Episode 370

26:02Another vehicle was the red Tacoma that Fotis borrowed from his employee Pavel. Investigators believed it was connected to Fotis' movements in New Canaan that morning. Michelle was also tied to what happened with the Tacoma after Fotis returned to Farmington. Pavel testified that she had the truck's keys when he came to retrieve it. Prosecutors argued that Michelle held on to the keys to give Fotis more time with the truck. Once I got to 80 Mountain Spring Road to pick up my truck, there was no key for it. And he told me not to mention that, not to mention that Michelle had a key. Pavel eventually got the keys back, but when Fotis returned the truck, it had been cleaned and detailed.

26:56What's up with my truck? Why did you clean it? And he smiled at me and says, because you were never going to do it. And I told him, seriously, why did you clean my truck? And he says, don't worry about it. There's nothing going on.

27:15I went to Jennifer's house for Mother's Day. I gave her a hug. I hold the cat. And then I came back and I was having the same clothes and I was driving the truck. There might be hair in it or something. I just want to clean everything. And that wasn't the only strange thing Fotis said. He told Pavel that he should replace the truck's seats because they looked ghetto and would make it harder to sell. But Pavel noticed something else when Fotis returned the truck. His appearance. I told him, what are you doing? You shave your head? You're wearing dirty or work clothes? You're trying to be as handsome as me?

28:04When Fotis returned to Tacoma, he was wearing dirty work clothes and had recently cut his hair. Pavel testified that Fotis' appearance looked unusually similar to his own. Prosecutors later argued that the resemblance may have been deliberate. By then, police had found Jennifer's suburban abandoned near her home. She'd been expected to drive it to New York that day. Parts of the interior had been removed, and testing revealed blood evidence connected to Jennifer. Surveillance footage caught a figure looking a lot like Fotis riding a child's bike from the park to Jennifer's home around the time she disappeared.

28:48Detectives found disassembled parts of that bike in trash cans along the route. As police reviewed additional surveillance footage, they found another vehicle. FOTUS's black Ford Raptor. And Michelle was with him. In the footage, the Raptor made stop after stop along Albany Avenue in Hartford. Not one or two, but dozens. Cameras from gas stations, city systems, and private businesses captured FOTUS getting out near public trash bins and discarding bags and other items. If you think there's any privacy at all in 2026, you are severely mistaken. We're already in the cage, and the cage is monitored 24-7.

29:43Investigators retraced the route one stop at a time. Some of the garbage had already been collected, compacted, and buried under tons of city waste. But police recovered items that included blood-soaked sponges, paper towels, a blood-stained bra, and zip ties. Testing connected the blood to Jennifer. Prosecutors identified Fotis as the man seen disposing of the evidence. The footage also placed Michelle inside the Raptor throughout the entire route. Uh-oh. At one stop, she leaned out of the passenger side window, reaching down just as Fotis was throwing something down a drain. She later said she was wiping gum off her fingers.

30:39Detectives pressed Jennifer about what Fotis had been throwing away and whether the bags might help them find Jennifer. The bags. Oh, no, no. Okay. But I heard that you said that you might think that there's pieces of Jennifer. We are concerned that that's the case. Okay. We certainly, we certainly, yeah. So, we want to find Jennifer. Okay. We want to find her for her family. We want to find out what happened to her. Even this bag, all right? Are we going to find her at Fort Jefferson Crossing? Or any part of her? I mean, you guys, I can go with you. I can dig holes. I can do whatever you want.

31:17I mean, if she's there, I... Dig holes? I don't know. To find her. Okay. Michelle maintained that she had no idea what Fotis was even doing, even though surveillance placed her in the truck with Fotis throughout the disposal route. In a part of Hartford, they said they rarely visited. Her DNA was later found on one of the discarded bags and on the seat of the Tacoma. The question was whether she had been following his lead without understanding, whether she was truly a complete moron, or whether she knew a lot more than she was admitting. Detectives had already pulled Fotis' phone records. The data made it look as though his phone stayed at the Farmington house that morning.

32:06But investigators believed surveillance placed photos in New Canaan. So, if he was gone, why was his phone still showing activity at home? They began to suspect that someone else may have been handling it to help create an alibi. And they wanted to know whether that person was Michelle. Michelle denied knowing anything about that. During the interviews, she offered long, detailed answers, often circling but never directly answering the questions detectives were asking. You said he went to Hartford before, does it all? He doesn't. No, I said that we've done it in the past. Not me, not in that area.

