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Hi, crime junkies. The story I have for you today is a rare example of a murder case going to trial without a body ever
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being found. When a mother of five disappeared from her Connecticut mansion in May 2019, the search for her made
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national headlines. And once police see surveillance footage of her husband dumping garbage bags into city trash
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cans, footage a lot of you have probably seen yourselves, a murder conspiracy involving at least two other people
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starts to unravel. We're trying to get to the truth. Michelle, I have no idea where Jennifer is. And
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that's 100%. Even if you think you've heard it all. Otis killed Jennifer. You probably haven't until today.
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I went as a stupid girlfriend to help him out. We may know who's responsible, but the biggest question still remains.
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Where is Jennifer Farber Dulos? On the morning of Friday, May 24th, 2019, Lauren Almeida is as busy as she
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always was as the full-time nanny for the five children in the Dulos family. Her day starts early with texts coming
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in from her boss, Jennifer Farber Dulos, about the kids. They've got two sets of
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pre-teen twins and an 8-year-old girl to look after. So, like managing their calendars was not for the week.
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Yeah. So, the mom, Jennifer, had handled school drop off that morning. But Lauren
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had an extra to do to juggle today. She was going to have to pick up four of the
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five kids from school like midday and drive them an hour away into Manhattan for an orthodontist appointment. Now,
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one of the older girls lucked out, doesn't have an appointment, so she's just going to take the bus to a friend's
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house after school. So, around 11:00 a.m., Lauren heads over to Jennifer's. And this place is like a seven-bedroom
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house that Jennifer's mom had recently bought for her and the kids. Sorry, seven bedrooms.
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Yeah. And seven and a half bathrooms. Like, we're talking a bit of a mega mansion, but where they live in
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Connecticut, like, this isn't uncommon. New Kanan is in one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country. And a
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lot of these families had big money, including Jennifer's. So when Lauren gets to the house, she's kind of
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surprised to see Jennifer's Range Rover parked in the garage since Jennifer had told her that she would be taking that
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SUV to New York today for an appointment of her own. But Jennifer's Chevy Suburban was gone. So Lauren figures,
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you know, she must have had a change of plans or maybe plans went out the window
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because when she gets inside the house, there are things left behind that make it seem like Jennifer must have maybe
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left in like a rush. Like first, Jennifer's expensive purse is there on the floor between the mudroom and the
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kitchen. The mug of tea that Jennifer makes every morning was sitting on the counter alongside the granola bar that
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she normally eats for breakfast, like unopened. And a 12-pack of paper towel rolls that Lauren stocked in the pantry
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like the night before is almost completely gone. Like 10 of them have been used, which like at first she kind
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of figures like, "Oh, the kids must have spilled something. Whatever. Kids will be kids." But like alarm bells because
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what soccer fields sized cooler of Kool-Aid do you have to spill to use 10 rolls of paper towels?
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Again, I don't know. It's early. Kids be kids. She's got a zillion other things on her mind. So, she just starts like
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straightening up the house and then she goes to pick up the kids from school. Now, she had texted Jennifer at some
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point asking if one of the girls could use an iPad for the long car ride. Now, she doesn't hear back, which doesn't
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really concern her, right? Jennifer's probably at that appointment or whatever. And then she's going to meet
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them actually at the orthodontist appointment. So fine. Lauren texts her a few more times anyway with like a
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playbyplay for when she does see her phone. She lets her know their ETA to Jennifer's mom's house where they plan
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to head first. She lets her know she got there. Ask Jennifer is still going to meet them at the orthodontist. At this
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point, it is like hours that have passed. It's 400 p.m. now, and Jennifer hasn't responded to any of the texts.
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Like whatever appointment she had, she should be done with, right? At least she should be able to like check her phone
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in all this time, right? But again, Lauren just keeps like chugging along. She goes to the kid's
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orthodontist, and while there, she tries to finally just call Jennifer, but it goes straight to voicemail, and that is
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when Lauren starts to panic. Texts are one thing, but Jennifer always answers her phone. So, while the kids are in
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with the orthodontist, she starts calling anyone she can think of who might have heard from Jennifer today.
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But she's even more concerned to learn that no one has heard from her at all. And that's when she gets an idea. Not
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something she would normally do, but this is starting to feel like not a normal situation.
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Lauren checks the iPad that they brought cuz it's logged into Jennifer's Google and Apple ID, so she can actually see
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Jennifer's Google calendar, see where her appointments were that day. And so once the kids are done at the
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orthodontist, she takes them back to their grandma's. And then she hops in a cab and heads to the address of
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Jennifer's last appointment. But the receptionist there tells her that Jennifer never showed up. So Lauren
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calls one of Jennifer's best friends. Probably half unsure what to do, half pretty sure she does, but like it
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doesn't feel real. But with the friend's encouragement, they call police to report her missing. At around 7:00 p.m.,
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they tell the dispatcher Jennifer is missing. And by the way, dispatcher, this is worst case scenario because
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Jennifer is in the middle of a very contentious divorce with her children's father, Fotus, who BTW just recently
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bought a gun. And like, point taken. Police arrive at Jennifer's house pretty much immediately. They check all around.
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I mean, no one is there. There doesn't seem to be any kind of disturbance inside the house. So, they head through
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the garage, which at first glance is all organized, clean as well. But one officer takes a really close look at
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Jennifer's Range Rover, the one that she was supposed to take to New York, but is
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still sitting in the garage. And there on the bumper are tiny specks of red blood spatter. So, police immediately
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call for backup. And as they continue to search the garage for more evidence of what happened in it, they find more
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blood stains. It's on the floor, other parts of the car. But again, we're talking like tiny drops. And it becomes
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clear to the officers that someone did a very serious cleaning job on this garage.
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Like a 10 rolls of paper towel cleaning job. Yeah. I don't know what they used, but
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police start searching, not just the garage, but like the neighborhood, the surrounding areas, and they pretty
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quickly find Jennifer's black Chevy Suburban abandoned at a place called Waven Park, which is like 10 minutes
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from her house. According to Rich Cohen's book, Murder in the Dollhouse, the car is backed up against a tree.
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gear shift is like stuck in reverse. Doors are locked and when they look in the windows, they don't see any sign of
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Jennifer in the vehicle, but they do see quote the cleanup of a bloodlike substance. And it's at this moment when
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this becomes a full-blown missing person search. And when police question Lauren,
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she tells them that if something bad happened to Jennifer, there is only one person it could be. her husband of 14
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years, soon to be ex-husband Fotus. And they learn that she and Fotus were years
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deep into a divorce with no end in sight. And it was, I mean, clearly messy to put it lightly. I mean, so much so
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that in Jennifer's divorce filing from 2 years prior, which would have been in 2017, she described Fotus' behavior as
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irrational, unsafe, bullying, threatening, and controlling. She also claimed in those same documents that
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he'd verbally and physically attacked her to the point that she filed for an emergency order for full custody, but
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that got denied by the courts. Now, right before she filed for divorce, she fled their home with their kids, telling
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Fotus that she was visiting her dad's grave, which was in upstate New York. But instead, she actually took them to a
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hotel in New York City, and hired bodyguards. Now, Fotus lashed back by accusing her of kidnapping their kids,
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and they had been at each other's throats ever since. in court appearances that were racking up millions of dollars
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in legal bills for them both. But it wasn't always that way, right? Like it usually never is.
