The controversial lawyer representing a missing mother’s estranged husband has stated that he is investigating a possible “revenge-suicide hypothesis” just days after suggesting she may have staged her own “Gone Girl”-esqe disappearance.
Jennifer Dulos, 50, disappeared on May 24 in New Canaan, an affluent area of Connecticut. Her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, 51 and his 44-year-old girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, have since been charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution.
Fotis' lawyer Norm Pattis addressed reporters after a brief Wednesday divorce hearing and stated that his team is pursuing numerous leads including "actively contemplating a revenge-suicide hypothesis as an explanation for her disappearance." He claimed Jennifer made comments that gave his team “grave concerns about her safety and well-being.”
Pattis — the same lawyer defending controversial radio show host Alex Jones in his Sandy Hook defamation case — recently told the New York Post that Jennifer once wrote a book manuscript with a similar plot to Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel “Gone Girl.” That novel, which was also turned into a movie, is about a writer who fakes her own death to frame her husband. Pattis admits he never read the supposed 500-page manuscript. but said “this is a person who has a pretty florid imagination and motives to use it to hurt Mr. Dulos.”
A spokesperson for Jennifer’s family and friends denounced the suggestion.
“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,” spokesperson Carrie Luft said, according to Fox News. “We are heartbroken. Jennifer is not here to protect her children, and these false and irresponsible allegations hurt the children now and into the future.”
Jennifer and Fotis, both graduates from Brown University, married in 2004 and had five children together. Jennifer describes herself as a former writer from New York and she holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a masters in writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Jennifer filed for divorce in 2017 after Fotis began having an affair with Troconis. She reportedly filed an emergency order for full custody that same year.
Fotis broke his silence on Wednesday and, after his attorney’s statement, made a brief one of his own saying that his five kids are “constantly on his mind” and that “I love them and miss them very much."