Crime Weekly - S1 Ep2: The Disappearance of Jennifer Dulos (Part I)

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

In July of 2017, a 51 year old mother of five requested full custody of her children, telling the court quote “I’m afraid of my husband. I know that filing for divorce and filing this motion will enrage him. I know he will retaliate by trying to harm me in some way. He has the attitude that he must always win at all costs. He is dangerous and ruthless when he believes that he has been wronged. During the course of our marriage he told me about sickening revenge fantasies, and plans to cause physical harm to others who have wronged him. I fear for my family's safety, and I believe him to be highly capable and vengeful enough to take the children and disappear.” Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

In July of 2017, a 51-year-old mother of five requested full custody of her children, telling the court, quote, I'm afraid of my husband. I know that filing for divorce and filing this motion will enrage him. I know he will retaliate by trying to harm me in some way. He has the attitude that he must always win at all costs. He is dangerous and ruthless when he believes that he has been wronged. During the course of our marriage, he told me about sickening revenge fantasies and plans to cause physical harm to others who have wronged him. I fear for my family's safety and I believe him to be highly capable and vengeful enough to take the children and disappear. End quote. That mother was Jennifer Dulos, and within two years,

she would disappear, never to be heard from again. The last time she was seen was on May 24th, 2019. It was a cool morning in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Jennifer Dulos was seen on camera at 8.05 a.m., returning home after dropping her five children off at school. In just a couple hours, Jennifer is scheduled to attend two doctor's appointments in New York City, but she will never make it. Hello, and welcome to Crime Weekly, presented by i by ID. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. On this podcast, we do talk about difficult subjects. We're talking about real crimes

and real people. And due to the graphic nature of some of this content, listener discretion is advised. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Crime Weekly presented by ID. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. This week, we're diving into the Jennifer Dulos case, discussing all the twists and turns that began to unfold as this case caught national attention a little over a year ago. Today, people are left questioning how something so horrific could happen in one of America's safest and most wealthy zip codes. Stephanie, you covered a lot of cases.

What is it about this story that you think people gravitate toward? I mean, it has everything. There's love triangles, an estranged wife, an estranged husband, custody battles. It has everything. And it also has a very relatable victim, Jennifer Dulos. Well, there's definitely a lot of layers to this story. In fact, this is going to be our first case that we break up into two episodes, right? It's probably not the last though, right? No. And we're going to be doing a lot of these. We've seen some of the comments already, and we

know that you guys want the details and so do we. So we would prefer to break the case up over multiple episodes than to leave something out that we both feel is important. Yeah. And I mean, we wanted to do that with Chris Watts, but we also didn't want to overwhelm you guys first episode. And, you know, sometimes people like it short and sweet, but not you guys. No, I definitely agree. And I know we have a lot to cover. So should we just dive into it? We should dive into it. But first, I want to remind everybody that I.D.'s special Doomsday, The Missing Children premieres December 20th at 9, 8 central.

When news broke in December 2019 that seven-year-old J.J. Vallow and his 16-year-old sister, Tylee Ryan, were missing from Rexburg, Idaho, their mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, became infamous as the doomsday mom who refused to tell anyone where they were. While several police departments and the FBI conducted a nationwide search for her children, she jetted off to Hawaii with her new husband, a former gravedigger-turned-author, podcaster, and doomsday prophet, Chad Daybell. This strange true-life drama, including Chad and Lori's alleged beliefs in zombies and the nearing end times, would take its darkest turn just six months later, when authorities found remains of both children buried in unmarked graves in Chad Daybell's backyard.

With exclusive access to the family, to former group members, and to the investigation through the lens of the grandparents, we will be in the eye of the storm as the Lori Vallow Daybell story unfolds. Now, Derek, I've followed this case since the beginning. I think I was one of the first people who covered it on YouTube. Are you going to be watching this? Yeah, I'll check it out. And I definitely just heard they announced this week that now Discovery Plus is coming out, D Plus. So, you know, if this case isn't your cup of tea, there's going to be tens of thousands of other cases and shows that you can watch by going to D Plus. Yeah, actually, I believe D Plus launches January 4th. And on it, you can find 55,000 episodes of 2,000 current and classic shows from the most loved TV brands like The History Channel, Discovery, ID, and HGTV.

So I'm actually really looking forward to it because The History Channel is my jam. I'm with you. I'll definitely be checking that out for sure. All right, let's dive in. Jennifer Fotis was born Jennifer Farber to a very wealthy New York City family. And when I say very wealthy, I mean that she pretty much grew up in a $7 million Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan with a view of Central Park. Jennifer's parents, Hilliard and Gloria Farber, also had a lakefront home in Pound Ridge, New York, valued at about $3 million, and a nice little place in Florida, too. Growing up in the city was great for Jennifer. She was beautiful, wealthy, and the world was her oyster. Weekdays would be spent at school where she was a nationally ranked

junior squash player. Weekends were for hanging out with girlfriends, gossiping over fried calamari at the olive tree in the village. After high school, Jennifer attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in 1987, and it was there, right in the first week of classes, that she met Fotis Doulos. They became close, but after college, the two parted ways, and Jennifer moved back to the city and enrolled at NYU's Tisch School, where she began pursuing her passion of writing. Fotis Doulos was born in Turkey, and I believe he and his family moved to Athens, Greece when he was about seven years old. He moved to the United States in 1986

to attend Brown University. Two years later, he graduated with degrees in applied mathematics, and he would later attend Columbia Business School, where he obtained an MBA in finance and international business. In 1999, Jennifer left New York and drove cross-country with just her thoughts and her cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Sophie, who was more child than pet. The next year, she and Sophie settled in Colorado, knowing no one, but knowing she was where she needed to be. And it was in Colorado three years later that she randomly ran into Fotis Doulos again. Later, Jennifer would write about this encounter in her blog, saying, quote, serendipity cast its spell. This man whom