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Jennifer and Fotus both attended Brown University, but they didn't really hit it off until years later when they
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randomly bumped into each other at an airport in Aspen, Colorado. Though Fotus was married when they reconnected, he
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assured Jennifer that he was in the process of getting a divorce. And in 2004, about a month after that marriage
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was officially over, he and Jennifer were married. And they had a few seemingly happy years growing their
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family. They had four kids in four years through IVF, then a baby girl, and they
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were each growing their careers. Fodus was running a construction and home flipping business, fully funded to the
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tune of millions by Jennifer's dad, by the way. And Jennifer was a writer. She'd once been a budding playwright in
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New York. But at this stage of her life, she wrote for the news site Patch and blogged about being a stay-at-home mom.
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And when they first started out, Fotus was constantly moving the family in and out of whatever home he was flipping,
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which ended up putting Fotus in control and ended up putting Jennifer on edge. And that tension extended outside of the
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walls of their home. According to Cohen's reporting, Fotus and Jennifer's dad came to blows when Jennifer's dad
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threatened to cut him off financially. So, they argued back and forth for a bit, and eventually Fotus threw a chair
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at him. Now, it missed and I don't know how that got resolved, but her dad continued to finance Fotus' business
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dealings. And the business and probably Jennifer's dad's wealth funded trips to Greece, where he was from, to water ski.
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Like this dude was obsessed with water skiing. He also had the oldest twins on this like grueling schedule of
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practicing and traveling for water skiing competitions whether they wanted to or not. By 2011, Fotus finished
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building them a nearly $4 million mansion in Farmington, which is another wealthy suburb in Connecticut that too
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was financed by Jennifer's parents. And even then, like from the outside, Jennifer seemed happy. But their nanny
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Lauren tells police that the facade had started to crack. Like Footus was never home. He's always abroad. And then when
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Jennifer's father, her like lifelong protector, died in early 2017, Jennifer was just like lost in her grief. Then
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follow that by her finding out that Fotus was cheating. And this wasn't just a fling. on a trip to Miami to water
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ski, of course, with the kids. Botus introduced Lauren to a woman that he called a friend, Michelle Traonus. Now,
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she's a fellow water skier from Venezuela who lived in Miami with her own pre-teen daughter, and her daughter
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was like a pre-Olympic skier. Lauren tells detectives that she didn't say anything at the time, but she noticed
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that in that like quote unquote first meeting, the kids already seemed to know Michelle. And Jennifer must have felt
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it, too, because she told Lauren about her suspicions. So, she ends up leaving the trip early and confronted Fotus
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about the affair via text. And things quickly went downhill from there. Like, Fotus became more and more controlling.
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Wait, did he deny the affair when Jennifer confronted him about it? No, not at all. Like he was pretty much
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like, "Yeah, no, this is Michelle and actually would you mind moving out so Michelle and her daughter can move in."
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I know. And he's like, you know, you can still come and go as you want. Like everything will be fine.
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No. Same. Jennifer's like not having it. And that is around the time that she left
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with the kids. And Michelle and her daughter like fully moved into the Farmington house not long after.
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So just to be clear, are they all sharing a house? No. No. No. So this is what I'm saying.
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So Jennifer, she doesn't go back to live in the Farmington house, the one that they just built.
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Okay. She leaves. Her mom buys her that other house, whatever. She files for divorce.
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But the kids were spending a fair amount of time in the Farmington house with Fotus, Michelle, and Michelle's
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daughter. Like instant blended family here. Fus and Michelle clearly did not care about what was best for the kids.
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But we know that Fotus did care about money. He's gotten very accustomed to his lavish lifestyle. But now that he
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and Jennifer were divorcing, his mother-in-law wanted that couple of million back that they had loaned him to
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start the business. And it turns out Fotus was another couple of million in debt. So his feet are to the financial
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fire. And it seems like he was using the kids almost like a pawn at this point. A
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divorce battle turns into a custody battle that just gets uglier and uglier until Jennifer disappears. And with that
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comes the possibility of sole custody of the kids, which could mean access to the
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children's trust fund set up by Jennifer's parents. 2 million per kid. That is $10 million that would take care
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of his debt, keep his lifestyle up, at least for a little bit. So, police hear all of this and at the same time, I
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mean, they've been searching high and low for Jennifer along with Jennifer's loved ones. I mean, even canines have
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been sent out to track Jennifer's scent. They're doing aerial searches of the woods and ponds nearby. Police are
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handing out flyers. They know finding her will help tell them what happened, but there is little doubt in anyone's
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mind about who is behind it. Police are as suspicious of Fotus as everyone else is. Now, Lauren is in
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pretty constant contact with police, and she tells them the next day that Fotus has been texting her since late Friday
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night and is like dead set on seeing the children, which she says she's not going
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to let happen until they find Jennifer. And they're being taken care of like under close watch at their grandmother's
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apartment. So, the day after Jennifer disappears, police meet briefly with Fotus. And weirdly though, they don't
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know why he's sporting a new haircut. Like the dude's got a fully shaved head and this guy's not one to usually like
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rock a buzz cut. Are they Are they talking to Michelle too at this time? Not yet. Um like they have only got eyes
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for Fotus at this point. But this would be the only time that Fotus ever meets with police. He has his
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divorce attorney with him. So even this meeting, this one that he does have is shortlived. They don't get anything from
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him like he's not talking. In this meeting though, investigators do ask to see his phone, and he hands it over,
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which would turn out to be a mistake for him. Good for everyone else, though, because when they do a data dump on the
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phone, they're able to map out Footus' whereabouts on the day that Jennifer disappeared. And this is where things
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start getting weird. The data shows that on the day Jennifer vanished, Fotus was in Farmington until
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about 700 p.m., his phone is moving around the Farmington house, which is like only something you can say about a
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$4 million mansion, right? Like moving around the house. It's like locking. It's unlocking. He answers a call from a
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friend in Greece. The phone never leaves the house, which is like all fine and good since police think that Jennifer
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went missing from her house in New Canaan. But it's always a good reminder to give people about phone data. It
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shows that your phone was there, not you. Right. But after 7, he goes somewhere unusual into downtown Hartford,
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Connecticut, which is like 25 minutes away from his house to potentially the sketchiest street in the city, Albany
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Avenue. This is an area of high crime that police know really, really well. What was he doing there?
