That's exactly how we found it. And with respect to the front of the bra, is there a cut going down the middle of it? There is. Okay, I want to point out what really jumps out at me. First of all, this is a bra. This is Jennifer Dulos bra it's soaked in blood you can't tell what color it ever really was it looks

like it's a deep burgundy brown now because it's completely soaked and but like you dipped it in blood and pulled it back up interesting probative which means it proves something the bra jennifer's bra was still clasped in the back and it was cut in the front why why joining me an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now but first i want to go to taylor hart joining us criminal justice investigative reporter for the hartford current co-host of an award-winning true crime podcast looking for the tote family that was an incredible case that we covered and investigated here taylor and your podcast is amazing. Taylor has been covering this story from the very beginning. And again, let me correct myself.

It's not a story. These are real people. Jennifer, a real mother like many of us, whose whole life is devoted to their children. Now she's gone. Nothing left of her but a blood-soaked bra and a garage full of blood. Tell our hearts, we were just hearing Sergeant Kevin Dugan with the Connecticut State Police describing finding the bra. Where was Jennifer Dulos' bra found? Jennifer's bra and a shirt that she was allegedly wearing that day that she was attacked and investigators alleged killed in her garage were found in a trash bin on Albany Avenue in Hartford. And investigators in this case and prosecutors

now in the trial have really zeroed in on that part of Hartford. After Jennifer went missing, investigators were led to that street by tracking location data from Fotis Dulos' phone that showed that he was on Albany Avenue. They reviewed the many surveillance cameras that are in that area and saw footage of Fotis' black Ford Raptor driving down Albany Avenue and making a couple stops. And in that video, you see a man in a white t-shirt and a black baseball cap getting out and placing some things into different trash cans and dropping something into a storm drain. And investigators went through that trash. quarters in Hartford, but actually saw those pieces of evidence taken out of brown evidence bags as prosecutors pulled that red evidence tape off and held up these blood-soaked fur bra gloves with a blood-like stain on them, zip ties that had blood-like stains on them and were cut.

And that's just some of the evidence that was found in those trash bins. You are hearing Taylor Hart joining us, criminal justice investigative reporter with the Hartford Courant. I want to go to high profile lawyer joining us at the courthouse right now, Mark Sherman, managing partner, Mark Sherman, thank you for being with us. A lot of people would suspect that that's all for show when the prosecutor brings in paper bags and there's a reason that they're paper which dr. Eric Easton is going to explain for us but the prosecutor brings on all of these bags of evidence and it

is dramatic but it has to be that way because those bags are unsealed typically by the witness who is law enforcement or it could even be a transport officer, which is simply the officer that takes the evidence from the scene after it's appropriately bagged and secured. They transport it to the crime lab or they pick it up at the crime lab and transport it back to the courtroom. It cannot and should not be opened until that moment to preserve the chain of custody. So the prosecutor will take the bag. This is the best way to do it. Instead of you opening it yourself, you take the bag and you give it to the witness. So the witness law enforcement witness, law enforcement, can say, yes, this is a bag. It's evidence number 1234. It was obtained from a crime scene on this date and it was logged into evidence by Taylor Hartz and the crime lab person that analyzed it was Mark Sherman. And now I'm opening it for the first time.

Why is chain of custody so important? Mark Sherman. Why is the prosecutor opening up paper bags in front of the jury? It's to preserve the integrity of the evidence. And but it's not the first time that the fence probably saw this evidence, Nancy, before the trial in the year to two years, in this case, three years before the trial. We're we're given the right to bring our own experts in, open up these bags with our own experts in the presence of the police officers and the crime labs and tested ourselves, especially when there's DNA involved. And sometimes there's not enough DNA to test multiple times. So good prosecutors will give us the opportunity to say, hey, we may only be able to do one test.

