GUILTY CT - Jennifer Dulos, 50, deceased/not found, New Canaan, 24 May 2019 *ARRESTS* #68

[afitzy]

Just some quick thoughts; my pen is out of ink for the evening; and, wine ‘o clock started 2 hours ago, for which I was on time (!).

Schoenhorn seems to be running plays out of the “Unguided Missile Legal Playbook; Criminal Defense Attorney Version” - especially the chapter on how to distract attention from reprehensible clients and abysmal facts. Then you need to refer to the annex of the playbook for the special circumstances - like Casey Anthony- who was at one time also was the most hated woman in America, or on the internet, or in the whole world (including middle earth). Anthony’s attorney - Jose Baez, was bafoonery personified - until tot-mom walked. Some of Baez’s spaghetti style worked in terms of confusing the jury into thinking there was reasonable doubt. I think Schoernhorn (can someone tell me how many n’s, h’s and vowels are in his name) samples this bombastic approach because his only strategy is causing confusing, taking sequential events out of order and disconnecting them; creating false equivalents; acting indignantly and talking in circular, nonsensical run on speaking objections while the jury is present until the judge hopefully stops him - what was this called - talking cross? But it did not work for him and his client. What were the other options?

Why no Brady? I wonder if it just took him a while to look at all the evidence he had because he was so busy manipulating the media, pandering to his client’s expansive orbit, and worrying about getting her ankle monitor into her ski boot. To be fair - I don’t know when the State produced the warrant affidavit covering the custody report. The date on the warrant is probably different from when the State produced it to the Defense. He may have had less time to hit his head on the obvious Brady issue. There was a late data dump by the State consisting of a lot of stuff at one point but I don’t know the timing. But still - a defense attorney’s brain should go right to Brady, and not to bullying the Chief Court Reporter for Family Count. A true head scratcher. Anger issues? Who knows.

Why did it get so extremely personal with him with the Family Court? You’ve got me there. IMO - he escalated things so disproportionately at the expense of his client and reputation. Is he married? Does he have kids? Does he have a dog? SUV or pickup truck? Was he raised by wolves? He exhibits a lot of e head-scratching unhinged behavior that interferes with his representation of his client IMO. And blazing that trail of destruction through all those courtrooms. It’s not professional. There are clients who seek out this variety of lawyer; so it’s hard for me to say whether this is how he is, or if he morphed into this oddity.

Definitely wine of clock for you @lucegirl! So much hard and no about confusing work! Kudos!!!!

I think the name is SCHOENHORN but prefer Horn!

Thanks for all of this! Puzzling out the inexplicable or chaotic is hard as we have been watching Horn for over 4 years now and most of this time has been spent scratching our heads so reading your take on things is so helpful!

Alot of words, threats, insinuations, tap-dancing and smoke from Horn but little in the way of substance imo could ever be seen. I'll never forget watching him in action early on in the pretrial period and thinking how could anyone think that preaching at a Judge or endless complaining would ever work on behalf of a client? He seems to simply like to hear his own voice and rarely seems to pay too much attention to witness on the stand and instead moves into 'testimony cross' mode where the witness becomes simply confused because there was never a question asked in sometimes 10 mins of Horn Horning! I've never seen anything like it. Even Pattis on cross made sure that the witness knew what the question was!

