MURDERED: Jennifer Farber Dulos

26:23Like, do they think they pre-planned the alibi and were working on, like, the best version? Or they wrote this after to make sure that they had their stories, like, all lined up? They think they pre-planned it and then went and, like, acted it out. out. But like, who makes photocopies? I mean, you need multiple copies of the script if everyone's going to learn their lines. That's the thing, like, I couldn't wrap my head around. Well, and then to keep them. I know. Just to like have them there. But per Michelle, she said that's not why any of it was made. Like, these aren't scripts. We didn't photocopy.

26:56So everyone like had some, like, this is all a misunderstanding. Okay. So listen, they bring her in again on June 6th. They question her about these timelines, about the alibi scripts, whatever you want to call them. And she says, yes, she and Fotis wrote them, but they did it based on his attorney's advice. I guess he told them that they needed to be able to give full accounts of their days, like on the day Jennifer disappeared, May 24th, and then the next day. So why leave out that ride on Albany Avenue? I know. So she says that to her, it was just a ride to Starbucks. Like, she's like, I didn't leave anything out.

27:31I told like I said we went to Starbucks. Which is what we did. But she's like, I didn't even notice that Fotis was making all these stops. She's like, I was on my phone. I wasn't paying attention. And then I only really looked up when, like, the time I opened the door and leaned out and touched the sidewalk, which she says was to wipe gum off of her finger. So she just, like, didn't notice the multiple times he pulled over in this, like, pretty sketchy area, hauled full trash bags out of the bed of his truck. I mean, he went down, like, a little, like, alley at some point in time. That is her story.

28:02But Albany Avenue is not the kind of street that you don't notice you're on. Right. And the crazy part to me is it's not even on your way to the Starbucks that they went to. And I have to tell you this story really quick. So our reporter, Taylor, she covered this case, I told you at the top, a ton as it was happening. She actually drove the route herself. And she wrote a front page story in the Hartford Courant that this wasn't just a quick detour to dump these bags. This was at least a 36-minute trip passing the Starbucks that they eventually went to, driving to another town, and then looping back around to the Starbucks.

28:39And Michelle's attorney at the time was not happy about this headline. He actually, like, stormed up to Taylor in the morning that the story ran, told her it was BS. So it definitely hit a nerve with him. And I feel like, like, shows she was doing the right thing. Yeah. And, like, listen, like, I don't even know what you're mad about. Like, maps be maps. Like, you can't argue with that. Anyway, Michelle does tell police at one point that she asked Fotis, why are we here? So, like, at some point she had to have looked up and been like, uh. Yeah. But she says Fotis was like, oh, don't worry about it.

29:11And she was like, oh, okay. Okay. And listen, like, preliminarily when they look at her phone data, it seems to line up with her story. Because, like, while Fotis' phone is somewhere in the house, like, there are parts where, like, her phone is in the house too, but, like, different parts of the house. Giant house. Right. But here's where things start to kind of fall apart. It's hard to stick to the script when you don't have the script in front of you. That's not a script. Whatever. And when they talk to her a second time around, she suddenly can't remember if she actually saw Fotis at the Farmington house after 8 a.m.

29:44on the day Jennifer disappeared. She now doesn't think they had sex or had lunch together, which, like, were big parts of the story. I was going to say, those are like kind of big diversions from what she originally said. I know. And her excuse is she tells police like, oh, it's a big house. It's not like she's in his face all the time. But as far as I know, he was there. That's what I meant. Like I knew he was there, but I didn't necessarily see him. And police aren't buying it. They're done listening to a story that they know isn't true. And they are ready to play hardball. During the second interview, they tell Michelle verbatim that she is the most hated woman in America.

30:24And even though they don't know this for sure, they tell her that Jennifer is dead and that Fotis killed her. Detectives also tell her that Fotis had been trying to get back with Jennifer. Like, this part's a lie. We know that's not true. But they're, I think, trying to get under her skin. And I think it works. These interviews are recorded and you can see that she's distraught. But it still doesn't quite get her to crack. So investigators have to keep digging. And when police find more surveillance videos, this time from a major highway in Connecticut and cameras near Jennifer's house in New Canaan, they're finally able to map out where Fotis really was that morning.

