The sister of Fotis Dulos on Monday spoke publicly in defense of her brother saying, “he is not the person who they say he is” and expressed how much her family loves his estranged wife, Jennifer Farber Dulos, who has been missing for more than a month.
“We really feel very worried first about Jennifer,” Rena Dulos said in a phone interview from Greece.
“Fotis is very sad, very emotional and very tired. This isn’t something that he was expecting he would ever face,” she said.
Rena Dulos is 13 years older than her brother. She said that people in Greece have a much different view of the shocking case that has become an international story. Jennifer Farber Dulos has been missing since May 24 when she dropped off the couple’s five children at a private school in New Canaan.
That same day, police said a man resembling Fotis Dulos was captured on surveillance video dropping two contractor-sized garbage bags into trash cans along Albany Avenue in Hartford that investigators said contained bloody sponges, clothes and towels. Prosecutors have said the blood belongs to Farber Dulos.
Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, have both been charged with tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in connection with Farber Dulos’ disappearance, and are currently free after each posted $500,000 bail. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“I hope the truth will shine as soon as possible and people will understand that this is not the Fotis that they are thinking he is," Rena Dulos said. "There may have been problems with Jennifer, of course, but he couldn’t do such a thing. We all loved Jennifer very much. We had a fantastic relationship with her.”
The couple have been embroiled in a bitter two-year divorce and custody battle, a contentious case full of back-and-forth accusations of ignoring court orders, threatening each other in front of the children and allegations of threats to hurt the children or each other. The couple’s five children have been staying in their grandmother Gloria Farber’s New York City apartment since May 24.
The grandmother sought temporary custody of the children in probate court. The filings in that case have not been made public.
Rena Dulos said that she had talked to Jennifer about the divorce two years ago when it started. She said that she was emailing with her until about six months ago when her lawyers told her to stop.
“We had a fantastic relationship even when the court situation started. She was a loving person for our family and we are so much worrying about her and I hope everything will end nicely,” Rena Dulos said.
While the case has captured daily headlines here in the United States, it has been covered differently by the Greek press, she said.
“All his friends, schoolmates and family are very skeptical because they know Fotis since his childhood and they know this isn’t something that Fotis could do. It is so far from who he is,” she said.
Family members have come from Greece to stay with Dulos at his Farmington home so that he isn’t alone, she said. Some of them have been photographed with him by television cameras following his every move since he posted bail last month.
“We are trying not to leave him alone. He is so much alone he cannot communicate with the kids. It’s very difficult and very sad, this situation,” she said.
Rena Dulos said she felt an obligation to speak up so that there is fair coverage of the story.
“I know him so well and I can tell you the truth is very far from what we know so far,” she said.
Rena Dulos said the whole family came to Fotis and Jennifer’s wedding including their mother who has since died.
“It was great day, a beautiful day," she said. “We are so much worried about her. It is really a shocking situation.”
<p">On the day Farber Dulos disappeared, police found her black Suburban SUV on a road near Waveny Park close to her home. State police have systematically searched all of the properties Dulos’ luxury home building company, the Fore Group, owns in New Canaan, Farmington and Avon and other places that he frequented like a lake in Avon where he took the children water skiing.
State police detectives also spent three weeks combing through 30-35 tons of trash a day looking for evidence. They wrapped up that search last month without saying if they had found anything significant that could be tied to Farber Dulos’ disappearance.
As many as 25 to 30 investigators across a half-dozen agencies are working the case on a daily basis, and New Canaan police have received more than 800 tips and 80 surveillance camera submissions to date, New Canaan police have said.