Judge dismisses juror who compared Connecticut missing mom case to the ‘Gone Girl’ plot
A judge dismissed a juror Friday in the trial of a Connecticut woman accused of helping her boyfriend cover up the murder of his estranged wife after the panelist compared the case to the novel and movie “Gone Girl.”
Judge Kevin Randolph received an unsigned note Friday morning from a juror in the trial of Michelle Troconis, accusing another member of the panel of making the comment in front of other jurors.
The juror “discussed something about the case and it was all over social media,” Randolph said in the note. “She said it was like ‘Gone Girl,’ a quick mention. Several other jurors said, ‘Don’t discuss this.'”
Randolph then cleared the courtroom to question jurors about the comment. He ultimately dismissed the juror, identified only as “Juror 186,” who admitted to making the “Gone Girl” comment, the judge said.
“Every (other) juror indicated that they could afford the state and the defense a fair and impartial trial,” Randolph said after reconvening the trial.
“Gone Girl,” a 2012 novel by Gillian Flynn that was turned into a 2014 film starring Ben Affleck, is about a woman who fakes her own disappearance and her husband, who becomes a suspect.
Troconis, 49, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes on allegations that she helped her then-boyfriend, Fotis Dulos, cover up the 2019 murder of his wife, Jennifer Dulos. Troconis has pleaded not guilty and charged each involvement denied. .
Police believe Fotis Dulos attacked his wife in the garage of her home in New Canaan, Connecticut, in May 2019 after dropping the children off at school. Then, authorities said, he drove away in her own SUV with her body, which was never found. Fotis Dulos denied having anything to do with her disappearance. He died by suicide in early 2020, shortly after being charged with murder.
At the time she disappeared, Jennifer and Fotis Dulos were in the middle of contentious divorce and custody proceedings, which limited his time with the children. Jennifer Dulos had moved out of the family home in Farmington, Connecticut, and Fotis Dulos lived there with Troconis and her daughter.
The case attracted a lot of attention and was itself the subject of a TV movie entitled ‘Gone Mom’. Jennifer Dulos, 50, was a member of a wealthy New York family whose father, the late Hilliard Farber, founded his own real estate agency. She was also a niece by marriage of fashion designer Liz Claiborne. Fotis Dulos was a luxury homebuilder originally from Greece.
This is the second case of alleged juror misconduct during the trial. On Wednesday afternoon, during a lunch break outside the courtroom, Randolph dismissed an alternate juror who allegedly said “We love you” to two prosecutors involved in the case. Randolph said the comment made it appear he was favoring the prosecutor.