31:09And it wasn't at the Farmington house with Michelle.

31:15So remember how I mentioned that Fotis was known to just, like, borrow his employees' cars? Well, it turns out that's exactly what he did the morning Jennifer disappeared. He took a red Tacoma pickup truck that belonged to his project manager, this guy Pavel Gumieni. It was parked at the Farmington house because that's where Fotis, like, ran his business out of, like, one wing of the house. So he was able to take it, like, right from there that morning. And when police zero in on that truck using surveillance footage from the rest stop on the highway, they watch a man who looks like Fotis. But again, this is where I want to point out, like, but with a shaved head.

31:52And I couldn't figure out what the shaved head was about. But when you look at his project manager, his project manager has a shaved head. So he is, so he shaved his head to look more like the project manager. Who would normally be driving that car, maybe? I don't know. So they see him, they see, but it looks like Fotis, again, just with a shaved head, drive 70 miles toward New Canaan. Then security footage from a local school bus shows that same truck in New Canaan at 7.57 a.m. parked at a nearby spot, which should sound familiar, Waveney Park, where Jennifer's Suburban was found missing its WeatherTech mats.

32:32Right. Now, we don't know how long the Tacoma had been parked there by that time that the school bus caught that footage. But what investigators find next indicates that it was probably parked there before 730 because an analyst watching the surveillance video also spots something else. There is a wheel of a bicycle poking out of the bed of the Tacoma. And it all comes together for police when a security video from one of Jennifer's neighbors shows a man in a hooded sweatshirt riding a bike from the direction of Waveney Park right into Jennifer's neighborhood that morning at around 730 a .m. Then that same camera shows Jennifer getting home from dropping the kids at school, pulling her Suburban into the garage where police now believe Fotis was lying in wait for her.

33:22Nothing actually gets captured on cameras for a while after that, because this is when police believe that Fotis was killing Jennifer and scrubbing the garage clean. And then the next thing we see is at 1025 a.m. That's when Jennifer's Suburban drives out of their neighborhood and toward Waveney Park, presumably with Jennifer's body inside. And can cameras pick up who's driving the vehicle? No, no, it's not clear enough who was driving the Suburban that time. and there aren't any cameras in the park. But police believe that Fotis moves Jennifer's body from her Suburban into the Tacoma that he was driving, abandons the Suburban, and then drives back onto that property that he was renovating in Farmington to meet Michelle, who, remember, was conveniently at the property to clean that day.

34:09And this is when more neighborhood security cameras come into play. Fotis and Michelle, mostly Michelle, are captured on a neighbor's camera are going back and forth between their house and the property that they're cleaning. And then another property that Fotis is working on nearby. Police question Michelle about these trips, and she tells them that she went to the property to clean it because Fotis' company had scheduled a last-minute showing. They're just trying to, like, sell this house. So she got there, went back to go get a broom, and then drove back. And then when she returned, she had everything she needed, including sponges, paper towels, black trash bags, a lot of the same things that they found in the evidence dump on Albany Avenue.

34:48But weird, girl, that you're like super helpful this one specific day because a project manager for Fotis' company told police that he didn't remember Michelle ever cleaning a single one of their properties before ever. Like first time for everything. And cleaning apparently put her in the mood because she also tells police that she and Fotis did something sexual up against the Tacoma in the driveway. Now, to this day, no one knows where and when Fotis apparently got rid of Jennifer's body. There is a chance that Fotis got rid of it or handed it off to someone in New Canaan or somewhere in between New Canaan and Farmington.

35:26I mean, they've got some surveillance footage of him leaving Jennifer's house, heading back to Farmington, arriving at the house that he was renovating. But there are like gaps in the footage where he could have pulled off somewhere that police don't 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 moment that Fotis and Michelle were up against the truck, which is like twisted and sick to think about. So police search all of Fotis' work properties, including this property that they're renovating on Mountain Spring Road. And they even search the woods around it, peering down into a septic tank that they find on the property.