I'd met the first week of college and befriended back then, this young man I'd always liked, we had a special chemistry together, always something special and precious, and we were always careful to be careful with one another until lightning struck, end quote. The only problem was, lightning had already struck for Fotis three years prior, when he married a woman named Hilary Aldama and Athens, Greece. She wasn't from Athens, she actually had attended Brown University as well. But in January of 2004, Fotis emailed Jennifer and told her he was living in the city and he wanted to reconnect. His divorce from his first wife was finalized in July of 2004, and the next month,

he tied the knot with Jennifer Farber during a lavish wedding at the Metropolitan Club. So no one really knows how long Jennifer and Fotis were actually seeing each other before he got divorced, but I think it's fair to say there was some overlap there to get divorced one month and remarried the next. It seems kind of impulsive. Does this raise any red flags for you? I mean, personally, yeah. I mean, it seems a little fast and sure, the impulsivity of it could possibly speak to the personality of Fotis and even Jennifer to a certain extent. But as you said earlier, they did know each other previously. So that does play into the equation. And you do hear a lot of stories out there that are similar to this. But I think most of us have seen this story

play out. Two people meet, they get married quickly, and within a year or two, they're going through this bitter divorce. It's a story that you hear all the time and it's very common and it usually involves children. So in that sense, Fotis and Jennifer were like a lot of couples that jump into something quickly and it ends up like this. Yeah. I blame movies for this. In the movies, it always works out. You just run into somebody on the street they haven't seen in years and all of a sudden it's this whirlwind romance i blame movies for this later in life you know not as much time to spend feeling each other out you just got to jump into it and see what happens you know and i think for jennifer this was her first marriage and she hadn't had any kids yet clearly she wanted a family um you know and she she figured if if this is meant to be let's just go with it and see what

happens well there was actually a piece done in Vanity Fair. And it was written by somebody who had known Jennifer growing up. And this person who wrote this piece kind of said, yeah, Jennifer was always the person who was this romantic at heart. That she believed in things like love at first sight and fate. And she always wanted to be in this magical marriage and have this wonderful, beautiful, big family and this perfect life. So it actually does make sense. And I know we were talking about it a little bit earlier off camera, but like you said, Fotis was a handsome man. He was suave. He was well-dressed. He could cast a spell.

Absolutely. You and I disagree on that. You have to give the full story here, right? Like I said, he was good looking and you said not really my type, but I said, he's better looking than Chris Watts though. Right. And you said, oh yeah, for sure. I said that Fotis kind of reminded me of like a thin Scott Peterson. So, I mean, he's striking out on all levels here. And although he'd previously worked in management consulting, in 2004, Fotis founded 4Group, a luxury residential real estate development company in the Farmington Valley area of Connecticut. Now, Derek, you know a little bit more about this area. We were also talking about that earlier. It's a wealthy area, right? Oh, for sure. My wife grew up there,

so I spent a lot of time there when we met after college. And it's a very affluent community. Being a kid from Central Falls, Rhode Island, I fell out of place when I was there for sure. Actually, little side note, 50 Cent lived there for the longest time in Farmington, Connecticut. Oh, it's like before he was 50 Cent? No, when he was 50 Cent, it was actually Mike Tyson's mansion. And then 50 Cent bought it. Yep. And he had parties there.

And my girlfriend at the time, now wife, would always tell me about it. Oh my goodness. So that gives you an idea of the type of community you're living in over there. Yeah, it definitely does. I mean, I could obviously get the sense of it from kind of reading into it and also like looking at the houses and the property values and things. But this is an area where people live when they have a lot of money. Let's put it that way. Yeah. And Jennifer came from a lot of money, but Fotis didn't come from a lot of money. And

we're going to talk about that in a little bit. Between 2006 and 2010, Fotis and Jennifer would become the parents of five beautiful children. This seems like a lot of kids to have so quickly. Before them were actually twins. So two sets of twins and then they had a little girl. Their youngest was a girl. Jennifer and Fotis had one of those good on paper marriages, in my opinion. They were both attractive, well-educated people. They looked really good

together, but they had very different personalities. Jennifer was a writer. She was an introvert, a nurturing and steady presence in the lives of her children. Fotis was more outgoing, mercurial, someone who needed to be seen and heard. The two came from very different backgrounds. Jennifer had grown up never having to worry about money, but Fotis had been born into a middle-class family who'd moved to Greece when he was very young. Fotis had to work for any wealth or success he had, and he built houses for the 1%,

a group he desperately wanted to be a part of at any cost. Now, the family moved into this enormous 15,000 square foot home that four group had built at four Jefferson crossing photos himself worked out of the house with his business office, taking up an entire 2,500 square foot wing of the home photos. His office was the size of my entire house. It kind of makes you feel like you're doing something wrong, doesn't it? Yeah. Just a little bit as I sit here and work out of my 500 square foot office. But as you said, he had this extravagant home. But the difference between him and us is that you and I are able to pay for these offices and we're able to pay for the homes that they're in. And that's an important

part of the whole equation, right? You have to be able to actually provide the funds to keep this up to date. And it doesn't seem like Fotis was doing very well in that department. It seemed like he was struggling at some financial issues. And we might get into that a little bit more. But as you just mentioned, Fotis wanted to live that lifestyle of the rich and famous, and he wanted to be accepted by them. So I'm sure some of this was for appearance and to show off how successful he was. But looks can be deceiving. There's a lot of situations from the exterior where everything looks perfect.

