Inside the deadly 'suburban nightmare' that shattered a Connecticut family's world
Five years after a Connecticut mother vanished from her own home and was eventually declared dead, a new look into a case that has haunted suburbia is shining a light on what it means to live the American dream.
Jennifer Dulos disappeared after dropping her five young children off at school in New Canaan on May 24, 2020. At the time, she was involved in a bitter divorce with her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos.
Despite authorities launching an extensive search, her body was never found.
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"It’s sort of everyone’s suburban nightmare," author Richard Cohen told Fox News Digital. "This mother of five in the middle of a very bad divorce – one of the most horrible divorces in Connecticut state history – doing the most mundane thing you can imagine. She drops her five kids off [at school] and is never seen again."
Cohen’s new book, titled "Murder in the Dollhouse: The Jennifer Dulos Story," delves into the death investigation that spooked the wealthy suburban neighborhood, and led to countless twists and turns.
"I first became interested in [Dulos’ story] because, even with the arrest warrants, the news was reporting the top line or the first paragraph," Cohen said. "Whereas when you got into it, it was all these status markers of the life that me and all my friends live – kid’s sports, practices, parental rights, what schools and towns are more prestigious, who is winning, who is losing, who is up, who is down."
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But to Cohen, Jennifer remained the central figure in a story that tore the curtain away from what appeared to be a normal family.
"I found that Jennifer had been turned into just a victim," Cohen said. "Like a two-dimensional character that stood for something."
Before becoming a mother of five, Jennifer worked as a playwright in New York City. Cohen pointed to her dream of creating a life-sized dollhouse for the inspiration behind the title of the book.
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"She had this obsession with dollhouses when she was a little girl," Cohen said. "She had this idea of creating a real dollhouse and building this fantasy for real."
At the time of her disappearance, Jennifer believed in curating a dream domestic life – a dream that Cohen believes she "was struggling with giving up."
The story of Jennifer’s quaint, suburban life took a sinister turn when authorities say she returned from dropping off her children to find her husband lying in wait inside their home.
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Police allege Fotis Dulos attacked his wife in their garage before driving off with her body.
"It starts out as a missing persons case, and then it becomes a missing body case," Cohen told Fox News Digital. "There’s enough of her own blood in her garage to determine that she was brutally murdered."
Seven months after she disappeared, Fotis was arrested and charged with her murder.
But the case took a turn three weeks later when investigators discovered Fotis unresponsive inside his home in an apparent suicide attempt.
In a note found near him, he "declared his innocence of the infamous and heinous crimes that the state has accused him of and claimed his lawyers have the evidence to prove it," his lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Fotis was transferred to a nearby medical center in New York City, where he later died.
"I found him chilling," Cohen said. "As I got into the story, I really came to believe that he was a psychopath."
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Cohen pointed to potential financial motivations surrounding Fotis’ marriage to his wife, who came from a wealthy family.
At the time of Jennifer’s disappearance, her husband was $7 million in debt and would have been able to access part of the children’s trust funds if she died, according to investigators. However, Fotis denied that allegation.
"So when he met Jennifer, she was from a wealthy family, well-connected and had a lot of money," Cohen said. "She could help him get what he wanted, which was to start a business."
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Cohen went on to suggest that Fotis ultimately got what he wanted from the couple’s marriage and wanted to run away with his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis.
"He wanted this other life and she was again an object," Cohen said. "And she was blocking him from what he wants. So the solution for him was to remove her."
Troconis, along with attorney Kent Mawhinney, were also arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder after police revealed they helped Fotis cover up his wife's disappearance while working to create an alibi.
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Last year, Troconis was found guilty of all charges filed against her, including conspiring to murder Jennifer. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
"This latest book, like many before it, is just another attempt to profit off of tragedy, speculation and sensationalism," Troconis' attorney, Darnell Crosland, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Michelle Troconis has been vilified for years based on narratives that ignore the facts and evidence. She continues to maintain her innocence and looks forward to clearing her name through the proper legal channels, not the court of public opinion or the pages of a tabloid-style publication."
Mawhinney pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of interfering with police in the case and was sentenced to 11 months in prison – equating to the amount of time he had already spent behind bars.
Mawhinney did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Despite the two convictions, Jennifer’s body was never recovered and she was declared legally dead in 2023 – an outcome that Cohen believes is an unjust ending for an already devastated family.
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"This woman in the prime of her life is killed and she doesn't get to see her kids grow up," Cohen told Fox News Digital. "Her kids don't get a mother, don't get a father and have a very tough legacy. Because what's the legacy of your mother was killed by your father, who then, in a fit of self-pity and fear, killed himself? So there can never be justice, but there's proper punishment – and it's sort of the best that we can do."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.