New Canaan Police Department(NEW YORK) — The defense attorney for the estranged husband of a missing Connecticut mother of five is considering a “revenge suicide hypothesis as an explanation for her disappearance,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
Jennifer Dulos vanished on May 24 amid the couple’s contentious custody battle over their five children.
Investigators believe she suffered a “serious physical assault” in the garage at her New Canaan home, where bloodstains were found, according to arrest warrants.
Clothes and sponges with her blood were found in trash cans where surveillance cameras captured a man appearing to be her husband, Fotis Dulos, disposing of garbage bags, according to the documents. A woman in the man’s car fit the appearance of his live-in girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, according to the documents.
Fotis Dulos and Troconis are charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and hindering prosecution. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Fotis Dulos told reporters Wednesday that he’s thinking about his children.
“I just want to tell my children that they’re constantly on my mind and that I love them and I miss them very much,” he said after the court appearance.
The five kids are in the custody of Jennifer Dulos’ mother.
Fotis Dulos’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, said Wednesday he’s “actively contemplating a revenge suicide hypothesis as an explanation for her disappearance.”
“We will not comment further on our investigative activities,” he added.
Carrie Luft, a spokeswoman for Jennifer Dulos’ family, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, however, she said Jennifer Dulos was stable, responsible and reliable.
The beloved mom is “not a woman that would ever, ever leave her children,” Luft told ABC News.
When asked if police are considering a “revenge suicide hypothesis,” New Canaan Police Chief Leon Krolikowski didn’t directly address the question, instead telling ABC News via email Wednesday, “Our multijurisdictional law enforcement team is committed to (1) Finding Jennifer and (2) Bringing those responsible for Jennifer’s disappearance to justice. We will not rest until we find Jennifer.”
Pattis told ABC News earlier this week that he was “investigating the possibility that this is a ‘Gone Girl’-type case and considering the possibility that no third party was involved in foul play.”
In the “Gone Girl” book-turned-film, a wife fakes her own disappearance, framing her husband.
Luft called the defense’s “Gone Girl” theory a “smokescreen.”
“I think that drawing any comparison to a work of fiction does an incredible disservice to the family,” Luft told ABC News. “This is not a film, this is not a novel, this is our real life.”
“This is about someone who is missing following a violent attack and people are doing everything they can to solve the mystery,” she said.
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