But in the interior, it's a different story. Yeah, I got kind of like talented Mr. Ripley vibes from Phonis. I don't know if you remember that movie. I don't. I'm sorry. Oh, it's okay. But it was kind of like this poor guy got mistaken for this trust fund baby, and he gets thrown into this extravagant life. And he kind of just starts, he's convinced everybody that he is this person and he's not. And I think that Fotis did a lot of that,

trying to convince everyone he was somebody he wasn't. I think he even wanted to convince himself he was somebody that he wasn't. And with Jennifer, we have this woman who's traveled all over the world. She loved to travel. She loved to read. She loved to write. She's been the author of her own life. She literally was an author, having penned several plays and a book. And suddenly, as if overnight, she's a wife and a mother of five young children. And she's living this Stepford wife existence in Connecticut. She was constantly busy, constantly on the move, bringing this kid to ballet, this one to horseback riding lessons, this one to music lessons. Her two oldest sons had followed in their father's footsteps, and they were nationally ranked water skiers in their age group. This family was always busy doing something, going somewhere.

And as a parent, we understand that this is what happens. When you're so busy with your kids, making sure they have a good life, making sure they're active and they're taking part in things they want to do, there's very little time left over to focus on your own personal passions or even just to relax and watch a TV show or read a book. With Jennifer, she loved to write. She loved to do all these things. But as a mother of five, she didn't have time for that. The year after her youngest daughter was born, Jennifer did find somewhat of an outlet. And she started an online blog called And Five Makes Seven. And this is obviously a play on it was just her and Fotis. And then they had five kids. So Five Makes

Seven. From her writing, I got the impression Jennifer was struggling with this transition a little bit, you know? And once again, I think it's something we can all understand, anybody who's become a parent. It's not easy. Jennifer really loved her kids. You could tell that from her blog. She loved them very much. But she was feeling wistful for the days where she had more freedom and downtime. She wrote about many sleepless nights and waking up in a bed suddenly full of small snoring children who took up too much space. She wrote about missing female friendships and taking late night walks to the Korean deli in the village, you know, missing those things from her single days in the city. But she also chronicled the lives of her children,

their first words, their favorite foods, finding a moment of peace at the end of the day with a sleeping baby in her arms. And I think it's a feeling all parents experience at some point or another, loving your children, loving your role as their parent, but also feeling a little nostalgic for the time when you had more time. No, I completely agree. It definitely changes your priorities. I can remember the things that I was focused on before having kids. And then the minute you have them, everything becomes about them and how you can benefit them in the long term. And that's what being a parent is about. So definitely can empathize with Jennifer here and how she had some goals and ambitions as a writer. But again, they kind of take a little bit of a backseat when you have children, especially five children. I can't. I only have two. I cannot imagine that.

But kudos to her for being able to handle it. Well, she did have a nanny, too. You know, sometimes people say, like, she had all this help. She didn't do anything. She had a nanny. But that didn't mean she wasn't fully invested into her children's lives and she wasn't with them constantly. It's just nice sometimes to have a pair of extra hands. It takes a village and all that. And she didn't have

much help from her husband, which we'll talk about, but she did seem to also truly be in love with her husband. In a post dating back to February 18th, 2012, Jennifer allegedly wrote, I do wish for one moment though, in this new house with Fotis, alone, after the kids have gone to bed, to pop some champagne, even if I don't drink more than a thimble of anything nowadays, to toast to this new structure, to our family, to this fresh and lovely start, to commune with my husband, really, end quote. And I think we can also relate to that. You know, when you have kids, there's less time for you as a couple. Your dynamic completely changes. You are two people in love. You've got all this

time in the world to enjoy breakfast in bed on Saturdays and kind of just ease into the day. And then you have kids and all of a sudden, not only do you not have time for yourself, but you don't have time for each other. And over time, the Duloses began to drift apart and live almost separate lives. When Fotis was home, he rarely emerged from his office. And for at least 10 days out of the month, he would travel, leaving his family behind. He participated in skiing competitions, so he was still doing his sports and athletic stuff that he'd been doing forever and that he was also getting his sons into. And he would also go to Greece to visit friends. Keep in mind, these were not work trips.

