Connecticut authorities have expanded their search for a missing mom-of-five to include a reservoir near a water treatment facility in West Hartford.
Investigators familiar with the case say that a dive team spent five hours on Wednesday morning searching in one of six reservoirs near the MDC water treatment facilities.
State police have been reportedly combing through the area all week with K9 units, NBC Connecticut reports.
A dive team spent five hours on Wednesday morning searching in a reservoir near the MDC water treatment facilities in West Hartford
The update comes just a day after Jennifer Dulos’ estranged husband declared his innocence in his first interview since the mother went missing on May 24
The K9s were said to have been at the reservoir for training but sources say the location was chosen as officials continue looking into the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.
The update comes just a day after Jennifer’s estranged husband declared his innocence in his first interview since the mother went missing on May 24.
Fotis Dulos, 51, appeared in a sit-down interview with NBC New York from his home where he explained that he and 50-year-old Jennifer were making positive steps forward in their contentious divorce battle.
State police have been reportedly combing through the area all week with K9 units
Dulos stressed that it is ‘ludicrous’ to think he’d wish ill on Jennifer (pictured), offering prayers to her family
He and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, 44, pleaded not guilty to the charges in connection to the May 24 disappearance of Jennifer.
Jennifer disappeared after she dropped the couple’s five children at school.
Police say that Dulos and Troconis discarded items in Hartford that had Jennifer’s blood on it.
‘I have faith in the system, and in the police and the legal system, and hopefully we’ll have some answers soon,’ Dulos added.
‘I never follow the tabloids, and I don’t care about the threats. I don’t care about malicious comments and about comments from people who don’t know me.
‘They take the narrative that they see from the arrest, the arrest warrants, what has been reported in the press. And they draw their own conclusion, and I’ve already been convicted in their mind.’
Dulos shared his disbelief with the events of the past month, adding that the ‘very scary experience’ would only grow worse if he faced more charges.
‘When it all started, I said this cannot be true, I must be dreaming,’ Dulos added. ‘I’m wearing orange, I’m in a cell … this cannot be true.’
He thinks that the police and criminal justice system is doing what it can to find out what happened to Jennifer.
Michelle Troconis (left) is seen in her mugshot. Fotis Dulos is pictured right in his mugshot
‘I think with information they had, they did best they could, I understand they had tremendous pressure on them,’ Dulos explained. ‘Statistically when this happens, 90 or 95 percent (of the time) it’s the spouse. So I understand why people feel like this.’
‘It’s 90 percent, it’s not 100 percent — I’m in the 5 or 10 percent.’
The couple’s children have been staying with their maternal grandmother, Gloria Farber, under armed bodyguard protection in Manhattan since Jennifer’s disappearance. Farber has also filed for sole custody.
Dulos has been banned from contacting them. He finds that to be excessive and his lawyers are working on trying to get him contact with them.
‘It’s been very different … Been a very tough time for the whole family, we’re all worried about Jennifer,’ he said. ‘I’m worried very much about the kids and what they’re going through … I want to tell them to hang in there. It’s a big challenge in our lives. Things will work out and everything will be alright eventually.’
The couple’s children have been staying with their maternal grandmother, Gloria Farber, under armed bodyguard protection in Manhattan since Jennifer’s disappearance. Farber has also filed for sole custody
Fotis Dulos, center, listens, as his attorney Norm Pattis, left, addresses the court during a hearing at Stamford Superior Court, Tuesday, June 11, 2019 in Stamford
‘It’s heartbreaking. This is a very tough time I’m sure they have a lot questions … I’m sure they’re missing their mom, I’m sure they’re missing their dad.’
And Dulos stressed that it is ‘ludicrous’ to think he’d wish ill on Jennifer, offering prayers to her family.
He said: ‘I had my differences with Jennifer like many people do when they go through a marriage, but that doesn’t mean that I wish her ill in any way … I never wanted Jennifer out of the way.’
The father claims that prior to her disappearance, the two were finally getting somewhere on an agreement for joint custody
The father claims that prior to her disappearance, the two were finally getting somewhere on an agreement for joint custody.
‘The interesting thing was the last month, I tried many times to make an opening and start communicating with her directly, and that didn’t go anywhere in the past. But about mid-April she responded, and we started talking directly,’ the real estate developer stated.
‘We started talking about possibly going into mediation, she recognized that she was taken by her lawyers, and the dynamic started changing. We started having good communications, good conversations. We made a rule that if we got onto a subject that we didn’t agree, we would park it so we don’t make it antagonistic.’
He described how the two had been cordial on their last drop offs with the kids, adding that Jennifer even invited him to eat dinner with the children at her home on the back patio on the Wednesday before she vanished.
But Dulos declared that his estranged wife’s disappearance has left his life ‘screwed up right now, in a big way’.
‘I don’t have my kids, Jennifer is not around, Michelle is not around, I’m having a hard time with work. I have a GPS on my foot. Somebody has to look at who is the one worst effected in this situation,’ he added.
His lawyer Norm Pattis previously told The New York Post that they believe she faked her disappearance in a fashion similar to the ‘Gone Girl’ style novel she wrote years ago.
Jennifer wrote a 500-page ‘Gone Girl’ style script years ago, a book in which a wife fakes her disappearance to try and frame her cheating husband.
Pattis also claims she has a ‘troubled past’ and ‘struggled with heroin her whole life’ after a previous ‘relationship with a person who would import heroin from Cambodia’.
He even suggests she has disappeared from New York once before and ‘lived for years under a false name’ after an ‘intrafamilial dispute about money.’
Dulos’ home in Connecticut
But in a statement, Jennifer’s family and friends called the theory ‘false and irresponsible.’
They said her manuscript was written in 2002, before she started dating Fotis Dulos and before ‘Gone Girl’ was published in 2012.
‘Jennifer’s novel is not a mystery. It’s a character-driven story that follows a young woman through relationships and self-discovery over a period of years,’ her friend, Carrie Luft, said in the statement on the group’s behalf.
‘Like all of Jennifer’s writing, it expresses a deep longing for human connection and the need to be accepted as one’s true self.’
‘Trying to tie Jennifer’s absence to a book she wrote more than 17 years ago makes no sense. Evidence shows that Jennifer was the victim of a violent attack in her New Canaan home,’ the statement continues.
‘This is not fiction or a movie. This is real life, as experienced every single day by Jennifer’s five young children, her family, and her friends. We are heartbroken. Jennifer is not here to protect her children, and these false and irresponsible allegations hurt the children now and into the future.’
The man’s sister released a statement declaring that Fotis was always putting his family first.
‘Is it relevant for you to know that I have only known my brother to be just that; a loving and affectionate sibling and the greatest of uncles for my two daughters? The life line to a large degree of both our immediate and extended family?’ Rena Dulos said.
‘Is it relevant to point out that Fotis — from a very young age — desired to be a father? To be a caretaker? To have a big family under his paternal ‘wings?”