Do your people want to be involved? So we do get a right to all this stuff. It's not the first time the defense has seen this, but they have to keep it in these sealed bags. They have to keep this chain of custody tight, or else the defense will be able to attack them for saying it could have been contaminated by other things. And it happens sometimes. I doubt it happened in this case because it's such a high profile case and we're

being really careful. But that's your reason why, because it will open the door for the defense to attack the accuracy of the evidence, especially when you have DNA and blood involved. Let's just say it. Let's just get it out there. O.J. Simpson. Simpson's defense, headed by my former co-anchor, Johnny Cochran, God rest his soul, attacked the blood evidence on many levels, including contamination, including intentional planting of evidence. So not just that a lot of people walked through the crime scene and got their DNA on it, which did not happen, but also that police planted the evidence and the jury actually bought it. You want to tell me that a group of 15, 20 investigators were part of a big conspiracy

and to this day have not signed a multimillion dollar book deal? Yeah, that didn't happen but that said that specter looms over every piece of physical evidence the state puts forth so they've got to be really careful taylor hearts is describing for us the state opening up these bags in the courtroom and they are bags of bloody clothes so bloody you can't even tell what color the bra used to be but there's more uh sergeant kevin dugan on the stand listen is that a photograph of the shirt that you took out of the garbage on may 30th 2019 it. Is that the back or the front? I believe that's the back.

Do you wish to say? You can continue. The front was cut. Interesting. To Dr. Eric Eason joining us, board-certified forensic pathologist, consultant at Eric underscore A underscore Eason. Dr. Eason, thank you for being with us. Just so you know, everybody, this guy didn't just fall off the turnip truck. He has performed around

10,000 death investigations. He has performed thousands of autopsies. Dr. Eason, when I think of someone's clothes being cut off of them, that's the kind of thing that I would encounter as a prosecutor when EMTs are trying to save somebody's life and they literally rip the clothes off or they slice them up the middle and sometimes they don't even take them totally off the body. They want to get at your heart or the cut or the GSW gunshot wound for expediency. But in this case, we've never found Jennifer Dulos' body. Right now her husband's lover, Michelle Chaconis, is on the stand because she's on video getting out of his vehicle as he's going to what 30 stops taylor hearts how many trash cans or receptacles did he use disposing of all of jennifer's bloody clothing her bra rags you name

it how many so that's something that is still really yet to be nailed down in this trial i think it's been a very common misconception throughout the coverage of this case that photos made about 30 stops. That was originally something that was reported back in 2019 when this case was first being looked at, but it looks like it's only a handful of stops. Where that 30-something number came from was that investigators released a lot of surveillance footage. They released, I think, at the beginning, 30 or so photos and videos of those stops, but there were actually only a couple stops along Albany Avenue. When you're saying a handful or a couple, what do you mean by that? One, two, five, ten? That number is yet to be known. We're hoping that's something that is nailed down today at

trial or that we can ask the defense attorneys. But I think it's somewhere about three. You know, Dr. Angela Arnold joining us. We're now a psychiatrist in the Atlanta jurisdiction at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Dr. Angie, most women are happy if their husband will take the trash out once a week to one place, the end of the driveway or the trash chute. But suddenly, when Jennifer Dulos goes missing, air quotey, air quotey, he's a neatnik and he goes to multiple trash cans. And lo and behold, in those receptacles are her bloody clothes. Wow.

How did Michelle Chaconis miss that? You know, Nancy, I have a feeling his mind might have gotten a little messed up while he was having sex with this girl in the shower, don't you? Why did you have to bring them up in the shower? I've tried to get that out of my head, now you've put it back in there. But, I mean,

the man is stopping at multiple receptacles to throw away bloody items. Doesn't that alone make him look so guilty? He is guilty. Right. Where else would he get the bloody items? And she's right there with him. Guys, I want to hear more of this witness on the stand.

It's Sergeant Kevin Dugan, Connecticut State Police. Listen. Can you please point to where the shirt is cut? It's almost right down the center of the shirt. Are there any buttons or zippers on the shirt? No. So, and what is the brand? It's a Vineyard Bike shirt.

And over here, there's some marking. What is that? There's a defect in the shirt. Are you talking about the hole? Yeah. And did this go to the lab? It did. And there are letters here, E-V-S-F-T-G. Do you know what that stands for?

Yes, it's a Vineyard Vine slogan for every day should feel this good. Dr. Eric Eason joining us. Dr. Eason, why would her bra and her shirt be ripped up the front? Obviously, she didn't do that. It sounds like whoever took her life was trying to get rid of the evidence. And so after the death occurred, they would have removed the shirt and the bra with scissors or a knife and then would have discarded them eventually. But why? I'm trying to figure that part out. Lisa Daddio joining me, former police lieutenant, New Haven Police Department, Annie Lee lead detective, senior lecturer, director of the Center for Advanced Policing and Graduate Program Coordinator at University of New Haven. Lisa, thank you for being with us. Why did he slice her bra and her shirt up the front?