36:08They don't find anything of note except for they do make note of a black porch that is parked in this like super crowded garage at one of the houses. And they make note of this one because they see that the seats of this car are missing. And those seats become a key piece of evidence that helps investigators because those seats aren't actually missing. They're just not in the Porsche. Those seats are now in Pavel's Tacoma that Fotis was driving the day Jennifer disappeared. And police find this out days later when they pull Pavel over and he tells them what went down. He says that Fotis took the Tacoma without him asking on the day that Jennifer disappeared.

36:50He had it until the afternoon when Pavel met Fotis at the Mountain Spring property. Fotis didn't even want to give it back, even offered to let him use his Raptor for the weekend. But Pavel's like, dude, just like, give me my truck back. Like, what are you doing? And Fotis finally agrees. But Michelle has the keys. So convenient. So they call her to bring them back. And Pavel does take the truck. But then for the next few days, Fotis is like blowing him up, calling and calling, telling Pavel that he needs to get new seats in the Tacoma. Fotis says he'll buy them for him or give him the seats from his Porsche.

37:26But Pavel is like, dude, like, no, I'm OK. It's a work truck. Like, why would I be getting new seats? But Fotis pushes. And while doing so, he tells Pavel not to text about the seats using the word seats to, like, we should speak in a code and call it hardware. OK, this is all bizarre. Is Pavel living under a rock? Like, does he know this man's wife is missing and Fotis is, like, the prime suspect? So it has to become suspicious to him because I don't know what he was thinking at first. But eventually Fotis changes his tune and he basically says, OK, listen, I saw Jennifer that week, like the week before she disappeared.

38:07So police might find one of her hairs in the truck and that wouldn't be good for me. But by the way, Pavel, you better not say anything because he's quick to remind him like you aren't a U.S. citizen. Like this dude's from Poland. And if you get entangled in a missing persons case, it could be really bad for you. So Pavel gets freaked out. He does switch the seats in his Tacoma for the Porsche seats like Fotis tells him to. 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 wanted them. And of course they want them. So he works out a deal with detectives.

38:47He gets immunity in exchange for his cooperation. Immunity for what? Well, I mean, technically, he tampered with evidence, like even if he didn't fully know it was evidence. So maybe that. Some people have speculated maybe he was helping Fotis at Jennifer's house at the time of the murder or like somewhere in New Canaan after. I mean, remember, there were two bloody ponchos, which could have meant that Fotis had an accomplice for the actual murder. Or maybe he just doubled up on ponchos to avoid. I don't know. Right. But if they put photos at the house based on video footage of him riding the bike, wouldn't they know if someone else was there or not?

39:29Not necessarily. So like even though they've got like footage right of the Tacoma and all of that, there are blind spots in the neighborhood where someone could come in and not get caught on camera. So there's no proof that there 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 into Pavel because the deal that he made with them for immunity, it kind of like halts any investigation into him. But to be clear, immunity deals aren't usually on the table when murder charges are involved. So like. Wait, so did they ever do a data dump on Pavel's phone?

40:03Well, no, they did. So and this is why, like, again, I think there's like this theory of did he help or whatever. Like it actually his phone put him in New Canaan, but he was at a legitimate construction site in that town that he was he was like working for Fotis, but not at it never puts him at Jennifer's house. So anyways, he doesn't deal with them. He gives them the seats and they light up when they are sprayed with luminol and like and then the black light goes over to like test for the presence of blood. So then they send the Tacoma seats off for like official DNA testing. Right. Like this is a good indicator, but we've got to prove that it's it is blood and it is hers.