32:51I've done, well not me, he's done with me in Avon, in the club, in the pond. We've done it, which you're a member of. Yes. Okay. That's fine. You have a dumpster and you want to throw something at that. Yes. Okay. I just want to, I kind of want to stop you for a second, especially now that it's a 30-minute... Maybe... Sorry. 12 times a meeting. Yeah. I'll stay to 30-minute this year. I want to share it. This is not a meeting with the way we want to expand. It's just, we don't want to expand things. We don't want to learn a whole bunch of things. We want to focus in on what we believe you know.

33:31Right now, like I told you before, you're under arrest for certain things, not for murder. Accessory. What? Accessory? No. No. No. No. I want you to know. Listen to it. Try to listen. I want you to know. you went down in the community with Phonus on Friday the 24th and murdered Jennifer and where her body is that's why we are here we are not here to go back several times I've heard you going back to the script I want to go back to the script I want to go forward you have to know you live with Phonus you live to be in for if you're in the living during that time. Let's call the moment that I'll do this.

34:23The divorce and custody battle had gotten ugly. Michelle referred to Jennifer as a problem. According to witness testimony, she mocked her, belittled her, and said more than once, I want to kill her. On one occasion, the family dog, still living with Fotis and Michelle, had to be put down. Fotis was upset that the children could not say goodbye because a custody order allowed only supervised visits. According to testimony, Michelle said Jennifer should be buried right next to the dog. Still, it was possible Michelle believed what Fotis had told her about Jennifer and knew nothing about what he was planning.

35:08We feel confident. Listen to me. you feel confident in a few things first of all I'm going to say you planned this there was a lot of pre-planning that went into this we're trying to find out what he did we wouldn't be here I wouldn't have talked to your attorney and asked you to come in if I thought in a second that you knew what he was going to do I wouldn't waste our time because I would have just said arrest her we're here Let me ask you a very simple question. What do you think happened to Jennifer Dues? What you said, you guys. What I've known and I've seen in the newspaper that she got in the garage.

36:00No, no, no. They're asking you for only your knowledge. Not what you read in the newspaper, not what you think the... I think that she's still somewhere, I hope, hiding. You guys said that you found blood, so obviously she's not hiding from you. Let me ask you a question. You have how many children? One. Nicole, and she's 12? Yes. Would you ever leave your 12-year-old daughter, listen, would you ever leave and go hide and not tell your 12-year-old daughter where you are? Why not? Fotis had told Michelle that Jennifer had struggled with her mental health and had disappeared before. Michelle still seemed to wonder whether she had run away.

36:49Detectives weren't buying it. No, listen, the question was... My question is... The question was... My only answer that I can give is because from my understanding, she has a borderline personality disorder. But you got that information for Fotis. This is a man who killed his wife. So, she told me he was going to tell me. I mean, I have it. Are the questions of the questions? Yes, I've heard from the questions that there's a... I think it's Michelle. Michelle. I'm sorry. I know, but you keep calling me Jennifer's. Well, I mean, honestly, Jennifer's on my mind. I'm worried every day and every night about Jennifer.

37:27So I apologize for calling you the name of the person who's been missing now. What are the two weeks? to show here's the thing. We're here to find out where she is. We don't think that you have you're not the one to orchestrate this. Our impression of Fotis is that he's a manipulative controlling person and wanted to get rid of it. Based on information. Everybody is. He wanted to get rid of his wife and he did that. and we're looking to find her for her family's sake. Kill the mother of his five children. And we want help from you. At times, Michelle became emotional and continued to insist she knew nothing about Jennifer's disappearance.

38:18Then detectives confronted her with something else Fotis had been hiding. I mean, if he can kill the mother of his five children, somebody who appears to have been wanting to get back with that mom according to his phone wait, Fotis was trying to get back together with Jennifer? what, what, what? sorry, I didn't get it I said, here he kills the mother of his five children and according to his, you know, from what we hear from other people and his phone he appeared to have been wanting to get back with that woman Who wanted to get back to her? The photos went back. The love of your life. The man you sleep with every night.