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Well, that's what detectives are wondering. But again, Fotus isn't talking. So what they do is they check
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their command center that monitors surveillance cameras all around Hartford and they task one lucky analyst to comb
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through all of the video from that day. Now, it's important to note FOTUS has like an entire fleet of vehicles and he
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is known to borrow his employees cars whenever he feels like it, but primarily he drives his black Ford Raptor, which
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is this F-150 pickup truck. So, this analyst uses software that can pull out footage of specific vehicles from all
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the footage that they have. And he's able to isolate footage of Fotus' Ford Raptor with a man who looks a lot like
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Fotus behind the wheel, and he's turning on to Albany Avenue at around 7:31 p.m.
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Now, in the bed of his truck, he has got several big black trash bags. So, he turns onto a side street, which
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unfortunately doesn't have cameras. He's out of view for about 7 minutes and when
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he turns back onto Albany Avenue, the surveillance footage shows that almost all of those trash bags, poof, they're
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just gone. There's only a few bags left and some other things in the bed of his truck that are hard to make out on
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video. So, police assume that he dumped some of the bags while he was out of camera's view. And it becomes clear that
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he's dumping whatever it is he's got back there when he starts doing it on camera. Like, no question about it
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anymore. Surveillance footage shows that Fotus stops, gets out, puts something in
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a trash can. 2 minutes later, he pulls over again on this like busy road with people all around and put something else
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in another trash can. The actual number of stops he makes is hotly debated because again, they're not all caught on
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camera. But in another video, there is footage of him stopping in front of a restaurant to take what looks like
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almost like a floor mat out of a car, specifically a WeatherTech mat that, by the way, there are WeatherTech mats
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missing from Jennifer's Suburban. But he takes what looks like this WeatherTech mat out, drags them over to the side of
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the restaurant, and then he drives a little further down the road, and guess what they spot on one of those cameras?
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Dude's not alone. During one of their stops, the passenger side door opens and a woman who looks a lot like Michelle
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leans out like touches the ground. It's not clear why. And while she's doing whatever she's doing, Fotus comes over
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right next to her and slides something down a storm drain. So investigators see on even more surveillance footage that
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after making their trash runs, Fotus and Michelle go to a Starbucks nearby and they get food and they get frappuccinos.
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Yeah. You know, totally your usual Friday night errands, dump evidence, get fraps, the usge.
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Over the next couple of days, investigators start swarming the local trash processing plants with cadaavver
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dogs. And they also bring in a sewer crew to like pump out all the water in the storm drain looking for whatever it
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was that Fotus was throwing away. And through this all, Fotus still isn't talking. Michelle still hasn't been
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questioned yet either, by the way. And she's just like going about her weekend. She's getting her hair done. She's going
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water skiing. Of course, on the same pond, by the way, as the cops were literally searching for Jennifer's body
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in that same week. What? Yeah. But she's not going to be living her best life like that for long.
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Because all the searching that investigators are doing is starting to tell a story. A story that doesn't make
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Fotus or Michelle look very good. Police get their first win when they pull up a
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FedEx envelope from that drain. Like that's what they find in there. And inside are two Connecticut license
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plates. At first they look just like regular plates, whatever. But detectives realize that someone has tampered with
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them. There's tape added to some of like the numbers or letters or whatever to change its appearance. Like for example,
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a D was changed to a B. And when they figure out what the original plate was and they run it, they get a match. They
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are expired plates registered to FOTUS. How long had he been planning all of this?
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Makes you wonder, right? I mean, like here's the thing. My dad kept old plates for like I don't know what reason
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like to hang in garages. He literally did. Like I get that but like did he have this laying around? Like it's an
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interesting tidbit nonetheless. Did he use it because it was something already there or was this something?
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I know because this divorce remember has been going on for years now. They find that. But what they find next is the
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real clencher. Police find what was in some of those trash bags. And I think everyone
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watching this case unfold on the news at the time was terrified that Jennifer, or
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more likely parts of Jennifer would be in those bags. But when they open them, what they find are two ponchos, sponges,
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and lots and lots of paper towels, just like the ones missing from Jennifer's pantry. And all of it is covered in
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blood. There's also a box cutter, zip ties, gloves, a piece of a mop, like pretty much a cleanup kit. And they
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also find Jennifer's clothes in these bags, a bra and a long sleeve vineyard vine shirt. And eerily, the shirt had a
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slogan on it that says, "Every day should feel this good." These clothes were also drenched in blood. And when I
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say drenched, I mean drenched in blood. I mean, police have to be thinking the worst at this point.
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They do. Like any hope of finding Jennifer alive is pretty much out the window, especially when DNA testing
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comes back and confirms that all of that blood was Jennifer's. And it's her DNA on pretty much everything that they find
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in the bag, including the zip ties, a sponge, the gloves, and one poncho. But guess whose DNA is on one of the garbage
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bags? Votus' and Michelle's. And that's enough for investigators. I mean, not enough for
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murder charges yet, but enough to get them both on hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence in connection
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with Jennifer's disappearance. So, just 8 days out from her going missing, they hit both of them with the lesser
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charges. Investigators are confident that Fotus killed Jennifer by this point, but they need proof.
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Physical evidence would do. I mean, that would be great, right? But a confession
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could be even better. And they're hoping that they can get Michelle to flip. So,
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they haven't even talked to her yet. Still, like, why is beyond me, but now is their time. And to everyone's
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surprise, Michelle is willing to talk. Did she get an attorney? Yeah. So, after her arrest, she hires a
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defense attorney, this guy Andrew Bowman, and the both of them sit down for her first interview with detectives,
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and they sit down for hours that night. But flipping is not what she does. It is
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full Tammy Wette, stand by your man. Mhm. and she provides Fotus with what she seems to think is a rockolid alibi.
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According to Michelle, Fodus was at the Farmington house with her all morning, just like his phone data would suggest.
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She said they took a shower together and had sex. Then she left the house while he stayed back. But don't worry, she can
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fully account for her time, too, because she said she went to this stop and shop.
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She can prove it because she took a selfie with like this robot thing that drives around looking for people who
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might be stealing or whatever. And then she saved the receipt for that trip as well. Oh,
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good. She stopped by a friend's place who she says can vouch for her. And then she of
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course went water skiing. Naturally, from her account, there is no way Footus was anywhere near Jennifer when Jennifer
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vanished. Jennifer's house in New Cananan is more than an hour's drive from the house in Farmington. And
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Michelle conveniently saw Fotus in Farmington like every few hours that morning. Of course, she says her and
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Fotus have lunch together. Then at 3:30, she goes to a property that Fotus is renovating on Mountain Spring Road. And
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this Mountain Spring Road, this is less than 5 minutes from their Farmington house. So, she says she's going there to
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clean at 3:30. I have to bring all the cleaning material to clean the house because the
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house was a mess at 80. I Yeah, but I mean he calls you. Fus calls you. Says we have to go to 80 mountain spring to
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clean. Is that is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. Vot meets up with her later. And then
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they go on their ride for Fraps. The end. Normal day. And her story seems solid, almost too solid, like rehearsed.