So, you know, that is something I also struggle with. It doesn't make sense to me if he's just going to dump her body somewhere. Why not leave her clothed? Slicing it up the front obviously her shirt her bra um why and then you take it off of her and dispose of it but yet you still have the biggest piece of evidence her body so that part of it i i just i can't wrap my head around it doesn't make any sense to me but then again a lot of this case makes absolutely no sense to me. Well, maybe, you know, we've all seen cases where the dead victim is stripped. Sometimes their body has been cleaned like Nicole Lovell's. Sometimes we see victims hands cut off. So no fingerprint identification.

Right. Their head cut off. So no visual identification. Their clothing removed. I'm just trying to figure out why her bra and shirt would have been cut off her body. Right. Right. Makes no sense. Also with us, Jeff Gentry joining us, forensic certified bloodstain pattern analyst and author of a visual guide to bloodstain pattern analysis. Bloodstain pattern analysis for death and crime scene investigators.

Wow. Jeff Gentry, thank you for being with us. What do you make of her clothes being cut off of her dead body? Every aspect of this crime was planned out, from their detailed notes to the entire course of events the rest of the day. So taking the time to zip tie somebody to assault them, she was obviously unconscious or looking up at him when he's cutting these bloody clothes off of her, but he's planning to conceal evidence. And he thought he was concealing evidence

by throwing in the trash, but he actually created more evidence to be analyzed. But his plan was to dispose of the body somehow and hoping that this additional evidence on the body would not be found and be able to link it back to her. So I agree with you that she's probably weighted down somewhere. A lot of the cases that I've seen where the person is stripped down and additional evidence removed or parts of the body cut off, they're usually weighted down and then put in a waterway with the hopes that that body will decompose. But hopefully one of these days they will find her and water does to an extent

preserve the body. So hopefully they can find more clues to give more explanation to the family. You mentioned zip ties. Take a listen to Sergeant Kevin Dugan. Picture 19. Sir, what is that? It's a picture of zip ties. Did you find those out of the garbage on Albany Avenue that day? I did. And did you package them and bring them back to Troop H? I did. And with respect to these items, did you then subsequently separate them from the other items?

Yes. Similarly, you did every item that was contained in that garbage can? Yes. And did you photograph it yes and did you then seize it as an evidentiary number yes what evidentiary number did you seize it as 502 h and one could you seize it so on the zip ties there's a blood-like substance on several areas of the zip ties, and I found that relevant. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let me understand, Taylor Hart, in addition to the bloody clothes being thrown away by photos of Delos, you see him on camera doing it, cameras from all around town. There are zip ties with blood on the zip ties? Yes, there were, I believe, four zip ties, two that had blood stains on them and two that had been cut at some point, similar to how the clothes were cut.

And another thing that we saw in the trial this week that was pulled from those trash bins was two ponchos that you would wear when it's raining outside that also were covered in a blood-like stain. And going back to your question about why those clothes may have been cut, it seems like Dulos was really trying to get rid of any blood evidence. We know that his employees, Toyota Tacoma, that he was driving the morning of May 24th, 2019, was brought to a car wash and detailed after Jennifer was reported missing.

The blood in the garage had smear and white stains. And according to the nanny who testified, at least 10 rolls of paper towels were missing from the pantry of that house where the attack allegedly happened and pieces of bloody paper towel were found on the garage floor so we're seeing a lot of evidence that contained what is believed to be jennifer's blood that was then you know tried to that photos tried to cover up or get rid of is it true that video allegedly shows Traconis discarding a package

containing old license plates in a storm drain? So there is a surveillance video that shows what appears to be Fotis Dulos dropping something into a storm drain. Now, while he's on Albany Avenue putting something into the storm drain and stuff into the trash bins, Michelle Traconis was seen in the passenger seat of that Ford Raptor. And she's told investigators that she was in the truck at that time, but that she didn't have any idea what was going on. There is one point in the video where you see Traconis leaning out of the vehicle and kind of almost touching the sidewalk.

