Two jurors have been dismissed so far in the Michelle Troconis trial: one on Wednesday, January 17, 2024, and another on January 19. The trial is related to the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos, a mother of five from Connecticut who went missing in 2019. Fotis Dulos was the main suspect but died by suicide after being charged with her murder in 2020. Troconis, his girlfriend, has been accused of helping Fotis Dulos cover up the murder and conspiring with him to murder his estranged wife. On January 17, an alternate juror was dismissed for saying "we love you" to a prosecutor, New York Post reported.
Two days later, another juror was dismissed because of a comment about the book and movie Gone Girl. In Gone Girl, a woman disappears and her husband is a suspect in her murder. However, the woman did not actually die, and was instead faking it to frame her husband.
CBS reported that other jurors told the judge that one juror compared the case to Gone Girl, which led to the dismissal of that juror.
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At the time of Jennifer Dulos' disappearance, she and her estranged husband Fotis Dulos were going through a divorce and living separately. Fotis Dulos and Troconis were living together. Police suspect that Fotis Dulos drove to his estranged wife's home and attacked her. Though Jennifer Dulos' body hasn't been found, police say that her garage was bloody and looked as though someone had tried to clean it up.
Video cameras captured footage of Fotis Dulos and Troconis driving to different locations and throwing out garbage bags. Fotis Dulos threw the garbage out while Troconis sat in the car. Police found that some items in the bags had Jennifer Dulos' DNA on them.
Troconis claims that she has "no idea what happened to Jennifer." Though she was with Fotis Dulos when he threw the garbage bags away, she claims that she did not know that he was allegedly committing a crime and covering up evidence. She says that she did not know what was inside the bags.
A nanny for Jennifer Dulos' children, Lauren Almeida, testified in court saying that she was supposed to meet up with Jennifer Dulos on May 24, 2019. When she texted and called Jennifer Dulos, her "stomach just sank" because "she never not answered her phone."
Jennifer Dulos' relationship with her estranged husband fell apart once she learned of his affair with Troconis in 2017. Almeida also testified that around that time, she and Jennifer Dulos began to fear Fotis Dulos.
Almeida also testified that the day before Jennifer Dulos disappearance, she stocked the home with 12 rolls of paper towels. The next day, only two rolls were found there.
Blood-like stains were found in Jennifer Dulos' kitchen and car. Kristen Madel from the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory testified that the blood stains were likely from Jennifer Dulos and not someone else. Pieces of paper towel with something blood-like on them were also found in the garage, and she testified that the blood likely came from Jennifer Dulos.