He worked from home. These were leisure trips. And Jennifer was left feeling like a single mother much of the time. In June of 2012, Jennifer wrote, quote, Fotis likes to sleep in each other's arms. He says that people who love each other do this. So it seems like this entry really speaks to Jennifer's growing loneliness and a feeling of isolation. Do you think she knew at this point where her marriage was headed? In a court of law, writings like this wouldn't have much evidentiary value. But from an investigatory standpoint, what would you make of this? Well, I think it's very possible that she knew where her marriage was heading. I think we all have a sense about it. You know what you signed up for and you know the person that you're living

with and you can sense when there's a change. And hence, I think that's why she was writing about it, because she could see the writing on the wall and where it was going. And it obviously upset her as an evidentiary value, you know, as far as these writings. I don't think it would hold much weight. But as an investigator, it's not all about, you know, evidentiary value. Sometimes it's also about what it can tell you about the victim. You know, there's situations where you go into a case and you're hit with the facts and circumstances as they stand right there. So in this case, it's, you know, Jennifer's disappearance. Here we are. Let's talk about the surveillance footage, all these things we're going to talk about tonight.

But when you start looking at these writings, which happened months before, you know, it can give you a better perspective on your victim, which as an investigator is extremely important. You want to understand the person that one, at this point, you're trying to find. But also, it may shed some light on why this occurred. It may shed light on some of the things that were leading up to the point when it happened. And also, maybe some potential suspects. There's definitely been situations where you have your suspicions about a case as an investigator.

And then when you start looking into the months prior to the incident, you discover something or someone that leads you down a different path. And as an investigator, that's extremely important. Yes, it's okay to have your suspicions going into it, which I'm sure these detectives did when they first got, you first got assigned to this case, but you want to remain unbiased and you want to remain open-minded. And as the evidence presents itself, slowly narrow down your scope of what you think happened. And so yes, evidentiary value, maybe not that important, but any good investigator would look at these writings to better understand the person that they're working for. I like that you put it that way, the person that they're working for. That's how you always

got to look at it. Every victim, every case that I've ever done, whether it was a breaking and entering or a robbery or a murder, they may not be here anymore, but at the end of the day, I'm working for them. And you got to keep that as your focus because it absolutely motivates you to stay a couple extra hours and do the work you need to do to maybe get a little further in the case. I really do appreciate that you put it that way. It definitely makes me view things from a different perspective. And I did talk to you earlier about how I really do relate to Jennifer Dulos and how I found myself becoming very close to her as I read through her blog, which I read more of it than I needed to. But I felt like I related to her. I felt like I was her. I have been her. I feel like we all have been her at some point or

another. So it kind of makes me happy that you said that. And I hope that the cops on her case really felt the same way. But it wasn't until five years later that things began to sort of spiral out of control. On January 8th, 2017, Jennifer's father, Hilliard Farber, passed away in his New York home at the age of 83. Now, Hilliard had been a former VP at Chase Manhattan Bank before forming his own brokerage firm, Hilliard Farber & Co. Now, it turned out that Farber had been helping his son-in-law build his business, loaning him money to buy properties, which Fotis would then build expensive homes on. The understanding was once Fotis sold the houses, he would repay the loan. Now at the time of Hilliard Farber's death in 2017, Fotis owed him

$1.9 million plus interest and he wasn't paying. And then just two months later, in March of 2017, Jennifer discovered Fotis was having an affair with a 45-year-old South American businesswoman named Michelle Traconis, who was also a four-group employee. According to Traconis' professional profile, she earned a psychology degree in Venezuela. Then she trained as a therapeutic writing instructor at a Michigan Academy. Then she worked at a writing center in Dubai, and she actually worked with children who had both physical and mental conditions. She then worked for nine years at the Ciro Castor Ski Resort in Argentina, where her one-time husband and ex-Olympian Gaston Bugue was the director. So Fotis seems to be attracted to women

who travel around a lot, beautiful, worldly women, but he also seems to be attracted to women while he's already married. Yeah. Yeah, that does appear to be the case. And it's evident in what you're laying out here right now. I mean, he definitely likes to have his cake and eat it too. I think he, well, I shouldn't say this. Maybe he was still in love with Jennifer, but at the same time, he's always looking for the bigger and better thing. What's the next improved version of what I currently have? My opinion is a level of narcissism there where he feels like he's this good looking,, good looking, you know, well-educated, successful guy. And he deserves more, but it definitely appears that, you know, he saw Michelle in the office.

It was something that he wanted. It was, you know, a possession for him. He wanted to accomplish this, you know, this goal of being with her. And he couldn't even wait to get divorced from Jennifer before doing so. And again, it does, it does appear to be a pattern for Fotis. Yeah, I get the impression he's kind of like that thrill seeker guy, you know, and I think a lot of men who do, who find it hard to be monogamous are kind of of that personality profile. You know, they're the kinds of people that are just going to go base jumping or try to hold on to their youth when they are men in their 30s and 40s. And they should be settling down and, you know, being a father and a husband. But they're still out of town, you know, in ski competitions and traveling and jet setting like they don't have a family at home.

So it's a it's a very specific personality profile. But I think it's the kind of thrill seeker personality profile. And that can be dangerous. And Jennifer found out about this affair. And when she confronted Fotis about it, he didn't apologize. He didn't pretend. He didn't even pretend that he would end it. He doubled down and he presented Jennifer with his plan. In a court document, Jennifer

claimed, quote, my husband informed me that he decided to move Michelle and her daughter into the marital home and enroll her daughter in the private school that our children had attended for the last two years. He informed me that our children and I will continue to reside in the marital home every weekend during the summer so that we all, his paramour and her daughter included, would be together. He also informed me that he will come and go from my mother's residence whenever he wants during the week. Essentially, he expects to exhibit complete control over me and the children, end quote. That would not fly with me, but I don't think it flew with her either. No. Yeah. Can you imagine if you told your wife that? No but I don't think it flew with her either. No.