And her defense attorney told me last week and has said in court that he was trying to wipe a piece of gum, chewing gum off onto the sidewalk that she was trying to get rid of. But those license plates were found in the storm drain. And city investigators went to that drain, had everything suctioned up out of there, and they found a FedEx envelope that had two Connecticut plates in it. And at first glance they seem like normal license plates that haven't been tampered with, but an investigator noticed that in Connecticut it's typically a series of three numbers and then three letters on a plate. And on these particular plates, the numbers and then three letters on a plate and on these particular plates

that the numbers and letters didn't match that pattern so on closer look they realized that there had been some type of adhesive or tape applied that actually changed some of the numbers and letters on the original plate a D was changed into a B and J was changed into another letter. And when investigators pulled that tape off and ran that original plate number, it was linked to a registration that had been canceled, but had once belonged to Flores Dulo. So in a nutshell, Taylor, they threw away altered license plate tags, correct? That's correct. Okay, question. You're telling me that only a handful of trash cans were used. Does that, is your number including the storm drain?

I believe there were three trash bins and the storm drain. I mean, Mark Sherman, what's a jury supposed to believe? Who goes and throws things down a storm drain? Nancy, a jury's going to believe that Fotos Dulos committed this crime. It's been nine days of evidence, and I haven't seen one shred of evidence to suggest that Michelle was involved in this murder. She's in the car watching him throw away the bloody clothes she writes the alibi scripts detailing not only her shower with doulos excuse me shower with photos as she wrote it but everything else everything else that day which of course is a lie that's still not murder that might be a hindering hindering which is assisting someone who committed a murder but at most that would be and that's a 10-year crime

wait a minute why wouldn't it be a co-defendant? Because it's not a conspiracy when you help someone after the fact. It's not. She's with him. I'm looking at the bloody bra right now. She was with him discarding all of that. And then she, according to the state, made up this script about everything they had done the day of their murder and following the murder, but we know that's not true. She doesn't have in that script, we went from trash can to trash can to storm drains, throwing away bloody clothes. She left that out, which means the timeline is a lie.

Fair enough, but I believe the lawyer wrote that script, not Michelle. Okay, let's find out. Taylor Hartz, did the lawyer write that? Did the lawyer write, I took a shower with Fotis? What we've heard so far in videos that have been shown of Michelle's interviews with investigators is that she and Fotis wrote those lists. Okay, good try Sherman. Can't blame you for trying. Let's listen to more of what the jury is hearing in the courtroom. What is this item? It's the zip ties contained within evidence packaging.

And are these the zip ties that you seized out of the garbage that day on Albany Avenue on May 30th, 2019? They are. Are they the zip ties that you saw the blood-like substance contained on them? They are. And are they the zip ties that you seized for 502H? Yes. Okay Jeff Gentry joining me Forensic Certified Blood Stain Pattern Analyst. Jeff help me out here I'm trying to reconstruct in a sensical manner why her bra was ripped cut why her shirt was sliced up the front like the bra and why the zip ties were sliced and why they're all everything is covered in blood including additional things like rags so what's your best scenario based on the evidence that you know blood pattern is excellent for creating timeline of

events in bloody bloody, especially assaults. So you've got blood spatter in the house. That is obviously going to be when she's attacked. You've got the zip ties, evidence that she has been subdued in some way, most likely after the attack. You've got evidence that her clothing was removed and then she was transferred to the trunk of a vehicle or the back of a vehicle. So that creates additional timeline. And then you have evidence of cleanup, the final stage in that messy scene. So all of that really recreates a timeline of events that hopefully the jury will see right through all of this. Not related to the blood,

but what drives me crazy is that she's using this defense of ignorance. And what I wanted to tell you is, do you remember another criminal that used that same defense of ignorance? And that was John Wayne Gacy when he said that there were no children that he had killed in the basement of his house. And what about this? Sidney noticed this. Were there two ponchos, Taylor Hart's two ponchos? Yes, there were. And that was, at least in my knowledge, the first time that we'd heard about those ponchos. But there were, in fact, two. Did they have blood on them as well? Yes, they did. Okay. Is the picture getting any clearer? Has anybody seen Dexter? Am I the only one that got me through my pregnancy? Okay. I guess not.

