Michelle Troconis claimed missing mother-of-five Jennifer Dulos was alive and in hiding when investigators confronted her about discrepancies in her story.
Troconis, 49, is on trial alleging she helped her late boyfriend Fotis Dulos cover up the murder of Dulos, who disappeared in May 2019 and whose remains have never been found.
On Friday, the jury was shown footage of the Venezuelan native's second interview with Connecticut police, which took place in June 2019.
In the interview, Troconis laid out her theory about Dulos' whereabouts after police asked her what she thought happened to Fotis' ex-wife.
“I think she’s still hiding somewhere,” Troconis replied.
Michelle Troconis claimed missing mother-of-five Jennifer Dulos was alive and in hiding when investigators confronted her about discrepancies in her story
As the questioning continued, Troconis became upset at one point and said, “I didn't do anything!” before putting her head in her arms
“Fotis told me that in the past, before they got married, she argued with her parents and then disappeared and moved to Aspen.”
Troconis continued, “And she got a $3 million inheritance from an aunt, lived in Aspen for three years and changed her name.”
Investigators then ask her if she would ever leave her own daughter without telling her where she is, before Michelle admits she wouldn't – and “it doesn't cross her mind at all.”
However, she adds: “As far as I know, she has borderline personality disorder.”
A detective replied, “And you got that information from Fotis?” That's the man who killed that woman…'
Troconis then becomes more and more annoyed as the questioning progresses and at one point says: “I didn't do anything!” before laying her head on the table with her forearms.
Throughout the interview, she repeats that she doesn't know what happened to Dulos, but recognizes that she is in trouble, saying at one point that she is “going to prison because of him.”
The “Gone Girl” theory, in which a woman fakes her murder to get revenge on her husband, was previously floated by Fotis' attorney before the alleged killer died by suicide while awaiting his murder trial.
Prosecutors allege Fotis brutally attacked Jennifer at her rented New Canaan home as she returned from the school run for her five children
The “Gone Girl” theory was previously floated by Fotis' attorney before the alleged killer died by suicide while awaiting his murder trial
Fotis' attorney Norm Pattis claimed that years ago Jennifer wrote a 500-page screenplay in the style of “Gone Girl,” a book in which a woman fakes her disappearance to blame her cheating husband.
Pattis also said Dulos had disappeared from New York before and had “lived under an assumed name for years” after an “interfamilial dispute over money.”
However, there is never any evidence to support the claim that Jennifer is alive, and her family has repeatedly denied this.
“Jennifer’s novel is not a mystery. “It is a character-driven story that follows a young woman through relationships and self-discovery over a period of years,” her friend Carrie Luft said in the statement on behalf of the family.
“Like all of Jennifer’s writings, it expresses a deep longing for human connection and the need to be accepted as one’s true self.”
On Thursday, former Connecticut State Police detective John Kimball told the court that he interviewed Troconis three times – on June 2, June 6 and August 13, 2019.
Jurors were shown footage of the first interview in which Troconis told officers that on May 24, 2019, she woke up, went to the bathroom and then “Fotis jumped in the shower with me.”
Prosecutors interrupted the footage to ask Kimball whether Troconis that morning “always maintained her statement that she showered Fotis on Dulos.”
“She didn’t,” Kimball said.
Troconis' lawyer Jon Schoenhorn, speaking to reporters outside court on Thursday, said police interviews would actually clear his client and show she did not intentionally change her story.
“You have to look at all the videos and judge for yourself whether what was said was supposedly changed, whether there was clarification, whether she was deprived of the opportunity to speak,” said the defense attorney.
Prosecutors allege Fotis brutally attacked Jennifer at her rented New Canaan property as she returned from the school run for her five children, who were between eight and 13 years old at the time, on the morning of May 24, 2019.
The state alleges he disposed of the evidence at her home before putting her body in her Chevy and driving about three miles away, where the SUV was found abandoned. Jennifer's body was never found.
Fotis and Troconis are accused of throwing trash bags containing bloody evidence, including a bra, T-shirt and razor, into various trash cans around Hartford in his Ford Raptor.
Jurors were presented with some of the bloodstained items in the courtroom while the Chevy Suburban was shown on the screen along with surveillance footage of Fotis and Troconis dumping the items on Albany Avenue in Hartford.