40:36Right. But that's not all they learned from Pavel. He also tells them about a conversation he heard a few months back, like before Jennifer disappeared, when Fotis was talking about putting down their family dog. I guess Michelle chimed into this conversation, calling Jennifer a bitch and said that she should be buried in the backyard next to the dog. So clearly, like, Michelle, tons of bad blood there, right? Like, it's not even like we can just say Fotis didn't like Jennifer. Like, Michelle is clearly, like, feeding into that too. The thing is, though, they've searched the yards. Jennifer is not there.

41:13So where is Jennifer?

41:19While they're waiting for the DNA results from the seeds, Fotis and Michelle are both out on bond. There's still no body, and so there's still no murder charge. And Fotis is gearing up for a fight. Remember, he has brought in his divorce attorney already, but he's got this other guy as well, his longtime friend, sometimes business attorney, Kent Moyni. This dude's on speed dial for him. But he also, at this point, decides to hire a criminal attorney. And he doesn't just hire anybody. He hires Norm Pattis, whose client list includes Alex Jones. You know, the guy that claimed that Sandy Hook was a hoax.

41:55So, like, not a great guy. Yeah, you are the company you keep. And as if this case wasn't enough of a media spectacle already, Norm takes it to another level. And he tries dragging our girl Gillian Flynn into this hot mess. Rude. Right. I know you have, but I don't know if all the crime junkies have read Gone Girl or seen the movie. Both, obviously. And you know, the one where Rosamund Pike plays a woman who leaves her husband and in doing so methodically frames him for her murder. Well, that is what Norm says happened here. He claims that he read a manuscript that Jennifer wrote with a similar plot and says that Jennifer gone-girled herself to try and ruin Fotis' life.

42:38No one is buying that. Her family and friends know that she would never leave her kids. And police are very clear that they are looking for a body, not a diabolical wife. The only diabolical people we have here are Fotis and Michelle. Where do people find these attorneys? Like, I get it. Like, everyone needs a good defense, right? But in my book, there's like a line, right? You have this guy throwing out these wild scenarios that victim blame this woman who's already dead. I know. And then you had like his lawyer, Fotis's original lawyer, who's like, I guess in my mind, when they like create the alibi scripts at some point.

43:16We're already off the rails there. Well, yeah. But like if they're like, oh, my lawyer told me to write it. Did like did you? Are you saying like I agree? And we can also lump Fotis's lawyer friend Kent in all of this, too, because get this. So they find that Kent had helped start a gun club in this nearby town years earlier. He left the club, but interestingly rejoined it a couple of months before Jennifer vanished. Now, here's the really interesting part. In early June, two members of that same gun club remember that they saw something weird and they decide to call police. They say that they were walking through a wooded area of the club just a few days before Jennifer vanished when they saw this large pit in the ground.

44:02A six-foot pit that looked a lot like a grate. Someone had tried to hide it. There are, like, two grates over it, branches, leaves, like, trying to camouflage it. But when they look inside, like, they moved it all. Nothing was there. Just, like, a tarp and two bags of lime. So, knowing that he has this connection to the gun club, this weird thing happened at the gun club, but he also has a connection to Fotis, the police start looking into Kent a little more closely. Did they go look at this hole? They did. It seemed like someone had tried to cover it up even more after news broke about this discovery.

44:39Like it had conveniently been filled back in by the time that state police went to check it out. And then when they tested the area, there was no evidence that there were ever human remains buried there. But their investigation into Kent certainly didn't stop. Because as it turns out, Kent was also in the middle of a very contentious divorce. He had actually been charged with raping his wife, a charge that has since been dropped. But his wife had a protective order against him, though police learned that Kent was still trying to contact her through FOTUS. And since Norm is bringing up plots from works of fiction, maybe there is another one that we should talk about.

45:18I feel like we talked about this before, like a little strangers on a train situation. Police begin to connect the dots. Both of these men had very tumultuous relationships with their ex-wives or soon-to-be ex-wives or current wives, whatever, and reasons to want those wives gone. Police records show that investigators begin to suspect that Kent may have also been involved in Jennifer's disappearance. And is there any specific evidence tying him to her disappearance or just like this weird hole at his gun club and his connection to FODAS? So his name is also mentioned in the alibi. scripts. According to Fotis and Michelle's timelines, Fotis and Kent met at the Farmington house that morning, which again would place Fotis in Farmington, not New Canaan.