Yeah. Can you imagine if you told your wife that? No, I wouldn't be here anymore. You wouldn't be here talking to me. So this is where things actually get a little interesting because now there's not one, money or love? You know, I was thinking about this. I don't know if it's completely about either, you know, love for his children. Sure. But, but as Jennifer stated, this was about control, right? He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He basically wanted to live a double life. The only difference here was that he wanted both women, or at least Jennifer to know about each, you know, it and be okay with it. And obviously, as you just said, for most women, that's,

that's not going to be okay. And when Jennifer wasn't willing to comply, Fotis didn't like it, obviously. And as Jennifer stated during the divorce, Fotis held a grudge and was extremely vindictive toward other people, business associates, whatever it may be. But this wasn't just about business, right? This was about his children. So you can only imagine the lengths he would go to seek revenge on someone who possibly would affect his ability to see his children. And I think that's where we're going with this. weren't people that he loved. They were prized possessions, possessions he put a lot of time and money into. They were investments for him. Jennifer said that he would train his sons at this lake with the water skiing and they would sometimes not want to do it and he would push them. To Fotis, those kids were an extension of him, a reflection of him. It was a way that he could, I guess, gauge his self-worth and he wasn't going to let her take

them and be responsible for raising them. And he wouldn't have a choice, like you said, control and how they were raised, how they would turn out. You know, he's the kind of person, in my opinion, who if his kids did something he didn't like or became something he didn't want them to become, he would disown them or he wouldn't be proud of them or, you know, he would just, yeah, like cut them off. Yeah. I think you're right. I definitely think you're right. It's all the above, you know, and it's unfortunate, but that's that, you know, Jennifer knew this about him. She definitely knew this about him. She, you know, she pointed it out in the divorce and unfortunately it went to a level that I don't think obviously she even imagined it could go.

I think she knew it about him when she was already married to him with five kids though. Yeah, you're right. You're definitely right. Well, after learning about the affair and hearing Fotis' master plan for a way that they would all live happily ever after, Jennifer was like, nah, this isn't going to happen. And she gathered up her children and moved to a rental home in New Canaan. She hired bodyguards and she filed for divorce in June of 2017. And I think that it's funny because although Fotis did want control over Jennifer, she came for money. She had her own money. So in a normal situation where the husband's the main breadwinner and the mother stays at home and raises her kids, she's going to feel trapped. This is 99% of normal marriages where there's this power

struggle like this. The woman can't do anything. The woman can't leave. What's she going to do? She doesn't have a job. She's been raising kids while her husband went to work and supporting him while he went to work and making sure everything was handled at home. She can't just leave and go rent a house in New Canaan. I think it bugged him to no end that she had money outside of him and she was able to do these things. And in the intro to the podcast, you heard some of Jennifer's words, how she felt about her husband at the time. She was afraid of him. She thought that he was capable of taking her children and leaving the country. She had requested that his passport be taken from him.

She requested full custody of their five children. She claimed Fotis had threatened to take them and run, telling Jennifer, quote, you will never find us. Jennifer was also unsettled by the recent addition to their home, which had been an unregistered gun. And she was upset about this because they both agreed to keep guns out of the house while they had small children. Now, Fotis claims that he'd bought it for protection and he'd kept it in the lockbox, but he would later turn it over to the authorities. Now, in turn, because no divorce is one-sided, Fotis accused Jennifer of being a bad mother. He said she was taking prescription medication. He said she never left her studio in their house and she had, quote, nothing to do with her kids. Now, I know that's not true. Like I said, I read her blogs and unless she was

completely lying in making up every single special tender moment that she had with those children, it's an outright lie, which is possible, you know, but highly improbable. Fotis told the court that Jennifer had told their kids she could have the mafia break his legs with a baseball bat. Once again, I don't know if this is true. It might be. I might have said something like that to my husband if he was a controlling prick like that. Maybe I would have said something like that, but it was just an ugly finger pointing back and forth. When dealing with ugly divorce battles, how hard is it to determine the truth versus intentional exaggerations? Obviously, we do see a lot of cases where bitter exes say or do anything to get what

they want. But how do you find the truth, especially when children are involved? Yeah. And I don't even know if this is an investigative question. This is more something that I think we all deal with, right? When are divorces ever really amicable? I know that's the theory and that's the hope, but how often do you hear the word, oh, this is great and divorce in the same sentence you don't normally. And, you know, I always say, whether it's in investigations or in life, there's one side of the story, there's another, and then in the middle, there's the truth, right? And so to your point, I think personally, Fotis was a scumbag.

He was definitely a control freak. I think he hated the idea that he was going to leave this woman and she was going to be okay without him. She was going to be okay without him. She didn't need him. She didn't need his money. She knew what type of financial situation he was in. She knew that her father was providing the funds for him to buy these houses. She's a very intelligent woman. Clearly, she's like, hey, we'll see how long you last without my daddy's money to support your costs. So I think she saw the writing on the wall and was like, hey, I don't want to be around you because you're a sinking ship. But as far as the he said, she said, what he said, what she said about the mafia, listen, who cares? It's irrelevant. Again, that's what happens in these court systems. You see it all the time on, I won't get into too much.