39:03Text message. He's saying we have the text messages from Photos and Jennifer. We're going back to March. We have them. But when March? We have a story. We have everything. I know, but for what? Michelle, Michelle, when he tells you. Let me tell you something about Photos. I didn't know. Yeah, no, it's okay. Michelle, we're not trying to tell you. We want to tell you something that everyone in this room is probably going to agree with. Fotis lies to everyone. And the reason he lies to everyone is he cares about one person in the world that's himself. He didn't care about his first wife, he didn't care about his second wife, he doesn't care about you.

39:38Now, Michelle was hearing that Fotis had been trying to reconcile with Jennifer. The same woman prosecutors said he was determined to remove from his life. So, why kill her? Well, money was part of it. Jennifer's family had invested millions in Foregroup, and the divorce threatened the company's future. But Fotis was also facing a loss of custody, access to his children, his home, and the life he'd built around them. The courts can be absolutely brutal to men, and he was sophisticated enough to know that. Then the case changed again, not because of something detectives uncovered, but because of what Fotis did next.

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42:04Investigators believed they knew what had happened to Jennifer Doulos. She had been attacked in the garage of her New Canaan home, and Fotis had used multiple vehicles to move her and dispose of the evidence. Her body was never found. The evidence extended beyond New Canaan. Neighbors near Fotis' Farmington home reported smoke coming from the chimney, despite temperatures being in the mid-80s. Investigators later recovered charred remains of clothing, plastic and zip ties from the ashes. Michelle was at home at the time, but she denied knowing what had been burned. So she was either the world's biggest idiot, it, or she was involved.

42:53Evidence also placed Michelle beside Fotis during the Hartford disposal route. Her DNA was found on one of the discarded bags. Detectives also recovered a handwritten timeline in her handwriting that appeared to support their account of the day Jennifer disappeared. Michelle eventually acknowledged that she and Fotis had worked on it together. She said they were trying to remember the day accurately, not deceive investigators. And just as the state prepared to put Fotis Doulos on trial, he killed himself. Fotis Doulos' attorney, Norm Pattis, delivered the news here outside Jacoby Medical Center this afternoon that Doulos was declared dead just after 5.30 this evening.

43:39This follows a suicide attempt two days ago when Doulos was discovered unresponsive inside a vehicle in the garage of his Farmington, Connecticut home the same day he was to appear in court for a bond hearing. He was airlifted to Jacoby Medical Center with carbon monoxide poisoning. Doulos was accused in the murder of his estranged wife, Jennifer, who went missing in May of last year and has never been found. Fotis' death meant the state would never put its accused killer on trial. Jennifer was still missing, and he could no longer be questioned, convicted, or forced to account for what had happened to her.

44:16That left only one person. Michelle. Michelle Draconis' trial would not determine where Jennifer was or produce a murder verdict against Fotis, but it would determine whether Michelle had knowingly joined the conspiracy and helped cover it up. More than four years after Jennifer was murdered, Michelle Traconis finally went on trial in a Stanford courtroom lined with cameras and reporters. She faced six felony charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, evidence tampering, and hindering prosecution. The jury saw two different versions of who she was. Prosecutors said Michelle was not an unsuspecting girlfriend caught in Fotis' lies.

45:06They argued that her changing accounts, the written timeline, the Hartford surveillance, and her DNA on a discarded bag showed that she was knowingly helping him. The defense said Fotis had manipulated her. She was just a dumb woman that can be easily manipulated. That was the defense. She had no role in Jennifer's death. She had no idea what was going on. And that confusion and the language difference and the poor memory, that was all just, you know, stuff that happened to Michelle. She was innocent. It was Fotis who had done all this, and she had no involvement. Are you buying that? Well, Assistant State Attorney Sean McGinnis had this to say in his closing arguments.

45:56Once you conclude that Mr. Doulouse is responsible for the death of his wife, you then go to the next questions, which are, is this defendant legally responsible for her death? Is this defendant legally responsible for conspiring to tamper with evidence, for acting as an accessory to tamper with evidence? Was the defendant motivated to harm Jennifer Dulos? I want you to make no mistake about this. This defendant hated Jennifer Dulos. She referred to her as a bitch who should be buried next to the dog. Prosecutors also pointed to Michelle's own comments about Jennifer. She said, you people are toxic, referring to Fotis Dulos and Jennifer Dulos.