46:05And when police first asked Kent about this, he said that he never knew of any meeting. But then when they asked him a second time, he said they did have a meeting scheduled there that morning, but Fotis never showed up. He's like, oh, I came. I waited for like an hour. I gave up. And he said he didn't talk to Fotis. But oops, like his phone is broken. He fell down the stairs the day after Jennifer vanished and broke it and also like hit his head. So like, ah, my memory is kind of fuzzy. I can't be certain. What a series of unfortunate events. Yeah. So broken phone and amnesia or not, police are able to pull his cell records and see that he did talk to Fotis on May 24th after all, while Fotis was on Albany Avenue dumping evidence.

46:48So police interview Michelle again with this new information, and she changes her story again. At this point, she's done protecting Fotis because they're not even dating anymore. So she is ready to tell what seems to be closer to the truth. Remember, she said that she wasn't sure if she saw Fotis at the Farmington house that morning his wife vanished, or at least that was her second version of events. Well, now she says she never saw him there. She's sure of it. And remember how his phone was in Farmington all morning and answered that call from his friend in Greece? Well, Michelle admits that was actually her.

47:24She answered the call, which, by the way, was planned in advance. And she says this time that she wasn't alone. Kent was at the Farmington house, and he directed her to answer the call. And she says that when she was cleaning the Mountain Spring house, Fotis handed her a paper towel with these big brown stains on them, and she put them into the garbage bag. She said that she thought that Fotis just, like, spilled coffee or something. I'm sorry. Coffee, blood, huge difference. I know. But I think this is her way of explaining why her DNA is probably on the trash bag with blood evidence in it. And police actually figure out that dumping those trash bags wasn't the only way the couple was getting rid of evidence.

48:06Security cameras are the unsung hero in this case, because even more surveillance video captures Fotis driving Pavel's red Tacoma again five days after Jennifer vanishes, this time to a car wash. And it turns out replacing the seats wasn't enough for Fotis. Like, he wanted to deep clean this vehicle, too. So he dropped the truck off at a car wash, paid cash to get full detailing, and he asked to leave it there for a while. But Michelle followed him there and picked him up. So that's how she knows about this. She's telling them about this now. Police think this was another attempt by Fotis to destroy evidence with Michelle's help.

48:42Right. So on September 4th, Fotis gets hit with more hindering and tampering charges. So does Michelle. And she turns herself in the next day. And while Michelle is starting to cooperate, Fotis definitely is not. He again gets out on bail and starts doing interviews. On one TV hit, he wishes Jennifer and her family happy holidays. Like he is fully keeping up this facade that he thinks she's still alive out there trying to frame him. Wait, where are the kids during all this? Jennifer's mom has full custody by this point. And they at least have Lauren. She like stays on as their nanny. So they've got some semblance of stability still.

49:21But like, dude, I don't even know. Like we've done cases like this before where it's like, I don't know how your world isn't just like so rocked. Like upside down. Upside down, right. So I don't know what they're thinking about the investigation or their dad or like what their grandparents are telling them. But the investigation is moving on. And after months, police finally feel that it's time to upgrade the charges. On January 7th, 2020, Fotis gets charged with murder, felony murder and kidnapping in Jennifer's disappearance. And Michelle and Kent are charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

49:56And it's in their arrest warrants that police lay out exactly what they think happened to Jennifer. Police say that Fotis woke up early on May 24th. He went and grabbed Pavel's Tacoma with his childhood racing bike in the bed and drove to New Canaan. He parked at the Waveney Park, rode his bike to Jennifer's, somehow got into her garage and then laid in wait. Jennifer came home from dropping off the children at school, opened the garage, drove in, closed the garage door. And then based on the blood spatter, it seems like Jennifer might have been like just about to walk into her door. Her back turned when Fotis attacked from behind, they think.