How many years did we spend listening to Horn Horning about 'all the errors in the AA's? Way too long. But, we never heard the substance of what precisely his issues were. Nope. Horn tried to throw Judge Blawie under the bus for signing the warrants and even roped in Judge White at some point as well iirc on the issue as well but he never defined precisely what he meant as the goal so far as I can tell was to disparage LE in the Media to play on the BLM news of the day at the time. It was quite chaotic imo and never seemed strategic but it also never seemed to be tied back to verifiable facts. Turns out Horns fixation on the AAs was mainly the 30 stops/30 bags early in the investigation misinformation that Det. Kimball addressed in the MT trial iirc rather than a long line of other errors. IDK, given that the AAs for FD and MT were quite long (over 30 pages each iirc) and the investigation was clearly ongoing and fluid, the fact that the stop count and bag count on Albany was the 'big error' its hard to take this line of Horn Horning at all seriously especially given the brilliance of the C4 video that made it clear that FD and MT were dropping off bags but also that they were off of camera for a period of time while doing so as well. But, I lost count of the number of pretrial hearing Horn had Det. Kimball hauled into to discuss this and all of his other 'non issue issues'. I give Det. Kimball credit for standing up to non stop abuse from Horn for over 4 years because imo the abuse was real and relentless. I also give the States Attys that worked on the MT case credit for patience but I will never for the life of me understand why they didn't play hardball sooner to stop the Horn insanity. It was clear the Horn was rarely prepared and frankly it wouldn't have taken all that much to call him on his lack of preparedness imo Baffling.

I had to put myself on a personal time out with a good portion of the pretrial motion activity as so little of the work actually done by Horn seemed constructive and in the best interests of his client. What struck me is that Horn Horned on for ages about the State not handing over evidence and then once they did get it all to him, I'm not totally certain he read it or processed it. He seemed over his head on the forensic evidence, security camera technology, and who can forget the cell tower 'testimony cross'. MT was fixated on removing the bracelet and so IDK how many times Horn tried to have it removed and each time the Court was treated to pictures and descriptions of the issues. It was wild. Then MT had her artist friend produce the nudes of her wearing the bracelet and talking about it as a device of torture and torment. This went on for way too long imo.

I think the 'spaghetti' phrase you use captures so much of what was seen both pre trial and in the trial as Horn just kept Horning and was simply playing the odds that something might stick. Having the MT cell phone kicked I think was more of a spaghetti move that got lucky as the research librarians that I asked to help me understand the lack of exigent circumstances that Judge R allegedly saw very much struggled with the Horn cites and argument absent the unfortunate search warrant issue. Not being an attorney I can't speak to what these research folks saw in the cites, but putting myself in the shoes of the police officers on the ground at 4JX the circumstances at that times seemed to tick all the required boxes that define exigent imo. But, the CSP fumble on the issue of the search warrant was real and I believe it might have been connected to their byzantine organisation structure and the overall size of the investigation team where the right simply didn't know what the left was doing at that moment in time. But, for the officer in charge at 4JX to have allegedly not read the search warrant (iirc this was the alleged issue) seems inexcusable but with everything else that was going on, I can see this being a sad operational reality amidst chaos at the time.

I think what bothered me so much about Horn was the fact that he simply seemed to waste inordinate about of Court time and resources in a way I found to be absolutely indiscriminate. The CT judiciary is small, Judges are few, States Attorney Office is grossly understaffed and COVID threw a bomb at an already backlogged schedule. But, Horn seemed to want to delay (or his client demanded that he delay) so in this regard he was successful for his client as she was able to be in CO with her daughter for 4 precious years after being charged.

Enjoy your wine and weekend!

MOO

 

[afitzy]

Why wouldn’t the Judge have allowed that information to be presented?

I'm not an attorney so will defer to them as it relates to the rules of evidence and admissibility criteria which can be complicated. All we know was what MT did in fact file with Farmington PD with the assistance of KM was not allowed to be discussed at her trial by Judge R and it was discussed at sidebar as we saw that happen but didn't hear the sidebar discussion so don't know the reason it was disallowed. The MT document is in the public domain and has been published here on WS ages ago in a prior thread. I think our speculation long ago was that the filing was made to facilitate claims made by FD in Family Court and that the reality was MT had zero reason to believe she was in any danger from JF and that she wasn't being followed around by mysterious people who were somehow placed there by JF to harm and threaten her.

MOO

 

[MollyDDD]

Poor Jack is gone after 10 years of service as my Avatar. He was an homage to one of my favorite legal movies - A Few Good Men.

The runner up was the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python.