It's one of my favorite shows. Who's that? Is that Gentry or Sherman? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love Dexter. Okay. Ponchos. Sydney, thank you. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Ponchos, cleaning supplies, rags, paper towels. You're right. This was very well planned right down to buying ponchos to protect their clothes from getting blood on them. The ponchos bloody and thrown away with everything else dr angela arnold

to think that far ahead that you actually buy ponchos so you don't get the mother of your five children's blood on you you're worried about that wow well he didn't want to be i mean he you know uh dr angela arnold i expect a little bit more from you than wow. Well, confident. As as I often say, Nancy, I'm sure that's how everyone else is feeling right now also. Right. I mean, everything this guy did made him look guilty. Her. There's two ponchos. Two. One. Two. Yeah. You still want to argue Mark Sherman that she had nothing to do with it who who wore the other poncho covered in blood nancy what the more the government makes photos

to be a monster the more the defense is going to flip it and say yes michelle was along for this ride she didn't know what was going on along for the ride That's certainly putting perfume on the pig along for the ride. Nancy, she's on the phone the whole time, and they have the data to show that she was talking to her mother the whole time, or a big chunk of that time. Do they tell her heart? Is that true, or is he making something else up, as he has already done once? Nancy, I was mistaken about that. Oh, it was a mistake. Okay. Is he mistaken again? No, it is. It is true that there is, there are phone records that back up

that Michelle was messaging her mom and her daughter during that trip to Albany Avenue, but the jury will not hear about that. And that is something that is going to make a difference in this case. Messaging. Messaging. Did you say messaging? Yes. I believe she was using WhatsApp to text with her mom and her daughter. Wait a minute. I am sitting here.

I just read a message from my daughter, Lucy. It took me about two seconds. It said, hey, mom. So Mark Sherman, high profile defense lawyer, of course, says that she talked nonstop for what hours that they were driving around disposing of bloody items. But you're telling me, Taylor Hart, that she messaged on WhatsApp. Is that right? Yes. But the trip did not take hours. I will point that out.

So they were going from their home in Farmington, Connecticut, headed to a Starbucks in West Hartford. And, you know, that's what her defense attorney has said, that Michelle just thought that she was along for the ride while they were going to Starbucks. They did end up at a Starbucks. And yesterday we saw on those alibi scripts that they allegedly got some frappuccinos there around 7 p.m. I don't care about their frappies. I knew you were going to do that, Taylor Hortz. I knew you were going to tell. She had an oat milk, skinny, light eyes frappie, and he had the chai tea.

Nancy, do you believe she was texting her mother and daughter at the same time with the other hand, burying evidence. Yes. That seems a little bit of a stretch. Yes, I do. A little bit of a stretch. I do. Does anybody Okay, Lisa Daddio, help me out. Tell her hearts. You do know this is kind of a dog fight. It's not high tea at Windsor Castle, so just jump in

whenever you want. Lisa Daddio, Brian Laundrie, help me out, Sidney. Use that noodle. Brian Laundrie, he murders Gabby Petito, leaves her body out to be torn apart by animals and dispersed camping. Then he drives across the country back home to mommy in her van using her credit cards to tank up and eat the whole way home. Nobody knows she's dead but him. And the whole time, he's texting, calling. Yeah, I believe it.

Do you remember that, Daddy-O? It happens all the time. It always does. It's a way to throw people off. Let's face it. This whole thing was planned, as we've said multiple times, and done very well. But he got caught.

And Michelle is far from innocent in this case. And so while we yet don't have any information that says, hey, we know her DNA is on, you know, Jennifer's body or clothing or whatever, everything else leads you to believe that she knew more than just going along for a ride to grab Frappuccinos at Starbucks. Come on. Yeah. Thank you for that info, Taylor Hart. You're really nailing down the facts for me. Sure. She got a Frappie and he got a chai. Hey, Taylor, I want you to jump in

if any of us have any fact wrong, because facts matter. And when you mentioned blood on the zip ties, I'm curious, Dr. Eric Eason or Jeff Gentry, you're the blood spatter expert. Dr. Eric Eason, you've done thousands of autopsies. Is there a way to look at the blood on the zip ties and tell if Jennifer Dulos had been zip tied or was this a smear or was this just spatter that the zip ties were on the garage floor when she was murdered? Is there a way that we could tell she was actually zip tied? You know what, let me first throw that to Jeff Gentry.