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Mhm. And that's because it is. You see, police have been doing methodical searches of each of the properties owned
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by Fotus' company. And guess what they found at the Farmington house? Some handwritten notes and photo copies of
00:24:52
those notes in the trash and then stuffed into a briefcase. And what is written on those pages is stranger than
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anything I could get away with writing in fiction. The notes they find are different
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versions of a timeline, like hour by hour, sometimes down to the minute, of what Fotus and Michelle were allegedly
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doing the day Jennifer disappeared. And there's a timeline of phone calls that they both made and received that day.
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They are detailed and they hit every part of what Michelle told police that they both did. And I assume like a
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little trip to dump evidence isn't on that whole timeline schedule thing. Oh, definitely not. That is where the
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written timeline ends and the phone data security footage like like diverge from
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the story. According to these notes, they never went to Albany Avenue. They went straight to Starbucks. And listen,
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investigators go on to dub these the alibi scripts. In their eyes, these timelines were FOTUS and Michelle's
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attempt to get their story straight, to account for Fotus' whereabouts and to back everything up with receipts and
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selfies with stupid robots or whatever and call logs. Like, do they think they pre-planned the
00:26:04
alibi and were working on like the best version or they wrote this after to make
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sure that they had their stories like all lined up? They think they pre-planned it and then went and like
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acted it out, but like who makes photo copies? I mean, you need multiple copies of the
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script if everyone learn their lines. That's the thing. Like I couldn't wrap my head around.
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Well, and then to keep them just to like have them there. But per Michelle, she said that's not
00:26:33
why any of it was made. Like these aren't scripts. We didn't photocopy. So, everyone like had some like this is all
00:26:38
a misunderstanding. Okay. So, listen. They bring her in again on June 6th. They questioned her about
00:26:43
these timelines, about the alibi scripts, whatever you want to call them. But she said they did it based on his
00:26:49
attorney's advice. I guess he told them that they needed to be able to give full
00:26:53
accounts of their days, like on the day Jennifer disappeared, May 24th, and then
00:26:57
the next day. So why leave out that ride on Albany Avenue? I know. So she says that to her it was
00:27:05
just a ride to Starbucks. Like she's like, I didn't leave anything out. I told like I I said we went to Starbucks,
00:27:10
which is what we did. But she's like, "I didn't even notice that Footus was making all these stops." She's like, "I
00:27:15
was on my phone. I wasn't paying attention." And then I only really looked up when like that time I opened
00:27:21
the door and leaned out and touched the sidewalk, which she says was to wipe gum
00:27:25
off of her finger. So, she just like didn't notice the multiple times he pulled over in this like pretty sketchy
00:27:31
area, hauled full trash bags out of the bed of his truck. I he went down like a little like alley at some point in time.
00:27:37
That is her story. But Albany Avenue is not the kind of street that you like don't notice you're on.
00:27:44
Right. And the crazy part to me is like it's not even on your way to the Starbucks
00:27:48
that they went to. Like that's the part that I can't reconcile. And I have to tell you the story really
00:27:53
quick. So our reporter Taylor, she covered this case. I told you at the top a ton like as it was happening. She
00:27:59
actually drove the route herself. And she wrote a front page story in the Hartford for Current that this wasn't
00:28:04
just a quick detour to dump these bags. This was at least a 36-inute trip passing the Starbucks that they
00:28:13
eventually went to driving to another town and then looping back around to the Starbucks.
00:28:18
And Michelle's attorney at the time was not happy about this headline. He actually like stormed up to Taylor in
00:28:25
the morning that the story ran, told her it was BS. So, it definitely hit a nerve
00:28:29
with him. And I feel like like shows she was doing the right thing. Yeah. And like listen, like I don't even
00:28:34
know what you're mad about. Like maps be maps. Like what? Like you can't argue with that. Anyway, Michelle does tell
00:28:41
police at one point that she asked Footus, "Why are we here?" So, like at some point she had to have looked up and
00:28:47
been like, "Uh, yeah." But she says Fotus was like, "Oh, don't worry about it." And she was like, "Oh,
00:28:52
okay. Okay." Now, when they look at her phone data, it seems to line up to her story, too.
00:29:00
So, while Fodis' phone data is like in the house showing him there the whole time, hers is, too. But it's like
00:29:07
somewhere else in the house. This house is giant. Exactly. And listen, like preliminarily
00:29:12
when they look at her phone data, it seems to line up with her story cuz like Wotus' phone is somewhere in the house.
00:29:17
Like there are, you know, parts where like her phone is in the house too, but like different parts of the house.
00:29:23
Giant house, right? But here's where things start to kind of fall apart. It's hard to stick
00:29:28
to the script when you don't have the script in front of you. That's not a script. Whatever. And when they talked
00:29:33
to her a second time around, she suddenly can't remember if she actually saw Footus at the Farmington house after
00:29:40
8:00 a.m. on the day Jennifer disappeared. She now doesn't think they had sex or had lunch together, which
00:29:47
like were big parts of the story. Say those are like kind of big diversions from what she originally
00:29:53
said. No. And her excuses she tells police like, "Oh, it's a big house. It's not
00:29:58
like she's in his face all the time." But as far as I know he was there. That's what I like. I knew he was there
00:30:05
but I necessarily see him and police aren't buying it. They're done listening to a story that they know isn't true and
00:30:13
they are ready to play hard ball. During the second interview, they tell Michelle
00:30:17
verbatim that she is the most hated woman in America. Have you looked at the Was it all? Have
00:30:23
you seen your face plastered? I mean, I'll be honest with you, you're probably one of the most hated women in America
00:30:29
right now. And even though they don't know this for sure, they tell her that Jennifer is dead and that Fotus killed
00:30:36
her. Detectives also tell her that Fotus had been trying to get back with Jennifer. Like this part's a lie. We
00:30:42
know that's not true, but they're I think trying to get under her skin. And I think it works. These interviews
00:30:48
are recorded and you can see that she's distraught, but it still doesn't quite get her to crack. So investigators have
00:30:57
to keep digging. And when police find more surveillance videos, this time from a major highway in Connecticut and
00:31:05
cameras near Jennifer's house in New Kanan, they're finally able to map out where Fotus really was that morning. And
00:31:14
it wasn't at the Farmington house with Michelle. So, remember how I mentioned that Fotus
00:31:22
was known to just like borrow his employees cars? Well, it turns out that's exactly what
00:31:27
he did. The morning Jennifer disappeared, he took a red Tacoma pickup truck that belonged to his project
00:31:33
manager. This guy Pavvel Gumi, it was parked at the Farmington house cuz that's where photos like ran his
00:31:39
business out of like one wing of the house. So, he was able to take it like right from there that morning. And when
00:31:45
police zero in on that truck using surveillance footage from the rest stop on the highway, they watch a man who
00:31:51
looks like Footus, but again, this is where I want to point out like but with a shaved head. And I couldn't figure out
00:31:57
what the shaved head was about. But when you look at his project manager, his project manager has a shaved head.