Honorable mention to Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller who looks a lot like a certain Esteemed Defense Counsel after a bad loss.

lol, you are so right, he does! The rabbit’s cute too, especially with Easter around the corner. ()()
~ ~
*

 

[MollyDDD]

Poor Jack is gone after 10 years of service as my Avatar. He was an homage to one of my favorite legal movies - A Few Good Men.

The runner up was the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python.

Honorable mention to Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller who looks a lot like a certain Esteemed Defense Counsel after a bad loss.

Bunny!

 

[lucegirl]

All of this tempest in a teapot over the report leaves me perplexed. IF we assume it said negative things about JFD (just for the sake of argument) WHAT would that accomplish at this juncture? The original claim was that FD had no motive to kill JFD because this magical report was going to restore his custody. So it's supposed to prove FD didn't do it? That seems water under the bridge after all the DNA results came in and then his demise. How can the results of the report clear MT from ALL of those coincidences? Desperation... grasping at straws... Don Quixote's windmills?

I completely agree with you. In fact, before I dug into why the Defense felt the need to dangle it into thin air every 5 minutes, I wondered why the State didn’t try to demystify it -without trying to bring it into evidence (which wasn’t really an option), but IMO, the State contributed to its intrigue on a certain level.

Obviously - not many people (at least non-felons), know what is in the report; but, like you said, was there anything so damning one way or another that the verdict would have hinged on it?

I personally doubt it - I don’t know what were the credentials of the doctor, which side engaged the doctor, is the doctor an expert who testifies on the regular; the doctor left the stand? Good grief.

I don’t know if the State could have, or just declined, to take on the credibility of the report and the author without getting into the substance - if the court would have allowed that. It’s the worst piece of non evidence just to the extent it caused confusion.

I have read multiple accounts of the report - that “FD was the better parent”; to there was no evidence Jennifer was inclined to self harm - and that consequently, the report was more indicative of foul play v Gone Girl.

If the report had come in - my guess is the State and Defense positions would have likely canceled each other out.

But - I would have liked it if the State had been more aggressive in asserting that this custody report is a red herring. But that strategy could have also backfired, so I think the State, knowing way more than we, made the right decision to focus on the irrefutable evidence and not the Greek salad.

 

[afitzy]

Poor Jack is gone after 10 years of service as my Avatar. He was an homage to one of my favorite legal movies - A Few Good Men.

The runner up was the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python.

Honorable mention to Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller who looks a lot like a certain Esteemed Defense Counsel after a bad loss.

IDK, tough call on the avatar as Jack is iconic as is the movie.

Cat is classic though too as are your other choices. Tough call.

Partial to the cat even though I'm not a cat person as its the combo of the snarky facial expression and the nail file that never fails to raise a smile and giggle which in these times and with this crazy case is pretty important I think! Its too bad the avatar can't be a video as its the moving nail file that cracks me up every time I see it.

For the longest time I just had a black dot that looked like a black hole (made sense to me given the status of the dulos case at the time!) until someone told me I should put a figure there! Have no idea how to change it and simply don't care even though I do love road runner but I love Wiley as well!

But, no matter which avatar you choose you are @lucegirl and that is all that matters!

MOO

 

[lucegirl]

Going to see how I get on with the bunny. I do love the cat snark. Such a tough call. So many problems- lol.

At the end of the day - I like the legal system to just get the damn thing right. I think this one is on the right track. Jury verdicts are really hard to mess with absent something crazy; so I think we just need to keep this one on the tracks.

And - anytime Horn can be a noun and verb, in the same sentence, is the cherry on top!

 

[AbbyG]

I completely agree with you. In fact, before I dug into why the Defense felt the need to dangle it into thin air every 5 minutes, I wondered why the State didn’t try to demystify it -without trying to bring it into evidence (which wasn’t really an option), but IMO, the State contributed to its intrigue on a certain level.

Obviously - not many people (at least non-felons), know what is in the report; but, like you said, was there anything so damning one way or another that the verdict would have hinged on it?

I personally doubt it - I don’t know what were the credentials of the doctor, which side engaged the doctor, is the doctor an expert who testifies on the regular; the doctor left the stand? Good grief.