What about it? Is there a way to examine the blood on the zip ties to determine was Jennifer Dulos actually zip tied? What I would do, Nancy, is I would look for evidence of blood spatter. So a lot of times in assaults, there will be small blood spatter stains that you can't identify. But in this case, all that I saw was blood transfers. And that's very common when people have significant bleeding wounds, so they transfer blood to surfaces or blood just soaks into the bra or shirt and then eventually onto the zip ties. And then when you put it all

into a trash bag, it really does mess up a lot of the blood evidence that you can interpret as impact spatter versus transfers. But I would look for impact spatter absolutely on those zip ties. 30 bags of items drenched in blood. Some of those items drenched in blood. What more do we know? Take a listen to Nicole Parton from CrimeOnline.com. Sergeant Kevin Duggan of the Connecticut State Police testified about items recovered from trash bins in Hartford where two people who look like Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis are seen placing trash bags in random trash bins. After showing the court what appeared to be a bloody bra, a long-sleeved shirt is shown to the courtroom.

It, too, looks like it has bloodstains on it. The shirt is also cut in much the same way the bloodstained bra appeared to be cut, right down the middle of the front. Duggan testifies that they uncovered zip ties, plastic ponchos, a white t-shirt, a bath towel, black gloves, a screwdriver, and a box cutter, and all appeared to have blood-like stains. Duggan also points out that a blood-like substance was on the edges of a broken razor blade in the discarded bags. Taylor Hart's joining us from the Hartford Courant. Do the prosecutors believe that the box cutter is the murder weapon? Prosecutors haven't indicated at all what they think the murder weapon was or even how Jennifer died. And that was the first time we heard about that box cutter

being pulled from those trash cans. And the prosecution the first time we heard about that box cutter being pulled from those trash cans. And the prosecution surprisingly didn't spend much time on it. It could have been something akin to being used to cut the bra. I wonder if there were any fibers on it, like bra fabric fibers or fabric from the shirt, even fabric from the zip ties, which were also sliced. Prosecutors didn't mention if there was any, if there were any fibers on that box cutter. They said that there was a little bit of a blood-like substance on the tip, but when they held that shirt and that bra up in court, it really was a clean cut right down the center of both. So I think it's plausible that that box cutter could be what cut those clothes.

You know what? We're not mentioning Dr. Angela Arnold. The moments, the last moments that Jennifer Dulos was alive in that garage where there is so much blood. We know she had to die. She lost so much blood out of her body. It's been estimated at, I guess, around a gallon.

You know, but her last moments, what was she thinking? She just dropped her children off at school. It's about eight o'clock in the morning. She got out of her vehicle in the garage and was murdered. And I wonder if she thought, I just want to see my children. I just want to be back the way it was yesterday. I mean, do you even have time to think at all when you're under attack? Dr. Angie? Well, you know, Nancy, I can only imagine that she was probably thinking, who's going to take care of my children now? Who is going to be there for them? That would probably be her first thought, because it sounds like the attack was so violent that I'm sure she was in a state of shock when it initially started to happen,

but there was probably some awareness on her part that she wasn't going to live from this. Is that true, Dr. Eric Eason, who has done literally 10,000 death investigations. Dr. Eason, is it your belief that murder victims are cognizant as they are dying? It depends on how the cause of death occurs. If this was a gunshot wound to the head, it would have been very quick and a rapid loss of consciousness, rapid death. But if it was a sharp force injury situation, there's going to be a time period where they're losing blood very quickly and would have gone through a state of despair. Yes. Tell our hearts joining us from the Hartford

Current. I need to understand the timeline. When Fotis Dulos and Michelle Traconis were disposing of all the bloody evidence, where were the children at that time? What time of the day was this? Were they already home and realizing mommy was gone? So that day, May 24th, the kids were actually headed to New York City because that's where their orthodontist was. So they had a half day at school and their nanny picked them up and brought them to New York City to their grandmother's house. She has an apartment in Manhattan. And they were there waiting for their Jennifer was supposed to meet them there and go with them to the orthodontist. And that was one of the first, you know, flags that was raised that she wasn't at

her mom's house in New York when she was supposed to be. The nanny ended up taking the kids to their orthodontist appointment in a cab. And when she got there and Jennifer wasn't there either, she really started to panic. That's what she told us when she took the stand last week. But the kids stayed with their grandmother from that moment. I believe one of their daughters was still in New Canaan with a friend, but one of Jennifer's friends went and picked her up and brought her to the grandmother's house. And Jennifer's mother had them in her apartment with an armed guard outside almost immediately. So by the time Fotis was spotted on Albany Avenue, they were already locked in securely to their grandmother's apartment.

