‘What’s the ending going to be?’ Michelle Troconis’ fate in the hands of the jury

The criminal case for Michelle Troconis is in the jury's hands after attorneys delivered powerful closing arguments for two hours on Tuesday morning.

The criminal case for Michelle Troconis is in the jury’s hands after attorneys delivered powerful closing arguments for two hours at Stamford Superior Court on Tuesday morning.

State prosecutor Sean McGuiness ended the two hours by pulling up photos of three handwritten timelines, dubbed by investigators as “alibi scripts,” that have been at the center of this case for nearly five years.

McGuiness likened the case of Jennifer Farber Dulos’ disappearance to a script with three acts.

The first act, he said, was the premeditated murder of Farber Dulos, the New Canaan mother of five. Investigators allege that Fotis Dulos, Farber Dulos’ estranged husband and then-boyfriend of Troconis, was waiting in her garage at her home in New Canaan after she dropped their five kids off at school and killed her.

The second was the cover-up and clean-up of those crimes and the contradictory statements Troconis made to investigators who were trying to find Dulos’ missing wife.

The third act, he said, is now up to the jury.

“But she doesn’t get to write it,” he said, pointing emphatically toward Troconis. “You get to write it.”

“What’s the ending going to be?” he asked the jury.

‘People have murdered for far less,’ prosecutor says during charge conference in Troconis trial

Six jurors — who heard 25 days of evidence from state prosecutors and 2 1/2 days from the defense — are now deliberating whether the state proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Troconis is guilty of the six charges against her.

Troconis, 49, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit tampering with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and second-degree hindering prosecution in connection with the disappearance of Farber Dulos nearly five years ago.

Standing just feet from the five Dulos children, who sat in the courtroom flanked by family and friends, McGuiness said that the heart of the case is “a mother’s worst nightmare”

He named the Dulos’ five children and said they “went to bed on May 24 not knowing where their mother was and she still has not arrived.”

Farber Dulos disappeared on May 24, 2019, amid a contentious divorce and custody battle with Dulos. He said it is up to the jury to decide who is responsible for that.

Nearly 80 people were seated in the courtroom for closing arguments — more than have been present any day of the trial thus far — including the Dulos children, their nanny and Troconis’ teenage daughter.

Even more people were seated in an overflow room to accommodate the crowd, which was larger on Tuesday than it had been any day of the trial.

During closing arguments, Assistant Supervisory State’s Attorney Michelle Manning said, “The evidence shows the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of each and every count.”

Since Troconis’ trial began on Jan. 11, state prosecutors have built a lengthy case against her, presenting more than 150 exhibits of evidence and calling dozens of witnesses, from Farber Dulos’ 88-year-old mother to the nanny to the five Dulos children, to DNA experts, forensic analysts and an FBI agent.

Prosecutors allege that Troconis plotted with Dulos to kill his wife, motivated by an ongoing divorce and custody battle so contentious that she threatened to move out of state and referred to the two years of court proceedings as “torture.”

Manning, at the start of her argument, said that the first thing she wanted the jury to know was that Farber Dulos is, without a doubt, dead.

“Jennifer is dead. Let’s be very clear, she was murdered on May 24, 2019,” Manning said. “The defense would have you believe she ran away from her kids. Jennifer is dead. And (Dulos) and Michelle Troconis intended for that to happen. They agreed to work together for that to happen.”

She reiterated that “Jennifer did not run away from her family, her friends, her five children.”

Evidence showed swipes of blood and footprints in the garage of Farber Dulos’ home at 69 Welles Lane in New Canaan, Manning said, evidence like sponges and duct tape found in trash bins on Albany Avenue in Hartford and bloodstain patterns that show Farber Dulos was struck by at least two blows.

“But Fotis Dulos needed help to commit that murder, he needed an alibi, he needed the defendant,” she said.