I don’t know if the State could have, or just declined, to take on the credibility of the report and the author without getting into the substance - if the court would have allowed that. It’s the worst piece of non evidence just to the extent it caused confusion.

I have read multiple accounts of the report - that “FD was the better parent”; to there was no evidence Jennifer was inclined to self harm - and that consequently, the report was more indicative of foul play v Gone Girl.

If the report had come in - my guess is the State and Defense positions would have likely canceled each other out.

But - I would have liked it if the State had been more aggressive in asserting that this custody report is a red herring. But that strategy could have also backfired, so I think the State, knowing way more than we, made the right decision to focus on the irrefutable evidence and not the Greek salad.

I've never seen how anything in that report could have helped MT because once you accept that FD murdered JFd, what was the point? The Gone Girl theory was over. It was never going to fly. The evidence that FD murdered his wife is irrefutable, and continuing to try to deny that and defend him only hurts MT. So if some report states JFd had BPD (and I think the ideas was Borderline not Bipolar, btw Borderline being much iffier for a therapist not even her own to prove, much more sexist, and much more likely to be simply be dx based on issues having to do with how anyone would react to a contentious divorce from an emotionally abusive man proposing moving his mistress in with you) - so what?? Makes no sense that they saw some great save in this report other than to say FD had no motive to murder JFd 'cause he was feeling so great - when it is so clear he DID murder her. He did that. Useless to keep honking about how she could have run away, blah blah, the point is HE MURDERED HER so a much better defense would have been to hammer home what a liar he was, how he lied to MT, how she was clueless - they played the wrong hand by continuing to unite MT with supposedly wonderful and upstanding FD (blech). The ONLY possible save for MT was to distance herself from and vilify FD to the max, but they barely wanted to play that hand. They brought in witnesses that helped THE PROSECUTION by saying how the happy couple were celebrating together, united, the perfect couple - absurd. They didn't even grab at MT claiming she was moving away according to Miss Petu. Prosecution got her to say that was not even necessarily AWAY from FD, suggesting perhaps the duo planned to move away together. Anyway I digress but - that report was a USELESS red herring and it seems it only served to show MT as a vindictive person who does not follow the law and who is STILL raging angry at JFd. All MOO.

 

[DeDee]

Just some quick thoughts; my pen is out of ink for the evening; and, wine ‘o clock started 2 hours ago, for which I was on time (!).

Schoenhorn seems to be running plays out of the “Unguided Missile Legal Playbook; Criminal Defense Attorney Version” - especially the chapter on how to distract attention from reprehensible clients and abysmal facts. Then you need to refer to the annex of the playbook for the special circumstances - like Casey Anthony- who was at one time also was the most hated woman in America, or on the internet, or in the whole world (including middle earth). Anthony’s attorney - Jose Baez, was bafoonery personified - until tot-mom walked. Some of Baez’s spaghetti style worked in terms of confusing the jury into thinking there was reasonable doubt. I think Schoernhorn (can someone tell me how many n’s, h’s and vowels are in his name) samples this bombastic approach because his only strategy is causing confusing, taking sequential events out of order and disconnecting them; creating false equivalents; acting indignantly and talking in circular, nonsensical run on speaking objections while the jury is present until the judge hopefully stops him - what was this called - talking cross? But it did not work for him and his client. What were the other options?

Why no Brady? I wonder if it just took him a while to look at all the evidence he had because he was so busy manipulating the media, pandering to his client’s expansive orbit, and worrying about getting her ankle monitor into her ski boot. To be fair - I don’t know when the State produced the warrant affidavit covering the custody report. The date on the warrant is probably different from when the State produced it to the Defense. He may have had less time to hit his head on the obvious Brady issue. There was a late data dump by the State consisting of a lot of stuff at one point but I don’t know the timing. But still - a defense attorney’s brain should go right to Brady, and not to bullying the Chief Court Reporter for Family Count. A true head scratcher. Anger issues? Who knows.