And they've been there pretty much ever since. While the children are trying to figure out where's mommy, Fotis Dulos and his mischiefs are out disposing of bloody items. Is that what time that was? Correct. And Fotis wrote in those alibi scripts or timelines. And the nanny testified that Fotis was calling the nanny. He was checking in with her. He was saying, can I see the kids?

But he was really worried about whether she was going to bring them back to Connecticut. Jennifer and Fotis were in the middle of a really heated custody battle when she was killed. And part of that was scheduled supervised visitations. And this was the start of Memorial Day weekend. And Fotis was supposed to have a visit with them that weekend. And while his wife was missing, he was texting the nanny asking if she was bringing the kids to Connecticut, make sure you leave New York early enough that you get to New Canaan on time for our visit. And the nanny kind of went along with those texts. And she testified

on the stand that she had no intention of ever bringing them to that visit. And she didn't. They stayed in New York. Speaking of the alibi scripts, the defense has fought tooth and nail to keep that phraseology out of the courtroom. Take a listen to our friend Dave Mack at Crime Online in 50. An arrest warrant is something state police called alibi scripts. Retired Connecticut State Police Sergeant Matthew Riley testified investigators found three photocopied pages of an alibi script in a computer bag from the Dulos home's mudroom. Traconis told police the documents were an outline of activities that Fotis Dulos and Michelle Traconis did the day Jennifer Dulos vanished and the following day. Traconis told

police they prepared the papers based on advice from a divorce attorney. Michelle Traconis' lawyer John Schoenhorn doesn't want the documents called alibi scripts in front of the jury and requested the judge ban the prosecution and witnesses from using the phrase alibi scripts, claiming the term would be too prejudicial. I understand the defense was successful, Taylor Harts. to that phrasing of alibi scripts. And I believe while we are having this discussion, Schoenhorn even brought that term up in court this morning and told the judge that the media continues to refer to them as alibi scripts, which he considers to be prejudicial. So they're really being called handwritten notes, timelines, notes, photocopies in court.

They're not bringing up that term alibi script in front of the jury, at least. Is it true that the jury is about six hours? Michelle Triconis speaking to police. Yes, that's true. I think those videos are due to start any minute being shown to the jury. There was some discussion this morning about what order those videos are going to be shown in, but there's a pretty lengthy interrogation

that Michelle went through over the course of three separate interviews, and the jury is about to see almost all of that. I wonder what their reaction will be when they see Michelle Chaconis very calm until one of the cops mentions that Fotis Doulos was trying to get back with his wife and she nuts up.

You know, I understand that there was a reaction in the courtroom when Jennifer Dulos' bra and shirt were introduced into evidence. What happened? That was the first time that we really saw an emotional reaction in the courtroom. The energy in there was really palpable. You could feel a shift. So Michelle's family is sitting on the left side behind the defense and they're relatively stoic, calm the whole time. And Jennifer's friends and family over on the right side

have been the same. They take notes occasionally, but they're pretty calm and collected until that shirt and bra were held. You could see her friends wiping away tears when investigators talked about that logo on the Vineyard Vine shirt that said every day should feel this good. Jennifer's best friend hung her head in her hands and sighed. I think that was a really tough moment for her. And her friends gave each other a hug afterward. And after we saw that evidence, the family released a statement. And that's the first statement they've made since the trial started. They said that seeing those bloody clothing items was brutal for them, but really necessary. And that they hope that it dispels any theory that Jennifer disappeared or did vanish from her kids' lives on purpose.

They hope that that evidence shows that she was murdered and that she is dead. I am imagining their reaction in court. I remember at the murder trial after my fiance was murdered, when I got off the witness stand, I saw unprepared his bloody clothes. I had not seen them. I didn't know they were going to be there. And I remember looking at them and I just kept walking out, but it was indelibly marked in my mind and memory. I'll never forget it. I'm just glad that her children are not in court to see their mom's bloody clothes. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend.

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