46:50She said that since she moved to Connecticut, it had been two years of torture. She even admitted, if you caught it, that she demanded that Fotis Dulos go to therapy with her because of Jennifer Dulos. But her comments about Jennifer weren't the only thing prosecutors found troubling. They also challenged how Michelle explained being on the passenger side of Pavel's Tacoma that day. That is completely contrary to the evidence. And I also just want to say this, and I don't quite know where this fits in. That's for you guys as the fact finders to decide. There's something unsettling about the defendant and Mr.

47:30Doulos fooling around on the passenger side of that Tacoma on May 24th, 2019. The defendant in this case repeatedly lied to investigators. Repeatedly lied to investigators. What does that say about her culpability? What does that say about what she knew in advance? What does that say about what she knew was going to happen to Jennifer Doulos and what she knew they did after the fact? Why is someone who is innocent lying so much? That's a question for you to answer. The jury now had to decide whether Michelle had merely believed Fotis' lies or knowingly joined Fotis' plan and helped conceal the crime.

48:17And on March 1, 2024, the jury answered that question. They found Michelle Draconis guilty on six felony counts. Conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of tampering with physical evidence, and two counts of conspiracy to tamper with evidence. Also hindering prosecution. A judge would later vacate one of the conspiracy to tamper convictions on double jeopardy grounds. Before the sentencing, Michelle spoke to the judge. She focused on her innocence, the impact on her family, and the people who continued to support her. Your Honor, I am deeply saddened by this tragedy that has affected so many lives.

49:09I found out things before and during trial about a man, Fotistulo. I thought I knew and loved. I deeply regret ever being in a relationship with Fotis Toulos and bringing my daughter, my family, and myself into our lives, into his life. I am a person of profound faith, and I have been praying and will continue to pray for those who suffered and still suffer. I am thankful to my whole family and my dear friends who have stood by me and support me. Don't you just hate it when profoundly evil people bring up the name of the Lord like that? Like they're on the same team? Jennifer's youngest daughter then addressed the court and described the consequences that her family continued.

50:13to live with. Your Honor, Michelle Traconis and her actions have affected my life in many ways. I've now lost the two people I've loved most in this world. My mom will now never get to see me or my siblings grow up, something I had known she had always wanted. I'm now growing up without my mother. This is something no child should ever have to do. Her life was cut short, and Michelle was a contributor. Finding closure is impossible considering Michelle never gave any information about where my mother is and what actually happened on May 24th, 2019. Because of that day, I constantly feel like something worse is bound to happen to the people I love and it can be my last moments with them at any minute.

51:05I remember seeing these stories on the news and thinking they were just simply crazy stories and it would never happen to my family or me. But because it did, I feel scared that it will happen again and again to everyone I love most. Most of all, I feel betrayed by Michelle. I vividly remember her on ski trips when I was scared to sleep at night or her picking me off my bunk bed because I was scared to go down on my own. and I remember trusting her. I don't understand how she could be so selfish and it scares me to put my trust in other people now because of Michelle Draconis. She has made my family and me suffer.

51:48Because of this, I believe she should serve the consequences of her actions and I believe she should receive the maximum sentence. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. On May 24th, Michelle Traconis was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She will serve 14 and a half years, followed by five years probation. She continues to appeal for conviction. Gloria Farber, Jennifer's mother, is still pursuing a civil lawsuit to recover millions that her family gave to Fotis for his business. The verdict held Michelle criminally responsible for conspiring with Fotis and helping conceal the crime. But it could not answer every question.

52:38Fotis' death left Jennifer's family without a trial, without a verdict against him, and without an answer about where he'd put her, where she would lie for all eternity. Jennifer and Fotis' children were left to grow up without either parent A verdict worse than anything I've mentioned so far To this day, Jennifer's body has not been found But she left behind her own words about the ordinary moments with her children That meant the most to her She said The best part of my night now, hands down, is when I give our baby Noelle a bath, and then her bottle in my arms. She falls asleep, safe, up against my chest.

53:36I love it. It's my peace, solace, and quiet reward. And even if we are meeting friends out for dinner, or I am rushing to a movie with my husband Fotis, I make sure that I do that first. It's my passion, my joy, my connection. Rest in peace, Jennifer.

54:22Thank you.

54:44Well, we hope you enjoyed that one, ladies. Audiences, 70 % female. You know, I never thought about this before, but some of you may listen to murder stories to figure out how to do them. Just hit me. Watch your back, 30%.

55:12Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week.

55:50Thank you.

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