I'm going through something with someone I personally know right now, not me, who's going through a divorce. And there's a lot of accusations that get thrown out there. And I'm sitting on one end going, I know that's not true, but again, the courts have a good way of kind of, you know, flushing that stuff out and getting down to what's important. And in these cases, it's the children, what's in the best interest of the children. And it's an unfortunate situation, but what do we have? 40, 50% of married couples end up divorced now. Is that what it is? Something like that? Might be higher, actually.

Yeah. I mean, so it's like, this is an old story. I mean, we've heard this a million times. I've seen some divorces end amicably, to be honest, you know, and in the cases I cover on YouTube, I would say, you know, they're never the main characters, by the way. Yeah, no, right. Right. They're not the people that we're actually looking into where somebody got murdered. It's usually like their friends or their parents or something. They got, you know, amicably separated. They tried to still raise the kids by themselves. Ideally, that's what you would like to do. And in my opinion, it's pretty impossible to do that if one person isn't on board for it. Right. So yeah, absolutely. Jennifer or Fotis trying to be fair to him, although he doesn't deserve it. They could have one of them could have been like, yeah, I wish that that this was going to be OK. And like, we're still parents. So let's put our kids first. But if the other person is like, screw you, what do you do? You can't just lay down and take it and lose your

kids or, you know, have something bad happen. So you have to sort of get ready for battle. And I think both of them were ready for it. Yeah. It's tit for tat. And I think most divorces, like you said, they start, you know, some of them actually end up amicable, but in a lot of cases, I'm sure both people say, you know, let's just handle this the right way. And as soon as someone, someone throws the first jab, then there's going to be a counterpunch. And then, like you said, it just, all the dirty details come out and then you end up with something like this. Yeah. And what do they say? Like the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. You know, I always feel like a lot of the times when divorces happen, maybe the people kind of haven't come to terms with their feelings yet. They're upset,

they're not feeling heard, this or that, but they're not completely pulled away and detached yet. So I think that would help in a divorce if you can get to a point where you do become almost indifferent. I cared about you once. I no longer do. It's over. And that's probably the most healthy way to do it. I agree. Keep it business-like. It's a business transaction. Yeah. Only involves your kids. Well, the Doulos' divorce continued to be extremely contentious. In court,

hundreds of motions got filed over finances and custody. At first, Jennifer's motion for full custody was denied and Fotis was allowed visitation. However, the court later denied Fotis' access to the children in March of 2018 after finding, quote, an immediate and present risk of psychological harm to the children if they have unrestricted and unsupervised contact with the defendant as well as risk of physical danger, end quote. So in this case, the defendant would be Fotis. The court also said that Fotis had a history of lying under oath and he had encouraged the children to lie on his behalf. Fotis was beside himself asking the judge, why did he always get the short end of the stick? Because he's always the victim. He did nothing to deserve this.

Why me? Why me? But in early 2019, Judge Donna Heller allowed Fotis supervised visitation every other weekend, but banned Michelle Traconis, which is Fotis' girlfriend, and her daughter from interacting with the Dulos children. There's a lot to unpack here. First of all, if these kids were at risk of emotional or mental or physical danger, which was stated, why would he be allowed to have visitation at all? Yeah. Again, we're looking at this one. I know here we're on the cop. I'm supposed to be giving my investigative insight, but as a father, I got a problem with this too. You know what I mean? Because this is

a deeper issue we could probably do a whole thing on, but the courts are very supported case law, facts and circumstances. There's not a real personal touch in my opinion. And a lot of these family court cases, the judges are just, they're kind of numb to the personal aspects because they deal with it all day long. They've become kind of, in my opinion, complacent. And it's almost like in a criminal case where you know someone's guilty, but because of a technicality, the judge lets them off, even though they know they're guilty. There's no common sense to it anymore. And I feel like these family cases are a lot like that as well, where at this point, Judge Donna Heller, she

probably said, hey, listen, he's gone through whatever we've put him through. There hasn't been any violations of it. At some point, he has a legal right as a father to see his children. So whether I personally agree with it, I'm going to allow it. So I'm with you on it. It definitely makes you scratch your head and it frustrates you. But it's absolutely the world we live in. The court system is not perfect. I think we can all agree to that. And it sounds like he was complaining a lot, you know, so he probably wasn't quiet. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Isn't that what they say? So, but what about the judge banning Michelle's daughter from interacting with the Dulos children?

Is this common practice? Like, why are the children outside of the family being even involved in this? Yeah, I didn't have a problem with this. I think this is pretty common, right? I mean, I've seen a lot of divorces where, you know, the two exes are going to go their separate ways and there's some type of like formal agreement where they both agree that they're not going to bring whoever they're dating or whatever into the children's lives. I think there's also like an exclusion where it's like, Hey, if eventually you marry this person, then that would be the exception. But I don't have an issue with this. If he's going to go out and date women, they shouldn't be around the kids. And I think that's a reasonable request.

And that's on both ends. If Jennifer started dating someone, same thing. So I have no problem with that. And as far as it trickling down to Michelle's children, of course it would apply to them as well because they could influence the situation one way or another if they're hanging around the kids. So I have no issues with this whatsoever on either side. What's your thoughts? I see you nodding your head. I feel like your wheels are turning. Well, I'm just wondering, why would it even be brought up? Did Jennifer request it? Was she like, I don't want this woman and her daughter around my kids? Or had Michelle and her daughter been around the kids previously and something had happened to kind of catalyst to that? That's what I'm curious about. Well, let me ask you this. If you knew that this was the woman that knew of you, right, probably had met before and was having an affair with your husband, would you want your children around her, whether there was something or not before?

