HARTFORD, Conn. _ Fotis Dulos died Thursday, two days after he was rushed to a New York City hospital in the wake of a suicide attempt, perhaps taking with him forever the mystery of what happened to his estranged wife, Jennifer Farber Dulos.
Dulos _ who was facing murder charges in the death of his wife _ was pronounced dead at 5:32 p.m. EST, his lawyer, Norm Pattis, said outside Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.
"It's been a truly horrific day for the family filled with difficult decisions, medical tests and meeting the requirements to determine death," Pattis said.
"As to those who contend that Mr. Dulos' death reflects a consciousness of guilt, we say no. We say it was more a conscience overborne with the weight of a world that was too busy to listen and wanted a story more than it wanted the truth," he said.
Pattis is taking the highly unusual step of asking the court to proceed with the criminal charges against Dulos despite his death so his name can be cleared. In a motion filed late Thursday, Pattis asked the court to substitute Dulos' estate as the defendant in the case and proceed to trial.
"Mr. Dulos' children should not be subjected to a lifetime coping with the fictional reality that their father murdered their mother in cold blood on the basis of baseless and rampant speculation," Pattis said in the motion." It went on: "Mr. Dulos right to confront these charges and to assert his innocence does not die with him."
Dulos' family from Greece arrived at Jacobi early Thursday morning to meet with doctors who have kept Dulos, 52, medically alive for the past few days until they could get to New York.
Faced with the possibility of going back to prison because of issues with his bail, Dulos took his own life. Sources said Dulos was in a vehicle inside the garage of his Jefferson Crossing home for at least an hour inhaling noxious carbon monoxide on Tuesday morning. He clamped a vacuum hose to the tailpipe of his Chevrolet Suburban and ran it into the vehicle.
Dulos was initially believed to be dead at his Farmington, Conn., home Tuesday but after nearly a half hour of CPR, a faint pulse was found and he was eventually taken by helicopter to Jacobi to use their hyperbaric chamber.
Farmington police found Dulos after receiving a call to do a wellness check on him after he failed to turn up in Stamford Superior Court for a hearing to likely revoke the $6 million bond placed on him after he was arrested earlier this month for the murder of Farber Dulos, who has been missing since she dropped their children off at a private school in New Canaan on May 24.
As doctors worked to keep Dulos alive in New York, state police detectives spent the early morning hours Thursday combing through his Jefferson Crossing home looking for notes and other evidence about the whereabouts of her body.
Sources told The Hartford Courant on Thursday morning that a note was found at the home claiming Dulos' innocence in the disappearance of Farber Dulos. The note said his attorneys had the evidence to prove it. There was nothing found during the search that gave any indication on where her body may be, sources said.
Dulos is accused of murdering his estranged wife last May 24 by "lying in wait" for her in the garage of her New Canaan home after she dropped off her children at school, according to court records.
Police believe Dulos attacked her in the garage of her New Canaan home and drove off with her body, which has not been found.
The case has garnered national media attention and has become an example for some of the problems with long-term divorces in Connecticut.
The couple had been going through a long and contentious divorce that included a battle over custody of their five children. A probate judge last year granted custody of their five children to their maternal grandmother, Gloria Farber.
Dulos' lawyer, Norm Pattis has floated several theories as to what happened to Farber Dulos, including suggesting that Farber Dulos may have staged her own disappearance in a plot similar to Gillian Flynn's 2012 novel "Gone Girl," in which a wife pretends to vanish to frame her husband for murder. He also has said that Farber Dulos may have engaged in a form of "revenge suicide" after receiving alarming medical news and suffering reversals in the couple's bitter divorce and custody battle.
Dulos, 52, is survived by his children as well as his sister Rena Dulos and other family in Greece and Spain. His sister, niece and brother-in-law arrived late Wednesday from Greece and met with doctors early Thursday morning to discuss his possibilities to survive.
Dulos has been arrested three times since Farber Dulos disappeared _ the first two times he was charged with tampering with evidence. In both of those cases he posted $500,000 bonds.
Those charges stem from surveillance video from Albany Avenue in Hartford on the night of May 24 which shows Dulos dropping garbage bags into trash cans in the area. State police recovered some of the bags and found the bloody, cut up Vineyard Vines shirt that Farber Dulos was wearing the day she disappeared as well as other items like sponges and paper towels that had Farber Dulos' blood on them.
Michelle Troconis, his girlfriend at the time Farber Dulos disappeared, also was arrested twice on tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges. Court records said Troconis was in the vehicle with him on Albany Avenue. She also has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. She is free on a combined $2.1 million in bonds.
A third person, Bloomfield attorney Kent Mawhinney, also has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and is currently being held on a $2 million bond.
Police said Troconis and Mawhinney helped try to cover up Farber Dulos' killing, according to court records.
Dulos, who had been under house arrest, was supposed to appear in Stamford Superior Court Tuesday for a bond hearing and faced the possibility of his $6 million bond being revoked and going back to jail. The South Carolina company that secured the bond had raised concerns about whether real estate he posted as collateral had been overvalued. Had the bond been revoked, Dulos could have been jailed while awaiting trial.
In a 35-page arrest warrant affidavit supporting Dulos' murder charge, state police detectives said they found Dulos' DNA on an inside doorknob to the mudroom of Farber Dulos' New Canaan home, along with his DNA and her blood mixed on a faucet in the home.
After tracking Dulos' phone to the North End of Hartford on the day Farber Dulos went missing, investigators said they found surveillance video showing a man they say is Dulos throwing out garbage bags in the area of Albany Avenue, court records said.
In the trash, investigators reported finding a number of items, including zip ties, a bloodstained poncho, a sponge and a bloodstained paper towel with Farber Dulos' DNA on it, court records said.
Police also traced a red Toyota truck they allege belongs to an employee of Dulos' luxury homebuilding company, Fore Group Inc., from Farmington to New Canaan and back on the morning of May 24. They allege it was Dulos driving the truck although none of the videos show the driver's face clearl. The vehicle was first seen in Fairfield about 6:30 a.m. and then was spotted parked at 7:40 a.m. in a turn around off Lapham Road in New Canaan, about 100 feet from where Farber Dulos' Suburban was found abandoned later that day.
The Toyota returned to Mountain Spring Road where police allege Dulos cleaned up after the crime. Troconis told state police in one of her three interviews that she saw Dulos cleaning the front seat of the red truck. She said Dulos told her he had spilled coffee but when he handed her the stained paper towel, it didn't smell like coffee, court records said.
Police said in court records that they later found Farber Dulos' DNA on the front seat of the truck.