00:32:04
So he is so he shaved his head to look more like the project manager who would normally be driving that car
00:32:10
maybe. I don't know. So So they see him they see but it's it looks like photos again just with a
00:32:15
shaved head drive 70 miles toward New Canaan. Okay. Then security footage from a local
00:32:22
school bus shows that same truck in New Kanan at 7:57 a.m. parked at a nearby spot, which should sound familiar,
00:32:32
Waveny Park, where Jennifer's Suburban was found missing its WeatherTech mats. Right now, we don't know how long the
00:32:40
Tacoma had been parked there by that time that the school bus caught that footage, but what investigators find
00:32:47
next indicates that it was probably parked there before 7:30 because an analyst watching the surveillance video
00:32:54
also spots something else. There is a wheel of a bicycle poking out of the bed of the Tacoma. And it all comes together
00:33:02
for police when a security video from one of Jennifer's neighbors shows a man in a hooded sweatshirt riding a bike
00:33:09
from the direction of Waven Park right into Jennifer's neighborhood that morning at around 7:30 a.m. Then that
00:33:17
same camera shows Jennifer getting home from dropping the kids at school, pulling her Suburban into the garage
00:33:23
where police now believe Votus was lying in wait for her. Nothing actually gets captured on
00:33:30
cameras for a while after that cuz this is when police believe that Footus was killing Jennifer and scrubbing the
00:33:36
garage clean. And then the next thing we see is at 10:25 a.m. That's when Jennifer's Suburban drives out of their
00:33:43
neighborhood and toward Waven Park, presumably with Jennifer's body inside. And can cameras pick up who's driving
00:33:50
the vehicle? No. No. It's not clear enough who was driving the Suburban that time. and
00:33:56
there aren't any cameras in the park. But police believe that photos moves Jennifer's body from her Suburban into
00:34:02
the Tacoma that he was driving, abandons the Suburban, and then drives back onto
00:34:07
that property that he was renovating in Farmington to meet Michelle, who remember was like conveniently at the
00:34:13
property to like clean that day. And this is when more neighborhood security cameras come into play. Botus and
00:34:19
Michelle, mostly Michelle, are captured on a neighbor's camera going back and forth between their house and the
00:34:25
property that they're cleaning and then another property that Fotus is working on nearby. Police question Michelle
00:34:31
about these trips and she tells them that she went to the property to clean it because Fotus' company had scheduled
00:34:37
a last minute showing. They're just trying to like sell this house. So, she got there, went back to go get a broom,
00:34:43
and then drove back. Then when she returned, she had everything she needed, including sponges, paper towels, black
00:34:47
trash bags, a lot of the same things that they found in the evidence dump on Albany Avenue. Right.
00:34:53
But weird girl that you're like super helpful this one specific day because a project manager for Fotus' company told
00:35:00
police that he didn't remember Michelle ever cleaning a single one of their properties before, ever. Like, first
00:35:06
time for everything. and cleaning apparently put her in the mood because she also tells police that she and Fotus
00:35:13
did something sexual up against the Tacoma in the driveway. Now, to this day, no one knows where and when Fotus
00:35:21
apparently got rid of Jennifer's body. There is a chance that Fotus got rid of it or handed it off to someone in New
00:35:28
Kanan or somewhere in between New Kanan and Farmington. I mean, they've got some
00:35:32
surveillance footage of him leaving Jennifer's house, heading back to Farmington, arriving at the house that
00:35:37
he was renovating, but there are like gaps in the footage where he could have pulled off somewhere that police don't
00:35:42
know about. The thing I keep coming back to is there is also a chance that her body was still inside the Tacoma in that
00:35:50
moment that Fotus and Michelle were up against the truck, which is like twisted and sick to think about. So, police
00:35:59
search all of Fotus' work properties, including this property that they're renovating on Mountain Spring Road. And
00:36:06
they even search the woods around it, peering down into a septic tank that they find on the property. They don't
00:36:13
find anything of note except for they do make note of a black Porsche that is parked in this like super crowded garage
00:36:21
at one of the houses. And they make note of this one because they see that the seats of this car are missing from the
00:36:28
front. And those seats become a key piece of evidence that helps investigators because those seats aren't
00:36:35
actually missing. They're just not in the Porsche. Those seats are now in Pavll's Tacoma that Fotus was driving
00:36:43
the day Jennifer disappeared. And police find this out days later when they pull
00:36:48
Pavell over and he tells them what went down. He says that Fotus took the Tacoma
00:36:54
without him asking on the day that Jennifer disappeared. He had it until the afternoon when Pavvel met Fotus at
00:36:59
the Mountain Spring property. Fotus didn't even want to give it back. Even offered to let him use his Raptor for
00:37:06
the weekend. But Pavvel's like, "Dude, just like give me my truck back. Like, what are you doing?" And Fus finally
00:37:11
agrees, but Michelle has the keys. So convenient. So they call her to bring them back and Pavell does take the
00:37:19
truck. But then for the next few days, Fotus is like blowing him up, calling and calling, telling Pavll that he needs
00:37:26
to get new seats in the Tacoma. Bodus says he'll buy them for him or give him the seats from his Porsche. But Pavell
00:37:33
is like, "Dude, like, no, I'm okay. It's a work truck. Like, why would I be getting new seats?" But Footus pushes.
00:37:39
And while doing so, he tells Pavvel not to text about the seats using the word seats to like we should speak in a code
00:37:47
and call it hardware. Okay. Uh this is all bizarre. Is Pavvel living under a rock? Like does he know this man's wife
00:37:56
is missing and and Fotus is like the prime suspect? So it has to become suspicious to him
00:38:02
because I don't know what he was thinking at first, but eventually Fotus changes his tune and he basically says,
00:38:08
"Okay, listen. I saw Jennifer that week, like the week before she disappeared. So, police might find one of her hairs
00:38:15
in the truck and that wouldn't be good for me. But, by the way, Pavvel, you better not
00:38:19
say anything because he's quick to remind him like, you aren't a US citizen. Like, this dude's from Poland
00:38:26
and if you get entangled in a missing person's case, it could be really bad for you.
00:38:31
So, Pavvel gets freaked out. He does switch the seats in his Tacoma for the Porsche seats like Fotus tells him to,
00:38:38
but here's the kicker. He doesn't get rid of the Tacoma seats. He tells police that he kept them just in case they
00:38:48
wanted them. And of course, they want them. Yeah. So, he works out a deal with detectives.
00:38:53
He gets immunity in exchange for his cooperation. Uh, immunity for what? Well, I mean, technically, he tampered
00:39:01
with evidence. like even if he didn't fully know it was evidence. So maybe that some people have speculated maybe
00:39:07
he was helping Fotus at Jennifer's house at the time of the murder or somewhere in New Kanan after I mean remember there
00:39:14
were two bloody ponchos which could have meant that Fotus had an accomplice for the actual murder or maybe he just
00:39:22
doubled up on ponchos to avoid I I don't know. Right. But if they put photos at the
00:39:27
house based on video footage of him riding the bike, wouldn't they know if someone else was there or not?