I guess that's where I go back to the whole, you know, indifference is the opposite of love. I'm not going to divorce you until I'm absolutely done with you. And, you know And then at that point, I wouldn't really care what you did. But yeah, I mean, thinking about it now from that perspective, considering this exact case, I probably wouldn't want. Right. And want that woman around, you might not care, but want that woman around your children, not you, but around your kids every day, celebrating birthdays and Christmas, whatever. And she's not even married to your ex, you know, so I can, I personally, as if, if my wife and I got divorced and I knew she had been having an affair with someone,

I wouldn't want that guy around my kids. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm bitter. Everyone's judging me right now, but I wouldn't. They're probably judging me. They're probably saying I'm lying. But I do have an ex. I have a child from a previous relationship and we get along and he has kids with his new wife. And I have kids, obviously, with my husband and everybody just hangs out and we get along. So I think that's best for the children. But this is very early on to the divorce. So it's probably not there yet. And knowing Fotis and what he was like, it might not have ever gotten there. But let's fast forward a little bit. And it's now May 24th, 2019. At 1130 a.m., Jennifer's nanny, Lauren Almeida, arrives at the new Canaan home only

to find an unopened granola bar, Jennifer's coffee mug on the kitchen counter, and 10 missing rolls of paper towels. Now, Ms. Almeida found this to be incredibly strange because she just placed a brand new 12-pack of paper towels in the pantry the night before. Jennifer's 2017 black Suburban was also missing from the garage, striking Lauren as odd because she'd mentioned she would take her Range Rover to her appointments in New York City. After connecting with close friends of Jennifer's on her possible whereabouts, Lauren reported Jennifer missing at 7 p.m. Now, this obviously seems to be a quick turnaround for a missing adult woman. She could have been anywhere, especially because all her doctors and things were still in New York City. So every time she had to go to the doctor, she'd have to go to

New York City. But why do you think law enforcement took this case so seriously from the jump? I definitely think there's a few things at play here and some are deep, but I think the main surface level thing is this is an affluent community. Crime is not prevalent here. So when someone just goes missing without any notice or any inclination of where they're going, it's a problem. And in a community like this where they don't get a lot of crime, cops are going to be all over this. And then there's another aspect to it. We have to acknowledge it. There's socioeconomics playing in here, right?

Like there's, you know, these are rich, wealthy people. And in a lot of cases, they do get a different level of service from law enforcement. I know in urban areas, more economically deprived, there's a lot of complaints that when individuals call the police, they may report someone missing, they give them a different answer like, hey, got to wait till 48 hours or there's these different, technically are the standard, but that's the service they get. Where in a case like this, I think it was more what I said previously that, you know, it just didn't add up. This woman should have been accounted for and she was nowhere to be found. And believe it was in Chicago. And her mother kept calling and saying, you know, my daughter hasn't come home. And the 911 operator was like, she probably just, you know, drank too much and she'll sleep it off in a hotel room, you know, kind of

just wrote her off. So yeah, there's a little bit of that in there. But during their initial investigation, police observed residential surveillance footage that showed Jennifer's Suburban traveling away from the home at 1025 a.m. They also observed several stains on the garage floor and on her Range Rover, which was still parked in the garage. Hours later, Jennifer's Suburban was found near Waveney Park, just minutes away from her home. Yeah, I think it's important to note that it wasn't just a few stains, right? It was blood spatter, which is highly suggestive of a serious physical assault, you know, and possibly even cast off, right? And, you know, cast off to not go too in depth with it. But basically, if you're striking someone with an object and you bring that object back, the blood will come off that object and splatter onto a wall. And that's what they

consider a cast off, almost like you're casting a fishing pole, if that's a familiar analogy for you. According to police, there also appeared to be a cleanup at the crime scene. So my guess is that there was some stains visible to the naked eye, but when they sprayed the area with luminol, which is a chemical that reacts to blood, there was a lot more to see, right? There was a lot more to see. And additionally, luminol reacts to cleaning agents like bleach. So when they say there were signs of a cleanup, they could probably see a strong reaction you get with bleach and luminol and maybe even swiping motions to use to clean the area.

So if you want to visually picture this for everyone who's listening to this, blood has a certain reaction to luminol. It's kind of fluorescent, but bleach, when you spray luminol on bleach, it has a really strong reaction. In fact, little TV side note, in some cases they'll spray bleach and then luminol to get that reaction for TV and movie purposes because it's such a strong reaction. Blood is more subtle. And then when I say the cleaning, if you were to take a dirty surface and you spray a little water on it and you take a paper towel or a sponge and you swipe across, you can still see your swiping motion. So even though to the naked eye, they might not have seen that when they sprayed the luminol and turn the lights down and use an alternate light source or something like that, they probably could literally see how the perpetrator had actually

cleaned up the area with this certain swiping pattern. And that clearly indicates to them that, hey, before we got here, these few little bloodstains we're seeing right now were a lot more. So they saw actual bloodstains without the luminol. Correct. That's my interpretation of it from the affidavits and everything. There was a few stains that were missed by the perpetrator. So this is how they know that it's blood that's being cleaned up and not just somebody spilled coffee and they cleaned their car with bleach to get the coffee out. Oh yeah, absolutely. And definitely as a cop, when you've seen blood stains once or twice, it's very obvious to you. It doesn't look like anything else. It's very obvious what it is. Yeah. I was curious because now I'm nervous.