50:35Now, it's still unclear exactly how Jennifer died because her body is still missing. But it seems like Fotis struck Jennifer, caused her to fall and become incapacitated. The ME was confident that she suffered non-survivable wounds based on the amount of blood that they found in all of the evidence that was dumped. And I don't know when she died. Like, that's not clear. But Fotis spent hours cleaning up that garage. He even went into the house, took her paper towels, and left behind one spot of Jennifer's blood mixed with a trace of his own DNA on her kitchen faucet. And then another tiny DNA sample on her doorknob.

51:14Then police believe that he zip-tied her by her ankles and wrists and then put her and his bike into her suburban, drove back to the park where he either transferred her body to the Tacoma or did something else with it, maybe gave it to someone else to dispose of, and then drove back to Farmington. Michelle, police say, knew about it all along and helped establish an alibi, helped get rid of evidence. Kent, they allege, did the same as part of a scheme for the two men to help each other get rid of their wives. Now, despite a$6 million price tag on his bail, Botas makes bond, bankrolled by another woman who has moved in with him.

51:58This friend named Anna Curry, who forks over a large sum of cash. Anna, girl. I know. I could do an entire series on, like, wags of killers. It is truly unbelievable to me, but like, I don't know their arrangement. Again, like, friend. Whatever it is, it doesn't last long. You see, there was an issue with the bond. So Fotis was scheduled for a bail hearing on January 30th, and he was expected to be going to jail for the long haul after this. Well, the morning that Fotis is supposed to appear in court, media have like swarmed his Farmington house, hoping to catch sight of him. They're like waiting.

52:36They're waiting. He's not coming out. So when court-martials realize that Fotis wasn't on his way to court, where he's supposed to be, they make their way over to his house. Remember, this is like an enormous place. It has this long driveway. So most of his cars aren't even visible from the road. But when investigators get closer, they see that there in the garage is Fotis' raptor. And inside is Fotis, barely clinging to life. First responders pull him out. They start CPR, a scene that is captured on video by news helicopter. He's eventually airlifted to a hospital in the Bronx and put on life support until his children can come a few days later and say goodbye.

53:17And later, the very day that they came to see him, Fotis is pronounced dead. He had poisoned himself with carbon dioxide. Inside the home, they found a suicide note that says he couldn't serve another day for something he didn't do. And he also writes that Michelle and Kent are innocent. Now, this doesn't stop anything else that's moving forward. Michelle and Kent are still facing trials. There's no easy out for them. With delays from the pandemic and endless pretrial motions from their defense attorneys, their cases take years to get to a courtroom. So from 2020 to 2023, they're both out on bond, sometimes with ankle monitors, like maybe sometimes not.

53:59Michelle is just like living her life in Miami, gets permission from the court to travel as she pleases. Kent at one point tried to remove his own ankle monitor. And then he petitioned the court to have it removed, saying that like it's not fair because he wants to go ice skating and he can't fit ice skates over his ankle bracelet. Like, dude. Priorities? I know. You're charged with plotting a murder. For real. Maybe don't worry about going ice skating right now. Jury selection for Michelle's trial started in October of 2023. it was hard to find an unbiased jury, like I said at the top, like this was making national headlines.

54:35But they do. And that same month, a judge legally declares Jennifer dead. Even before Michelle's trial began, it was clear what her defense was going to argue. And I bet you can't even guess it because it's not the gone girl thing. They say that Michelle didn't understand English. Wait, what? Yeah. To be fair, English is not Michelle's first language. She was raised in South America. Her first language is Spanish. But we know Michelle speaks English. All of her police interviews are in English. Yeah, you've never brought that up before. Exhibit A. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm just saying that the information is done coming forward.

55:16You didn't really know what you were saying you did. So when he was walking around the property where you guys were, Did you really see what he was doing or no?

55:37Did you see him for a handful of hours or just a few minutes?