Why did it get so extremely personal with him with the Family Court? You’ve got me there. IMO - he escalated things so disproportionately at the expense of his client and reputation. Is he married? Does he have kids? Does he have a dog? SUV or pickup truck? Was he raised by wolves? He exhibits a lot of e head-scratching unhinged behavior that interferes with his representation of his client IMO. And blazing that trail of destruction through all those courtrooms. It’s not professional. There are clients who seek out this variety of lawyer; so it’s hard for me to say whether this is how he is, or if he morphed into this oddity.

Life stopped for a brief moment when I read this

"Is he married? Does he have kids? Does he have a dog? SUV or pickup truck? Was he raised by wolves?"

Jack was perfect for the trial with the lawyer in you lecturing us in the finer legalities involved in this murderous plot. Thank you, kindly.

 

[SkylarSid]

I love the kitty, but it reminds me a little of MT during the trial.

DBM

 

[Ruminations]

Yes, the FD manipulation was real and relentless and MT followed along every step of the way as we've been tracking now for years. It all seemed to be designed to torment and torture JF and to slow the Family Court action to a halt and to preclude FD from ever having to pay child support (he never did in the 2 years he was in Family Court). FD make a mockery of the CT Judiciary in 3 Courts imo (Family, Civil and Criminal) and no doubt taught MT and Mama Troconis well too.

I was thinking the other day about the eternal question of exactly how long the conspiracy plan had been in the works?

Remember ages ago when it was reported that MT went into the local Probate (CT has fiefdom Probate offices scattered throughout the State in true medieval fashion imo) to allegedly read the Trust documents in place for the Dulos children. Funny that the MT ability to function in english is never an issue on any of these FD missions she undertook! We never heard anything about this trip at her trial and the 'Protective Order against JF'' she and KM seemed to have cooked up and filed with Farmington PD seemed to have been killed in sidebar by Judge R (prior bad acts possibly idk as its above my pay grade). There were any number of other stunts that FD and MT tried with Family Court that were also not discussed at her Trial unfortunately and sadly the role of Atty Michael Rose in any of it was not discussed either.

MOO

I have a feeling that in fantasy stage, Fotis was planning to murder Jennifer since shortly after they reconnected.

He was probably frustrated by her parents' longevity.

Jennifer herself commented that he had detailed revenge fantasies- and liked studying "The Art of War." No doubt he also played "if I were to murder Jennifer" in his mind for years.

Then he found Michelle, who was easy to manipulate into thinking that everything that was wrong in her life was Jennifer's fault, and who didn't squash the fantasy talk.

I'd put my money on the decision to take action for real was around when they were manipulating the psych report and Meehan. The could have been planning, in rough outlines, to attempt to destroy Jennifer mentally, wrest custody, then kill her. (Because that's what "healthy" people do!)

They were not as successful as planned with custody, as callous family court smelled something hinkyer than itself, and they were not successful at breaking Jennifer, who could NOT be rattled away from steadfastly standing by and up for her children.

But they did manage the murder.

It is amazing how "healthy" Michelle believes herself to be. And Fotis, with his goodbye note basically saying that NOTHING in the world is worth spending a day in jail far.... an amazing duo. Maybe that's a fair point. At least Michelle has been considerate enough to the people who love her to stick this fight out. She probably chose Fotis partly because next to him, she could tell herself she was healthy in comparison.

MOO

 

[afitzy]

Just some quick thoughts; my pen is out of ink for the evening; and, wine ‘o clock started 2 hours ago, for which I was on time (!).

Schoenhorn seems to be running plays out of the “Unguided Missile Legal Playbook; Criminal Defense Attorney Version” - especially the chapter on how to distract attention from reprehensible clients and abysmal facts. Then you need to refer to the annex of the playbook for the special circumstances - like Casey Anthony- who was at one time also was the most hated woman in America, or on the internet, or in the whole world (including middle earth). Anthony’s attorney - Jose Baez, was bafoonery personified - until tot-mom walked. Some of Baez’s spaghetti style worked in terms of confusing the jury into thinking there was reasonable doubt. I think Schoernhorn (can someone tell me how many n’s, h’s and vowels are in his name) samples this bombastic approach because his only strategy is causing confusing, taking sequential events out of order and disconnecting them; creating false equivalents; acting indignantly and talking in circular, nonsensical run on speaking objections while the jury is present until the judge hopefully stops him - what was this called - talking cross? But it did not work for him and his client. What were the other options?