I'm like, oh man, I spilled coffee in my car. I used this Clorox cleanup to get it out. And now if anybody goes to my car with Luminol, they're going to think that it's a crime scene, but you can tell the difference between just bleach and bleach and blood. 100%. And again, they probably had experts in there who deal with luminol all the time. I know as a smaller department, I was specifically dealing with the luminol. We didn't have like a forensics team. So you become very familiar with the reactions to certain things. And when you spray luminol on a floor, when you expect nothing and you get this really sharp contrast, you realize that, oh, there's something else that's

here in addition to the blood. Cause that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to obviously cover up the blood stains. So would that luminal reaction fade after time if you cleaned up something with bleach? Let's say you had blood and you cleaned it up with bleach, but you don't get to the crime scene until a week, a week and a half later. Is that still going to show or is there a certain time period where that's going to fade? I don't know the exact specifics on it. I will say that over time, it definitely subsides the reaction you're going to get to both blood and bleach, just like anything. But I don't know how long of a duration you have, but I will say contamination of the crime scene can have a big impact. So for example, if they don't get it right away and then there's a car in there and there's emissions from the car while it's

running to get warmed up and dust and grease and water or whatever, it can slowly contaminate the area that you're processing and not only make it harder to do so, but also it raises more questions in court as to what the luminol actually picked up on. So you want to do it as soon as possible. Okay, perfect. Well, I'm glad that they got there really soon then. Kind of something good that came from her getting called in so quickly. But as the police continue on with their investigation, they actually recover more video footage, which showed a man who resembled Fotis disposing of garbage bags in several trash bins 75 miles away in Hartford, Connecticut, on the evening of May 24th. Now, I do have a question. Often in arrest affidavits,

I see this phrasing used, a man who resembled the suspect or the defendant. What exactly does this mean? Same height, body type, etc.? Or are they just not legally allowed to say that it was Fotis, so they have to say resembled. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where they have the video, it looks like him, but unless the man holds up his ID to the camera, you know, you can't 100% say it's him. So it's definitely more of like a qualifying phrase. You know, it's basically the police are saying, Hey, we're pretty sure it's him, but could it possibly be someone who looks like him? Sure. Of course it could. It's really no difference than the phrase allegedly, like we always use. There might be a lot of facts and circumstances that suggest the person did it, but you got

to always qualify it because we're not 100% sure. So you have to make sure you put that in there so you're not overstepping how positive you are about something. But at the same time, I do have to acknowledge that misidentifications do happen. And so I think it is important to qualify. But in this particular case, I think the police were pretty sure it was him. But they were being professional and essentially they were covering their asses just in case the off chance it wasn't. Well, the man on surveillance who was allegedly Fotis was seen driving a black Ford F-150 Raptor, which was later traced back to

Fotis Dulos. In addition to the matching physical and vehicle descriptions, the man was accompanied by a woman who, according to police, appeared to match the description of Fotis' girlfriend, Michelle Traconis. Both of their cell phone coordinates confirmed that they were in fact in the Hartford area during the time when the videos were captured. So we got surveillance footage of them. It matches the truck that Fotis drives and their cell phones are pinging in that area. So I think we're a little bit more further along than allegedly here, but OK. Yeah. Authorities later searched the trash bins and they found garbage bags containing Jennifer's clothing, including a Vineyard Vines t-shirt and sponges stained with blood belonging to Jennifer, according to the arrest warrants.

In addition to the clothing and sponges, there were four three-foot-long zip ties stained with Jennifer's blood. Then there's this large, rigid object that Fotis was caught on tape removing from the bed of his black pickup truck. That object was consistent with the appearance of a WeatherTech brand rear cargo liner determined to be missing from Jennifer's 2017 Chevrolet Suburban. And I think that's where we're going to end it for this week. There's a lot to cover in part two of this case, the investigation. I know that Derek has prepared. He really went deep into this investigation. He has a lot of notes, and I'm really excited to hear it from his viewpoint.

Yeah. Yeah, you nailed it. There's a lot here. I don't want to rush through it. I think this is a good part to break it up. We're starting to get into the case now, the meat and potatoes of it. And I want to really take our time with it and break down each specific thing. Because just in the last section that we've discussed, there's a lot to go over there.

So I think this is a good part to end it. And if we have a couple seconds, I just want to say thank you to everybody who listened to the first podcast. We've been seeing the response to it. It's been really good. We've been reading your comments both on the social platforms and on the podcast platforms as well. So we really appreciate it. We're glad that you liked the first episode and we're going to continue to make adjustments. So

continue to hold us accountable and let us know what we can do to improve the experience for you guys. And make sure you're here for part two next Friday. And remember that we put out new episodes every single Friday. All right. Make sure Crime Weekly pod on all social platforms as well. If you want to follow us, we'll be posting there as well. So thanks again. See you next week. Bye. Crime Weekly, presented by i-D, is a co-production by Audioboom and Main Event Media.