00:39:34
Not necessarily. So like even though they've got like footage, right, of the Tacoma and all of that, there are blind
00:39:38
spots in the neighborhood where someone could come in and not get caught on camera. So there's no proof that there
00:39:44
was anyone else involved. It's just there's no proof that there wasn't. Right. And I don't know how far they dug
00:39:50
into Pavll because the deal that he made with them for immunity, it kind of like
00:39:55
halts any investigation into him. But to be clear, immunity deals aren't usually on the table when murder charges
00:40:02
are involved. So like, wait, so did they ever do a data dump on Pavll's phone? Well, no, they did. So, and this is why,
00:40:09
like, again, I think there's like this theory of did he help or whatever. like it actually his phone put him in New
00:40:14
Canaan, but he was at a legitimate construction site in that town that he was he was like working for FOD but not
00:40:20
at it never puts him at Jennifer's house. So he gives him these seats and they light up when they're sprayed with
00:40:27
luminol and like and then the black light goes over to like test for the presence of blood.
00:40:31
So then they send the Tacoma seats off for like official DNA testing, right? Like this is a good indicator, but we've
00:40:36
got to prove that it's it is blood and it is hers, right? But that's not all they learned
00:40:41
from Pavll. He also tells them about a conversation he heard a few months back like before Jennifer disappeared when
00:40:48
Fotus was talking about putting down their family dog. I guess Michelle chimed into this conversation calling
00:40:54
Jennifer a and said that she should be buried in the backyard next to the dog. So clearly like Michelle tons of bad
00:41:03
blood there, right? Like it's not like we can just say Fotus didn't like Jennifer. Michelle is clearly like
00:41:07
feeding into that too. The thing is though, they've searched the yards. Like Jennifer is not there.
00:41:15
So where is Jennifer? [Music] While they're waiting for the DNA results from the seeds, Fotus and
00:41:23
Michelle are both out on bond. There's still no body, and so there's still no murder charge. And Fotus is gearing up
00:41:30
for a fight. Remember, he has brought in his divorce attorney already, but he's got this other guy as well, his longtime
00:41:37
friend, sometimes business attorney, Kent Moy. This dude's on speed dial for him. But he also at this point decides
00:41:44
to hire a criminal attorney. And he doesn't just hire anybody. He hires Norm Pattis, whose client list includes Alex
00:41:52
Jones. You know, the guy that claimed that Sandy Hook was a hoax. So, like, not a great guy. Yeah, you are the
00:41:58
company you keep. And as if this case wasn't enough of a media spectacle already, Norm takes it to another level
00:42:05
and he tries dragging our girl Gillian Flynn into this hot mess. Rude, right? I know you have, but I don't know
00:42:11
if all the crime junkies have read Gone Girl or seen the movie. Both obviously. And you know the one where Roseman Pike
00:42:18
plays a woman who leaves her husband and in doing so methodically frames him for
00:42:22
her murder. Well, that is what Norm says happened here. He claims that he read a
00:42:28
manuscript that Jennifer wrote with a similar plot and says that Jennifer gone girl herself to try and ruin Fotus'
00:42:37
life. No one is buying that. Her family and friends know that she would never leave
00:42:43
her kids. And police are very clear that they are looking for a body, not a diabolical wife. The only diabolical
00:42:51
people we have here are Fotus and Michelle. Where do people find these attorneys? Like I get it, like everyone
00:42:57
needs a good defense, right? But in my book, there's like a line, right? You have this guy throwing out these wild
00:43:04
scenarios that victim blame this woman who's already dead. I know. And then you have like his lawyer, Fotus' original
00:43:12
lawyer, who's like I guess in my mind when they like create the alibi scripts at some point, I mean,
00:43:18
we're already off the rails there. Well, yeah, but like and if if they're like, well, my lawyer told me to write
00:43:22
it. Did like did you are you saying it? Like I I agree. And we can also lump Footus' lawyer friend Kent in all of
00:43:30
this too because get this. So they find that Kent had helped start a gun club in
00:43:36
this nearby town years earlier. He left the club but interestingly rejoined it a
00:43:43
couple of months before Jennifer vanished. Now here's the really interesting part.
00:43:48
In early June, two members of that same gun club remember that they saw something weird and they decide to call
00:43:54
police. They say that they were walking through a wooded area of the club just a
00:43:59
few days before Jennifer vanished when they saw this large pit in the ground, a 6ft pit that looked a lot like a grave.
00:44:10
Someone had tried to hide it. There are like two grates over it, branches, leaves, like trying to camouflage it.
00:44:16
But when they look inside, like they moved it all, nothing was there. Just like a tarp and two bags of lime. So
00:44:23
knowing that he has this connection to the gun club. This weird thing happened at the gun club, but he also has a
00:44:28
connection to FOTUS, the police start looking into Kent a little more closely. Okay. Did they go look at this hole?
00:44:36
They did. It seemed like someone had tried to cover it up even more after news broke about this discovery. like it
00:44:42
had conveniently been filled back in by the time that state police went to check
00:44:45
it out. And then when they tested the area, there was no evidence that there were ever human remains buried there.
00:44:51
But their investigation into Kent certainly didn't stop because, as it turns out, Kent was also in the middle
00:44:58
of a very contentious divorce. He had actually been charged with raping his wife, a charge that has since been
00:45:04
dropped. But his wife had a protective order against him. Though police learned that Kent was still trying to contact
00:45:11
her through photos. And since Norm is bringing up plots from works of fiction, maybe there is another one that we
00:45:18
should talk about. I feel like we talked about this before, like a little strangers on a train situation. Police
00:45:23
begin to connect the dots. Both of these men had very tumultuous relationships with their ex-wives or soon to be
00:45:29
ex-wives or current wives, whatever, and reasons to want those wives gone. Police
00:45:35
records show that investigators begin to suspect that Kent may have also been involved in Jennifer's disappearance.
00:45:42
And is there any specific evidence tying him to her disappearance or just like this weird hole at his gun club and his
00:45:51
connection to Fod? So his name is also mentioned in the alibi scripts. According to Fotus and
00:45:57
Michelle's timelines, Fotus and Kent met at the Farmington house that morning, which again would place Fotus in
00:46:03
Farmington, not New Kanan. And when police first asked Kent about this, he said that he never knew of any meeting.
00:46:09
But then when they asked him a second time, he said they did have a meeting scheduled there that morning, but Fotus
00:46:15
never showed up. He's like, "Oh, I I came. I waited for like an hour. I gave up." And he said he didn't talk to
00:46:20
Fotus, but oops. Like his phone is broken. He fell down the stairs the day after Jennifer vanished and broke it and
00:46:26
also like hit his head. So like ah my memor is kind of fuzzy. I can't be certain.
