Jennifer Dulos has been missing for 45 days.
The Connecticut mum dropped her five children off at school, and then vanished.
The car she’d been driving was located that same day, but there was no trace of the 50-year-old.
Jennifer and her husband, Fotis Dulos, had been involved in a bitter custody battle surrounding the kids who range in age between 8-13.
The case is still ongoing. Post continues after video.
Damning evidence was found in Jennifer’s home, the one she lived in after separating from her husband.
Her DNA was found mixed with his on a kitchen sink faucet. Blood splatter and evidence of cleanup attempts was also discovered in the home.
Video footage points towards two suspects: Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, who allegedly appear in CCTV footage disposing of garbage bags nearby.
Inside the garbage bags authorities found clothing and sponges containing Jennifer’s DNA.
The pair haven’t been arrested over the murder, and they are currently facing charges of tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution.
“We tell ourselves that this kind of nightmare happens to people in stories, not to those we know and love,” reads a statement from Jennifer’s family.
“But this situation is real, and it is dire. Each passing day intensifies the impact of this tragedy on Jennifer’s children.”
Unfortunately this story is not unfamiliar, and it’s been drawing comparisons to other tragedies that bare similar markings.
On December 24, 2002, Laci Peterson was reported missing. The Californian woman was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with her first son, who she and her husband, Scott Peterson, were planning to name Conner.
It emerged that Peterson had been involved in numerous affairs including one with a woman called Amber Frey, who had no idea he was married and helped police convict him of murder.
The bodies of Laci and her unborn son were discovered in April 2003, just north of where Peterson claimed he'd gone fishing the day his wife disappeared.
He was sentenced to death via lethal injection and is currently serving time at San Quentin State Prison. He was on death row up until March of this year, when the state put a moratorium on 737 death row inmates.
Another story with comparable details is the gruesome tale of the Watts' family.
A day after his pregnant wife and two young daughters went “missing” in August 2018, Chris Watts stood outside his family home and begged for their safe return.
The bodies of his pregnant wife Shanann, and daughters Bella, four, and Celeste, three, were found submerged in crude oil vats on a property owned by Watts’ then employer, Anadarko Petroleum; one of the largest oil and gas drilling companies in Colorado.
He too had been having an affair with a woman called Nichol Kessinger who herself has commented on the comparisons to the Peterson case.
Watts pleaded guilty to murdering his family and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
But Shannon and Laci's stories aren't the only horrific murders being compared to Jennifer's disappearance, a case which is still unsolved.
Her story is also drawing comparisons to Gone Girl, a fictional thriller by author Gillian Flynn.
In the book turned film, Nick Dunne returns home to find his wife Amy missing. After a walkthrough of their house, police find evidence of a struggle and cleaned up remnants of blood stains.
As the narrative unravels, it's revealed their marriage had disintegrated and they'd both lost their jobs. Dunne was also cheating on Amy with one of his students. A diary reveals that Amy had fears that Nick would kill her.
But it's soon revealed Amy is alive and well and had changed her appearance and gone into hiding after learning of her husband's affair. She decides to punish him by framing him for her murder.
Fotis Dulos's lawyer is using the 2012 novel to try to prove his client's innocence.
Norm Pattis, told Fox News that Jennifer "had a troubled past," and described her as a writer who "wrote a manuscript similar to 'Gone Girl.'"
A spokesperson for the missing woman's family and friends rebuked the comments, saying: "This is not fiction or a movie. This is real life, as experienced every single day by Jennifer’s five young children, her family, and her friends".
The book's author has also spoken out, telling WTNH-TV she is "absolutely sickened that a work of fiction written by me would be used by Fotis Dulos’s lawyer as a defence, and as a hypothetical, sensationalised motive behind Jennifer’s very real and very tragic disappearance".
Both Dulos and his girlfriend are out on bail, but Jennifer's children are currently staying with her mother as investigations continue.
Top Comments
Even though he is a total scum bag, I'm unsure of Scott Peterson's guilt. There was just no window for him to have committed the murder, based on the timeline and there is absolutely no physical evidence that he did it. Regardless, he should not have been convicted on the evidence presented. An affair is not proof of murder, and that's all the prosecution had.