55:52But I always get upset. I get crummy of doing something that I don't want to do. OK. And I went up. I saw the counter. But still, her attorney is adamant that Michelle never should have been interviewed in English. He says the case should be thrown out. And Michelle is, she eventually gets locked into this defense. Like she actually uses an interpreter throughout the trial and only speaks in Spanish in court, even when speaking to her family. When the trial starts in January of 2024, prosecutors plan to prove that Michelle not only knew she was helping get rid of evidence on Albany Avenue, but that she plotted with Fotis to kill Jennifer.

56:29The trial lasts months until March 1st, when a jury finally finds Michelle guilty on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder and charges of hindering a prosecution, tampering with evidence and conspiring to tamper with evidence. She gets sentenced to 14 and a half years in prison and that is where she is now, appealing her conviction. Michelle has filed a habeas petition to get released arguing that her rights were violated and that her conviction should be overturned. And we reached out to her attorney for comment and he gave us a brief explanation on what that petition means generally. Basically, Michelle is arguing that she was led astray by her first lawyer when he gave her bad advice to sit down with police for like multiple interviews.

57:16And by the way, at some point, Michelle was arrested again during her trial for contempt of court. And so she's also like awaiting a trial on that separate charge. Now, all these years later, Kent, that dude is still waiting to face a jury. So he's out on bond, but just has been like consistently listed as on the trial list without a start date scheduled, which I was like, I couldn't understand. I've never seen before. So our reporter, Taylor, has heard from 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 whole time, Kent's lawyer maintains his innocence, too, says he never colluded with Fotis or dug a human-sized grave in the gun club property or whatever.

58:02So we'll see if anything ever comes of that or if it's like a forever waiting game. When our reporter Taylor spoke to Jennifer's friends, they described her as a wonderful mother who loved her children. But she was much more than just a mother. Like, she was a friend. She was a daughter. She was an academic, a writer. And her friends want to make sure that that part isn't forgotten. You guys, Jennifer took every step she could to safely leave her husband. With resources most people don't have. Every year in the U.S., more than a thousand women are killed by intimate partners. And women are at the highest risk of being killed when they leave their abusers.

58:41The statistics are so high that Jennifer isn't even the only woman named Jennifer in Connecticut to be murdered by an estranged spouse. In 2007, Jennifer Magnano was shot dead by her husband on the front steps of her home in Terreville, Connecticut, when she was required to come back to the state for a custody hearing, despite being super afraid because she knew her husband was dangerous. Together, those two Jennifers are the namesake of Jennifer's Law, a domestic violence legislation that extends access to protective orders to women who are victims of coercive control. It is terrifying. And what is even scarier is that many states still don't offer protections to victims of that type of abuse.

59:27We're going to provide some resources in the show notes for more information on this and how you can get involved and change that. because you guys, abuse isn't just physical abuse. It is important to know not just like the signs of it, what to look for, not even in your own relationships, but in the relationships of people you love. So we're going to also provide resources to anyone who is or maybe knows someone who finds themselves in a situation like Jennifer's. You guys, we literally get emails from listeners every week who tell us that they finally left for good because of a story that they heard on our show.

1:00:00And maybe today that's you. Like, you know the warning signs, or you can feel it. You're trying to convince yourself that's other people. It's not you. Your partner's gonna change. Or yes, they hurt you, but they would never kill you. Maybe it's even better in this very moment, but how many times has it been better before? And then it got bad again, and then it got even worse. On average, it takes people seven times to leave for good, but you're not guaranteed seven opportunities. Leaving 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 lost both of their parents in one fell swoop.

1:00:42Jennifer's children have rarely spoken publicly. But when they all gave victim impact statements at Michelle's sentencing, they looked right at her and they each begged her, a woman they once trusted, to finally tell them where their mom is. And that's the piece of this solved case that investigators still need help with. If you or anyone you know knows anything about the whereabouts of Jennifer Farber-Doulos or any details about her disappearance, the location of her remains, please email cold.case at ct .gov.

1:01:32You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

1:02:19Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Yeah.