Why no Brady? I wonder if it just took him a while to look at all the evidence he had because he was so busy manipulating the media, pandering to his client’s expansive orbit, and worrying about getting her ankle monitor into her ski boot. To be fair - I don’t know when the State produced the warrant affidavit covering the custody report. The date on the warrant is probably different from when the State produced it to the Defense. He may have had less time to hit his head on the obvious Brady issue. There was a late data dump by the State consisting of a lot of stuff at one point but I don’t know the timing. But still - a defense attorney’s brain should go right to Brady, and not to bullying the Chief Court Reporter for Family Count. A true head scratcher. Anger issues? Who knows.

Why did it get so extremely personal with him with the Family Court? You’ve got me there. IMO - he escalated things so disproportionately at the expense of his client and reputation. Is he married? Does he have kids? Does he have a dog? SUV or pickup truck? Was he raised by wolves? He exhibits a lot of e head-scratching unhinged behavior that interferes with his representation of his client IMO. And blazing that trail of destruction through all those courtrooms. It’s not professional. There are clients who seek out this variety of lawyer; so it’s hard for me to say whether this is how he is, or if he morphed into this oddity.

Did a online shopping stroll (favourite activity when I should be doing work) at Flask looking for the perfect virtual gift for what no doubt was a hugely painful task tracking Horn as he swung the wrecking ball at the CT judiciary.

Thank you!

It’s tough for us lay folks to get all these details and then understand them and no words sometimes for trying to understand the procedural issues in a criminal trial too!

Much appreciate your taking the time to explain it all to us!

Two images, one a faux gift of divine champagne and another one from a local wine shop to celebrate “wine o clock” on both the west and east coasts!

 

[afitzy]

I have a feeling that in fantasy stage, Fotis was planning to murder Jennifer since shortly after they reconnected.

He was probably frustrated by her parents' longevity.

Jennifer herself commented that he had detailed revenge fantasies- and liked studying "The Art of War." No doubt he also played "if I were to murder Jennifer" in his mind for years.

Then he found Michelle, who was easy to manipulate into thinking that everything that was wrong in her life was Jennifer's fault, and who didn't squash the fantasy talk.

I'd put my money on the decision to take action for real was around when they were manipulating the psych report and Meehan. The could have been planning, in rough outlines, to attempt to destroy Jennifer mentally, wrest custody, then kill her. (Because that's what "healthy" people do!)

They were not as successful as planned with custody, as callous family court smelled something hinkyer than itself, and they were not successful at breaking Jennifer, who could NOT be rattled away from steadfastly standing by and up for her children.

But they did manage the murder.

It is amazing how "healthy" Michelle believes herself to be. And Fotis, with his goodbye note basically saying that NOTHING in the world is worth spending a day in jail far.... an amazing duo. Maybe that's a fair point. At least Michelle has been considerate enough to the people who love her to stick this fight out. She probably chose Fotis partly because next to him, she could tell herself she was healthy in comparison.

MOO

Can’t disagree with any of this at all. I think the murder plan was in the noodling stage for possibly 1.5-2 years. FD knew his financial situation was a house of cards and so he took out mortgages on all his houses and that took him some time and planning imo and once this was done he moved on to gaining custody one way or another.

But on the “healthy” issue and narcs I’ve been reading about it a bit since we first heard about FD and MT. Then did a deep dive into malignant narcissists and just kept on reading. It’s been fascinating to learn more about something that many people casually refer to but few understand. So much conflicting information too.

It took awhile to understand my confusion with narcs as I was naive and honestly much of the written materials on the topic is contradictory and the academic research can be confusing too imo.

But, the topic of empathy came up over and over and even though this is a controversial topic in the research, I now believe that folks like FD and MT simply have no empathy. None.