00:46:30
A series of unfortunate events. Yeah. So broken phone and amnesia or not, police are able to pull his cell
00:46:38
records and see that he did talk to Fotus on May 24th after all. While Fotus was on Albany Avenue dumping evidence.
00:46:48
So, police interview Michelle again with this new information and she changes her
00:46:53
story again. At this point, she's done protecting Fotus because they're not even dating anymore. So, she is ready to
00:47:00
tell what seems to be closer to the truth. Remember, she said that she wasn't sure if she saw Fotus at the
00:47:07
Farmington house that morning his wife vanished. Or at least that was her second version of events. Well, now she
00:47:12
says she never saw him there. She's sure of it. Back then, Mhm. I always thought he was
00:47:19
in the house, but thinking I never saw him. Mhm. I never heard his voice, so obviously he wasn't.
00:47:30
Well, probably he wasn't in the house. And remember how his phone was in Farmington all morning and answered that
00:47:36
call from his friend in Greece? Well, Michelle admits that was actually her. She answered the call, which by the
00:47:43
way was planned in advance. And she says this time that she wasn't alone. Kent was at the Farmington house and he
00:47:50
directed her to answer the call. And I hear like like noise, but I did hear Ella. Ella is hello in Greek.
00:48:02
In Greek and that was about it. Like the communication didn't go through. There was no further phone calls.
00:48:11
No. Then I left. Then I went downstairs. You and Ken didn't have any conversation
00:48:15
after that? No. No, no, I left because well, I wanted to go to the supermarket. I had to do things.
00:48:22
And she says that when she was cleaning the Mountain Springhouse, Fotus handed her a paper towel with these big brown
00:48:27
stains on them and she put them into the garbage bag. She said that she thought that Fotus just like spilled coffee or
00:48:33
something. I'm sorry. Coffee, blood, huge difference. I know, but I think this is
00:48:38
her way of explaining why her DNA is probably on the trash bag with blood evidence in it.
00:48:43
And police actually figure out that dumping those trash bags wasn't the only way the couple was getting rid of
00:48:49
evidence. Security cameras are the unsung hero in this case because even more surveillance
00:48:55
video captures photos driving Pavvel's red Tacoma again 5 days after Jennifer vanishes, this time to a car wash. And
00:49:04
it turns out replacing the seats wasn't enough for Fotus. like he wanted to deep
00:49:07
clean this vehicle too. So he dropped the truck off at a car wash, paid cash to get full detailing and he asked to
00:49:14
leave it there for a while, but Michelle followed him there and picked him up. So
00:49:18
that's how she knows about this. She's telling them about this now. Police think this was another attempt by Footus
00:49:23
to destroy evidence with Michelle's help, right? So on September 4th, Fotus gets hit with
00:49:30
more hindering and tampering charges. So does Michelle and she turns herself in the next day. And while Michelle is
00:49:37
starting to cooperate, Vodus definitely is not. He again gets out on bail and starts doing interviews. On one TV hit,
00:49:45
he wishes Jennifer and her family happy holidays. Like he is fully keeping up this facade that he thinks she's still
00:49:51
alive out there trying to frame him. Wait, where are the kids during all this? Jennifer's mom has full custody by this
00:49:59
point and and they at least have Lauren. She like stays on as their nanny, so they've got some semblance of stability
00:50:05
still. But like, dude, I don't even know like this. Like, we tal we've done cases like
00:50:09
this before where it's like, I don't know how your world isn't just like so raw,
00:50:15
like upside down, upside down, right? So, I don't know what they're thinking about the
00:50:19
investigation or their dad or like what their grandparents are telling them, but
00:50:23
the investigation is moving on. And after months, police finally feel that it's time to upgrade the charges. On
00:50:29
January 7th, 2020, Votus gets charged with murder, felony murder, and kidnapping in Jennifer's disappearance.
00:50:36
And Michelle and Kent are charged with conspiracy to commit murder. And it's in their arrest warrants that police lay
00:50:43
out exactly what they think happened to Jennifer. Police say that Fotus woke up early on May 24th. He went and grabbed
00:50:50
Pavll's Tacoma with his childhood racing bike in the bed and drove to New Kanan.
00:50:56
He parked at the Waven Park, rode his bike to Jennifer's, somehow got into her garage, and then laid in weight.
00:51:03
Jennifer came home from dropping off the children at school, opened the garage, drove in, closed the garage door, and
00:51:09
then based on the blood spatter, it seems like Jennifer might have been just about to walk into her door, her back
00:51:16
turned when Futus attacked from behind, they think. Now, it's still unclear exactly how Jennifer died because her
00:51:23
body is still missing, but it seems like Fotus struck Jennifer, caused her to fall, and become incapacitated. The Emmy
00:51:31
was confident that she suffered non-servivable wounds based on the amount of blood that they found in all
00:51:37
of the evidence that was dumped. And I don't know when she died. Like, that's not clear. But Fotus spent hours
00:51:43
cleaning up that garage. He even went into the house, took her paper towels, and left behind one spot of Jennifer's
00:51:50
blood mixed with a trace of his own DNA on her kitchen faucet, and then another tiny DNA sample on her doororknob. Then
00:51:57
police believe that he zip tied her by her ankles and wrists, and then put her and his bike into her Suburban, drove
00:52:05
back to the park where he either transferred her body to the Tacoma or did something else with it, maybe gave
00:52:12
it to someone else to dispose of, and then drove back to Farmington. Michelle, police say, knew about it all along and
00:52:19
helped establish an alibi, helped get rid of evidence. Kent, they allege, did the same. As part of a scheme for the
00:52:27
two men to help each other get rid of their wives. Now, despite a $6 million price tag on his bail, Botus makes bond,
00:52:35
bankrolled by another woman who has moved in with him, this friend named Anna Curry, who forks over a large sum
00:52:45
of cash. Anna, girl, I know I could do an entire series on like wags of killers. It is
00:52:51
truly unbelievable to me. But like I don't know their arrangement. Again, like friend, whatever it is, it doesn't
00:52:57
last long. You see, there was an issue with the bond. So, Fotus was scheduled for a bail hearing on January 30th, and
00:53:05
he was expected to be going to jail for the long haul after this. Well, the morning that Fotus is supposed to appear
00:53:11
in court, media have like swarmed his Farmington house, hoping to catch sight of him. They're like, "Waiting. They're
00:53:18
waiting. He's not coming out." So, when court marshals realize that Fotus wasn't
00:53:23
on his way to court where he's supposed to be, they make their way over to his house. Remember, this is like an
00:53:29
enormous place. It has this long driveway. So, most of his cars aren't even visible from the road. But when
00:53:35
investigators get closer, they see that there in the garage is Footus' Raptor, and inside is Photus, barely clinging to
00:53:44
life. First responders pull him out. They start CPR. a scene that is captured on video by news helicopters. He's
00:53:52
eventually airlifted to a hospital in the Bronx and put on life support until his children can come a few days later
00:53:58
and say goodbye. And later, the very day that they came to see him, Fotus is pronounced dead. He had poisoned himself
00:54:05
with carbon monoxide. Inside the home, they found a suicide note that says he couldn't serve another
00:54:13
day for something he didn't do. And he also writes that Michelle and Kent are innocent. Now, this doesn't stop
00:54:20
anything else that's moving forward. Michelle and Kent are still facing trials. There's no easy out for them.
