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    Sunday, May 12, 2024

    Police return to trash plant in search for missing New Canaan mother

    The search of a Hartford trash facility continued Saturday as police looked for evidence in the disappearance of New Canaan mother Jennifer Farber Dulos, now missing for over two weeks.

    Jennifer Farber Dulos’ estranged husband Fotis Dulos remained in the Bridgeport Correctional Center Saturday, unable to post a $500,000 bond. Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, have both been charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence in the case. Troconis is free on a $500,000 bond.

    Police have spent days searching locations in Farmington, New Canaan and Hartford. On Friday, Detectives met Troconis and her attorney Andrew Bowman at Fotis Dulos’ home at 4 Jefferson Crossing in Farmington and walked through the property with them. Police also spent time combing through the vast woods behind the house.

    On Saturday, there appeared to be little police activity at the Jefferson Crossing home, which is located in a neighborhood of luxury homes near Avon Mountain.

    Both Fotis Dulos and Troconis are due to appear Tuesday in Superior Court in Stamford.

    State police detectives have been sifting through garbage in Hartford looking for other clues and leads into Jennifer Farber Dulos’ May 24 disappearance. Jennifer Farber Dulos’ blood was found on clothing and other items discarded in areas along Albany Avenue in Hartford where two people matching the description of Fotis Dulos and Troconis were recorded on video, according to court records released last Monday.

    The footage shows a man resembling Fotis Dulos dumping as many as 30 garbage bags into trash bins and dumpsters along Albany Avenue at 7:15 p.m. on the day that Jennifer Farber Dulos disappeared, court records said. A woman resembling Troconis at one point is seen on video sitting in the passenger seat of a car as Dulos throws out the bags.

    The garbage from that neighborhood is taken to the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority’s trash-to-energy plant in Hartford’s South Meadows, which state police have been systematically scouring since Monday.

    Police have also searched, and in some cases re-searched, properties affiliated with Fotis Dulos’ home building company, The Fore Group. They’ve searched a house on Sturbridge Hill Road in New Canaan and several properties in New Canaan.

    The Dulos’ five children also returned briefly to their New Canaan private school, where their mother was last seen dropping them off on May 24. The children are now staying with Jennifer Farber Dulos’ mother, Gloria Farber, in her New York City apartment under armed guard.

    For the past two years, the Fotis Dulos and Jennifer Farber Dulos had been locked in a bitter divorce and fight over custody of the children, who have been living with their grandmother since their mother went missing.

    On Thursday, Troconis met with Stamford State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo and state police detectives at Bowman’s law offices. Sources said she didn’t give them any information that could help them find Jennifer Farber Dulos. It was unclear why they brought her to Farmington on Friday.

    At the trash-to-energy plant, state police did recover some of the material Fotis Dulos allegedly discarded in Hartford. Since last week’s garbage pickup was delayed by one day because of Memorial Day, most of the trash from the Albany Avenue area had not been incinerated.

    However, by the time police got to the garbage at the trash plant it had already been sent through a mechanized shredder that cut it into pieces no larger than six inches across to prepare it for burning.

    It’s time-consuming sorting through the decaying refuse, according to sources familiar with the process. Motorized equipment is being used to skim manageable portions from the surface of the trash pile to an open area of the floor. A cadaver dog sniffs through it under the watch of his handler and other police personnel, who pick through the material.

    There are also so many intermingling smells that each new section is searched twice, with a second dog checking the work of the first. Sources said part of the problem is the dogs are trained to “hit” on decomposing flesh and they have encountered dead animals and rotten food that detectives have had to then shift through.

    State police are expected to continue the search into next week.

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