Someone like a FD can be deceptive and tougher to unmask because he is imo possibly more highly evolved (vs a MT who makes no such pretense) and so can simulate empathy and caring to manipulate and deceive. But he also had anger issues that made him irrational and self destructive too imo.

We here talked for ages about MT bringing her young daughter to Farmington. Most were aghast and many were confused about bringing a young person into the household of one of the most infamous high conflict divorces in CT history. MT didn’t care and this was hard to understand imo except imo in the context of pure and simple narcissistic behaviour.

Another topic was the impact of the overall torment and torture inflicted on JF and also at times on the five children by FD and JF. This was done on a sustained basis and was imo evil and cruel but neither FD nor MT seemed to care.

We saw FD and MT weaponize the children against their mother and then use the legal system to inflict more pain and spend her money. I’ll never forget hearing the estimated legal bill that JF had at one point of nearly $70,000 per month.

FD complained bitterly about seeing JF money go up in smoke to the lawyers but he didn’t change his tactics to delay and lie to the court either. I think this was the period when he was working hard to suck all the money out of Fore so he could simply walk away and let the banks deal with the houses that weren’t selling in foreclosure.

FD dragged the divorce, lied to the court for two years about his finances and simply made resolution of anything impossible. He never paid a dime of child support in great part because the Judge couldn’t assess his finances because he kept lying on the forms and his attorneys never held him to account because he found ones that would simply do what he told them to do!

Judge Heller imo was out of her depth and perhaps a more experienced and well trained in DV judge might have put FD in jail or taken drastic steps sooner but she never did. I knew Judge Heller didn’t get who FD was when her answer to the destructive and damaging episode of FD and MT using the children to lie and manipulate JF was dealt with by removing custody from FD and sending him to therapy. Therapy for someone who didn’t understand what he did wrong to psychological damage his children simply seems pointless and ditto for MT. MT and FD had no issue using the children and MT daughter to get what they wanted and this was something that was also tough to understand how humans could do this to each other as it’s based in evil and cruelty with no regard to humanity etc. imo.

Therapy couldn’t or wouldn’t ever help FD and just served to escalate the anger and escalate the revenge fantasies. I get that family court judges have limited tools but Judge Heller was essentially back to square 1 in the Family Court proceedings by 4/19 shortly before the murder of JF and it imo was absolutely at the design of FD and his long string of corrupt attorneys, the last being Atty Michael Rose.

One of the more telling things I read ages ago about narcs is that few of them recognize anything about their behaviour. They simply steam roll through life and destruction follows. I think though hearing MT claim she was “healthy” was the tip off that she was anything BUT healthy!

I just hope the victims who were the children in this tragic case have the love and support of family and professionals to assist them as what they endured as young children was imo unimaginable to most folks here.

MT daughter was a victim in a horrific way as well and so I do hope she has others around her beyond the Troconis Crew who imo simply foster a false victim narrative that has zero to do with personal accountability and most likely was responsible possibly for MT being the way she was over the course of her 49 years!

It’s been heartbreaking to watch this all play out and for me at least it’s difficult knowing that even though the trial is over and MT is in prison that the after effects of the horrific crime will be a part of the lives of the children in various ways forever.

Moo

 

[I am not Sherlock H.]

Probably a combination of all of those things you mention. Ego, MT & Co.,
legal strategy, and of course his obsessive/compulsive disorder and narcissistic personality. What a mess.

Yes to all! And lucegirl and afitzy: what an extensive group of summaries of this sad saga. Great work there!

I keep looking back at the fact that defendant MT IIRC was ‘trumpeting’ the existence of that sealed ‘Report’ in one (or more?) of her early recorded interviews with investigators, and her earlier attorney.

So that ‘Report’ seems to have been an early interest for whatever reason, and believed to be of some supposed ‘value’. MOO

 

[I am not Sherlock H.]

DBM

 

[Mysticeilis]

Is anyone else going through withdrawal?

 

[sassyblue]

Is anyone else going through withdrawal?