00:54:27
With delays from the pandemic and endless pre-trial motions from their defense attorneys, their cases take
00:54:33
years to get to a courtroom. So, from 2020 to 2023, they're both out on bond. Sometimes with ankle monitors, like
00:54:40
maybe sometimes not. Michelle is just like living her life in Miami. Gets permission from the court to travel as
00:54:47
she pleases. Kent at one point tried to remove his own ankle monitor and then he
00:54:52
petitioned the court to have it removed saying that like because it's not fair cuz he wants to go ice skating and he
00:54:57
can't fit ice skates over his ankle bracelet. Like dude, priorities. You are charged with
00:55:03
plotting a murder. For real. Maybe don't worry about going ice skating right now. Jury selection for
00:55:08
Michelle's trial started in October of 2023. It was hard to find an unbiased jury. Like I said at the top, like this
00:55:16
was making national headlines, but they do. And that same month, a judge legally
00:55:22
declares Jennifer dead. Even before Michelle's trial began, it was clear what her defense was going to argue. And
00:55:28
I bet you can't even guess it because it's not the gone girl thing. They say that Michelle didn't understand English.
00:55:36
Wait, what? Yeah, to be fair, English is not Michelle's first language. She was raised in South America. Her first
00:55:44
language is Spanish, but we know Michelle speaks English. All of her police interviews are in English.
00:55:51
Yeah, you've never brought that up before. Exhibit A. It does impose in my mind that I'm
00:55:56
sleeping with someone that is thinking of killing someone. Like, if I would have like I would have not be
00:56:04
there like with my daughter. Well, not only did you think about it while you were sleeping with him, he involved you
00:56:09
in the cleanup. Yeah. Well, that's like even worse. Like, I hate him. But still, her attorney is adamant that
00:56:16
Michelle never should have been interviewed in English. He says the case should be thrown out. And Michelle is
00:56:24
she eventually gets like locked into this defense. Like, she actually uses an interpreter throughout the trial and
00:56:29
only speaks in Spanish in court, even when speaking to her family. When the trial starts in January of 2024,
00:56:35
prosecutors plan to prove that Michelle not only knew she was helping get rid of
00:56:39
evidence on Albany Avenue, but that she plotted with FOTUS to kill Jennifer. The
00:56:45
trial lasts months until March 1st when a jury finally finds Michelle guilty on the charge of conspiracy to commit
00:56:53
murder and charges of hindering a prosecution, tampering with evidence, and conspiring to tamper with evidence.
00:57:00
She gets sentenced to 14 and 1/2 years in prison and that is where she is now appealing her conviction. Michelle has
00:57:08
filed a habius petition to get released arguing that her rights were violated and that her conviction should be
00:57:14
overturned and we reached out to her attorney for comment and he gave us a brief explanation on what that petition
00:57:22
means generally. Basically, Michelle is arguing that she was led astray by her first lawyer when he gave her bad advice
00:57:27
to sit down with police for like multiple interviews. And by the way, at some point, Michelle was arrested again
00:57:34
during her trial for contempt of court. And so, she's also like awaiting a trial
00:57:38
on that separate charge. Now, all these years later, Kent, that dude is still waiting to face a jury.
00:57:46
So, he's out on bond, but just hasn't been like consistently listed as on the trial list without a start date
00:57:53
scheduled, which I was like, I couldn't understand. I've never seen before. So, our reporter, Taylor, has heard from
00:57:59
insiders at the courthouse that Kent likely won't go to trial and that maybe a plea deal may be on the way. Now, the
00:58:06
whole time, Kent's lawyer maintains his innocence, too. Says he never colluded with Fotus or dug a humansized grave in
00:58:13
the gun club property or whatever. So, we'll see if anything ever comes of that or if it's like a forever waiting game.
00:58:20
When our reporter Taylor spoke to Jennifer's friends, they described her as a wonderful mother who loved her
00:58:26
children. But she was much more than just a mother. Like, she was a friend. She was a daughter. She was an academic,
00:58:33
a writer. And her friends want to make sure that that part isn't forgotten. You guys, Jennifer took every step she could
00:58:41
to safely leave her husband with resources most people don't have. Every year in the US, more than a thousand
00:58:48
women are killed by intimate partners, and women are at the highest risk of being killed when they leave their
00:58:55
abusers. The statistics are so high that Jennifer isn't even the only woman named
00:59:00
Jennifer in Connecticut to be murdered by an aranged spouse. In 2007, Jennifer Magnano was shot dead by her husband on
00:59:08
the front steps of her home in Terraville, Connecticut, when she was required to come back to the state for a
00:59:14
custody hearing, despite being super afraid because she knew her husband was dangerous. Together, those two Jennifers
00:59:21
are the namesake of Jennifer's Law, a domestic violence legislation that extends access to protective orders to
00:59:28
women who are victims of coercive control. It is terrifying. And what is even scarier is that many states still
00:59:36
don't offer protections to victims of that type of abuse. We're going to provide some resources in the show notes
00:59:42
for more information on this and how you can get involved and change that because
00:59:46
you guys abuse isn't just physical abuse. It is important to know not just like the signs of it, what to
00:59:54
look for, not even in your own relationships, but in the relationships of people you love. So, we're going to
00:59:59
also provide resources to anyone who is or maybe knows someone who finds themselves in a situation like
01:00:05
Jennifer's. You guys, we literally get emails from listeners every week who tell us that they finally left for good
01:00:11
because of a story that they heard on our show. And maybe today that's you. Like, you know the warning signs or you
01:00:18
can feel it. You're trying to convince yourself that's other people. It's not you. Your partner's going to change. Or
01:00:25
yes, they hurt you, but they would never kill you. Maybe it's even better in this
01:00:30
very moment, but how many times has it been better before? And then it got bad again, and then it got even worse. On
01:00:37
average, it takes people seven times to leave for good. But you're not guaranteed seven opportunities. Leaving
01:00:45
is not easy, but it is the only way you get out alive. I don't want to have to tell your story one day. Jennifer's kids
01:00:53
lost both of their parents in one fell swoop. Jennifer's children have rarely spoken publicly, but when they all gave
01:01:01
victim impact statements at Michelle's sentencing, they looked right at her and they each begged her, a woman they once
01:01:09
trusted, to finally tell them where their mom is. And that's the piece of this solved case that investigators
01:01:17
still need help with. If you or anyone you know knows anything about the whereabouts of Jennifer Farber
01:01:49
Dulos or any details about her disappearance, the location of her remains, please email [email protected].
01:02:01
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.
01:02:06
And you can follow us on Instagram, crimejunkie podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new
01:02:10
episode. [Music]