New footage has emerged showing police interrogating Fotis Dulos’s then-girlfriend Michelle Troconis days after his wife Jennifer Dulos vanished nearly two years ago.
Troconis is facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder, evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in connection with the disappearance of Jennifer, a 50-year-old mother-of-five who vanished in New Canaan, Connecticut on May 24, 2019.
A 48 Hours special airing on Saturday delves into Troconis’ role in the case, questioning whether she knows where Jennifer’s body is located as detectives continue searching for it 21 months on.
A preview for the episode features a clip of one of Troconis’ first interviews with detectives.
‘I have no idea what happened to Jennifer,’ Troconis, a dual American and Venezuelan citizen, says emphatically. ‘I have no idea where Jennifer is.’
When Detective John Kimball tells her they believe she’s holding back information, Troconis replies: ‘I don’t have, John, but I can walk the whole world with you if you want. I can do whatever you want but I didn’t do it.’
New footage has emerged showing police interrogating Fotis Dulos’s then-girlfriend Michelle Troconis (center) days after his wife Jennifer Dulos vanished nearly two years ago
A clip of one of Troconis’ first interviews with detectives was featured in a preview for a new 48 Hours special airing on Saturday. ‘I have no idea what happened to Jennifer,’ Troconis says emphatically. ‘I have no idea where Jennifer is’
Jennifer Dulos (pictured) vanished from her home in New Canaan, Connecticut, on May 24, 2019. Nearly 21 months later her body has yet to be found
Troconis (left) is facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder, evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in connection with Jennifer’s disappearance. Prosecutors believe Troconis helped her boyfriend, Fotis Dulos (right), dispose of his wife’s body
Police believe that Jennifer’s husband Fotis – with whom she was embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody battle – attacked her in the garage of her rented home in New Canaan before he allegedly discarded her body with Troconis’ help.
While police have yet to find Jennifer’s remains, they did discover pools of blood in her garage which someone had attempted to mop up and clean. They also found traces of her blood in her car – which was later found abandoned in a parking lot.
Fotis denied any involvement in Jennifer’s disappearance up until he committed suicide in January 2020 while awaiting trial on murder charges.
Troconis was implicated in the case after police said surveillance video from hours after Jennifer disappeared showed her and Fotis dumping trash bags at various locations in Connecticut which were later found to contain traces of the mother’s blood.
Detectives also found traces of Jennifer’s blood in her car and another vehicle Fotis had borrowed from a friend the same day she vanished.
Troconis initially gave her boyfriend an alibi and said they had been together all morning.
She then flipped her story in a second interview with police and, according to arrest affidavits, said he’d given her an ‘alibi script’.
Troconis has staunchly denied any involvement in Jennifer’s disappearance. She is pictured leaving Stamford Superior Court on February 6, 2020
Jennifer’s husband Fotis Dulos (pictured) denied any involvement in her disappearance up until he committed suicide in January 2020 while awaiting trial on murder charges
Jennifer and Fotis were embroiled in a bitter divorce and legal battle over the custody of their children (pictured with Jennifer) at the time of her disappearance
Troconis pleaded not guilty in February of last year and has maintained that she had nothing to do with Jennifer’s disappearance or death.
Her sisters, Claudia and Daniela Troconis, defended her in the upcoming 48 Hours episode, their first major interview since the case began.
‘This has shattered our life because my sister is not the person that they’re saying [she is],’ Claudia told host Erin Moriarty.
‘She never would be capable of anything they’ve said that she has done.’
Asked if they believe Troconis knows where Jennifer’s body is, Daniela said: ‘Absolutely not. My sister is innocent.’
Troconis broke her silence on the case for the first time in a statement last year, in which she decried the cruel things people have said about her and expressed frustration at not being able to tell her side of the story.
‘Whether or not Fotis Dulos was capable of doing the things the police and prosecutors accused him of doing, I do not know,’ she said.
‘But based on what I have learned in the last year, I think it was a mistake to have trusted him.’
Troconis’ sisters, Claudia and Daniela (pictured), defended her in the upcoming 48 Hours episode, their first major interview since the case began
Fotis’ former lawyer, Kent Mawhinney, has also been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with Jennifer’s disappearance.
According to prosecutors, Mawhinney consulted with Fotis about how to kill his wife and then discard her body. Like Troconis, Mawhinney has denied any involvement.
Last December attorneys representing Troconis alleged that Mawhinney had turned on their client and Fotis four months earlier.
Fotis’ former lawyer, Kent Mawhinney (pictured), was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with Jennifer’s disappearance
Mawhinney was said to have sat down with police for a jailhouse interview in August, in which described meeting with Fotis and Troconis the night before Jennifer vanished and planning what they were going to do the next day.
Mawhinney was later released on bond. Troconis’ attorneys told The Stamford Advocate that they are dubious about his claims and believe he is motivated only by cutting a deal with prosecutors.
As Mawhinney and Troconis prepare to face trial, authorities are still desperately searching for Jennifer’s body, with the help of an e.
On January 20 an excavator and a team of investigators were spotted at a Farmington mansion once owned by Fotis and his construction company Fore Group, just a day after police had said they were ‘following up on old leads’.
Police were seen digging holes in the expansive grounds of 80 Mountain Spring Road, though they did not disclose what prompted the search or if anything was found.
On January 20 an excavator and a team of investigators were spotted at a Farmington mansion once owned by Fotis and his construction company Fore Group
Authorities also enlisted the help of New Hampshire cemetery geophysics expert, Bob Perry, also known as ‘The Bone Finder’ due to his success in locating unmarked graves and burial sites.
Using ground-penetrating radar, Perry and the team combed through a nearby wooded area where they identified four sites with ‘disturbed soil.’
‘They feel like the body was buried out in the backyard and this is what I do, so, I said sure no problem,’ Perry told FOX 61.
‘I check for anomalies in the ground or ground disturbance and there were four areas that I checked that had ground disturbance in it.
‘I was looking for some sort of indication like a skull or some bones or something like that, that would give off something on the scan and I saw nothing there at all,’ he added.
The areas were marked with flags for authorities to later dig into, he said.
Perry told NBC Connecticut the four areas ultimately showed ‘low probability’ and there were no anomalies in the disturbances.
He explained they detected one anomaly ‘about 18 inches in the ground’ that turned out to be a pipe.
‘In my personal experience burying someone in the backyard, especially with all the wooded area, I don’t think it was there to begin with,’ Perry told FOX, adding that he believes ‘it was further out.’