Manning pointed to omissions and contradictory statements Troconis made during her three interviews with investigators that she said were circumstantial evidence proving that Troconis was part of the plan to carry out the plan to murder Farber Dulos.

Troconis and her defense team have maintained her innocence.

“Michelle knew nothing,” Troconis defense attorney Jon Schoenhorn said in his closing argument.

In Schoenhorn hour-long closing argument, he said that his client was not part of what the state claims was a “nefarious, murderous plot.”

“Michelle is not the remaining half of the scheming plot,” he said. “She was never part of the equation.”

Much of his defense hinged on accusations of guilt against Pawel Gumienny, the former project manager for Dulos’ company, Fore Group, who testified against Troconis after being offered immunity from the state.

He poked holes in Gumienny’s testimony, which prosecutors defended the credibility of in their arguments.

“Whatever Fotis Dulos did it was not for or because of Michelle and it was not with her,” Schoenhorn said, while he pulled up medical records that indicated Dulos’ manner of death was suicide caused by carbon monoxide inhalation.

“Fotis put up a facade until his last poisoned breath,” he said. “And died without ever acknowledging his actions, or admitting his role, even to his own children.”

He also told the jury that the Dulos, who carried out these alleged crimes, was not the Dulos he said his client knew. Troconis, he said, met Dulos at a water skiing club in Miami in 2016. They had shared interests in water skiing and children the same age.

“Whatever Fotis Dulos’ role was in the disappearance and likely death of Jennifer Farber Dulos, Michelle Troconis did not know,” Schoenhorn said. “In fact, she didn’t know that Fotis Dulos was capable of doing something like this.”

Schoenhorn asked the jury to consider how they judge people they love, like a significant other.

“The people that we trust and believe in are our friends and loved ones,” he said. “People usually are who they say they are, we don’t immediately distrust them even when red flags arise.”

He said people like Troconis default to believing those they love and not assuming that they are being manipulated, even when there are red flags.

“We don’t immediately decide that they are, what? About to murder somebody?” he said.

Schoenhorn said that what happened to Troconis “will remain an unfinished puzzle” and reminded the jury that this is a trial for Troconis, not Dulos. He said that to convict his client, the jurors would have to agree that Dulos murdered Farber Dulos and that Troconis was a part of that plot.

“That she knew what was in it, knew its purpose and what she did was the same exact intent as whatever Fotis Dulos had planned,” he said.

He said again that there was only speculation.

“There’s nothing to suggest that Michelle had any clue about what was going to happen in New Canaan May 24, 2019,” Schoenhorn said. “Again, Michelle simply did not know.”

Troconis’ defense has repeatedly said that when riding in the passenger seat to Albany Avenue, where Dulos disposed of evidence linked to Farber Dulos in city trash bins, Troconis thought they were just going to a West Hartford Starbucks.

The defense called a memory expert to the stand who testified that a person’s memory can be contaminated by “implanted” memories. She also testified that factors like sleep deprivation and stress can impact how a person processes memory.

The defense also called a linguistics expert who testified that she would evaluate Troconis’ English at a moderate proficiency. Troconis is a native Spanish speaker who grew up in South America. Her interviews with investigators were conducted in English, but she used a Spanish interpreter throughout the trial.

Schoenhorn argued that these factors, language and repeated questioning by investigators — who told Troconis that they knew she was lying — led to inconsistent statements by Troconis across the three interviews she did in June and August 2019.

Troconis initially told investigators she saw Dulos the morning of May 24, 2019, took a shower with him then saw him in his office. She later said she didn’t see him at all that morning.

Schoenhorn said the state’s case, filled with allegations that his client intentionally lied to police, knew that Dulos was destroying evidence when they went to Albany Avenue in Hartford and an Avon carwash,
sounded like a scripted cable TV movie, and was not based on evidence.

“It’s speculation, it’s conjecture, it’s guesswork,” he said.

Now it is up to a jury of six to decide whether the state presented enough evidence to find Troconis guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.