Yes I am! But Chad Daybell's trial starts April 1st so I will have to be ready for that one.

 

[afitzy]

Is anyone else going through withdrawal?

Yes, it has certainly been a long and winding road followed by a long and winding trial of MT and withdrawal is real as you point out.

I've been dealing with the aftermath of the MT trial by trying to preserve some of the media coverage here on WS in case we need it for an eventual KM trial. Seeing the trial coverage helped me understand how many other people followed this trial and with great interest in the outcome.

IDK if what grabbed peoples attention was that perhaps there was something so horrifying about a suburban mom being murdered in her garage after dropping her children off at school on a nice sunny day by an ex husband who wouldn't or couldn't accept a divorce process he couldn't control? I know that all grabbed me 5 years ago as I was walking our pups in Waveny park as saw the signs going up and the emergency alert hit our phones that someone in town was 'missing'. It all seemed unimaginable then five years ago and frankly it still seems just unimaginable that it happened now even after the trial. I think alot about how the planning of FD and MT was such that had cameras not existed that they might not have been caught and that frightens me still. But, all this did happen and blessedly MT was brought to justice but it will take time to process and that is ok imo.

I put the KM attorney comments following the MT trial verdict into the KM thread here. Odd though to see the KM attorney virtually mirror in their comments the very early comments of Horn in the MT Trial. Curious coincidence or not? We hopefully will get to see! If you find any KM commentary please put it into the KM thread.

I captured the powerpoint slides from the Atty McGuiness closing as I found his presentation a compelling and powerful way to wrap up for the jury a trial with a mountain of evidence, much of which was circumstantial evidence. Trying to figure out the best place to save them for reference as if I place them here now on the thread they will be hard/impossible to find again. Will probably try to figure out how to put them together an then place them into the Media Thread here.

Just thinking of the challenges of this MT case for the State: no JF body, no trial of the murderer, no physical presence of the murderer due to his suicide, no interview by LE of the murderer, a word salad suicide note from FD and on and on through the forensic evidence and the 8+ hours of LE interviews by MT.

It was A LOT that we all heard about in the MT after first reading about much of it 5 years ago in the MT AA. The folks here have been sitting also with the underlying tragedy of JF 5 years ago and the lifelong impact that this tragedy no doubt had on her much loved children and her family and friends. It was also alot to see MT bring her then 11 year old daughter to CT to essentially live along side FD amidst the chaos of his involvement in one of the most high profile high conflict divorces in CT. We thought many times, what kind of mother would do such a thing to their young daughter and frankly just thinking about what MTs daughter no doubt heard and endured was certainly A LOT.

It was collectively A LOT and for those who watched the entire trial it will no doubt take awhile to get over this long and winding road experience that played out over 5 years.

We've been here most of us for a long time and this trial will no doubt stick with us for a good long time too as it most definitely was A LOT. Processing evil and hate in others such as what we saw I think in FD and MT is hard as the underlying crime was imo simply unimaginable and there is a good reason I think that it takes so long to process it as in many respects its a horrific crime that is blessedly beyond the comprehension of most human beings.

I hope though that nobody forgets the victim, JF and her 5 children as well as MT daughter as none of these folks deserved anything that has happened to them as the result of this very deliberate and horrific crime perpetrated by FD and MT and KM.

MOO

 

[afitzy]

IF anyone wants to place articles, video clips etc. into the Media Thread here is the link.

CT - Jennifer Dulos, 50, New Canaan, Media, Maps, Timeline, *NO DISCUSSION*

@cathyrusson BREAKING: Another juror is dismissed in #MichelleTroconis trial. Earlier in the trial an alternate juror was dismissed because he told one of the prosecutors, "We love you." This time a juror was talking about the case comparing it to "Gone Girl". Note, the case started with 5...

www.websleuths.com

 

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Michelle Troconis’ lawyer wants new trial, files motion to acquit

Michelle Troconis’ attorney Jon Schoenhorn has filed motions to have her acquitted and is asking for a new trial.

www.courant.com