The trial of Michelle Troconis, the woman accused of helping boyfriend Fotis Dulos cover up the suspected murder of his ex-wife, began Thursday with testimony from investigating cops — as her family swore outside the courtroom that she was innocent.
Two officers from the wealthy Connecticut enclave of New Canaan testified in Stamford Superior Court that they found what appeared to be blood on the black Range Rover found in victim Jennifer Dulos’ garage when they looked into her May 24, 2019, disappearance.
“It looks like it’s been scraped or rubbed from the vehicle,” Lt. Aaron Latourette said on bodycam footage presented in court. “Down the side of the vehicle, there’s blood. There’s some on the tire, too! It’s a lot of blood.”
As the video played, Dulos’ elderly mother, Gloria Farber, sat in the front row flanked by her daughter’s closest friends.
They wore purple sweaters — Jennifer’s favorite color — and nearly the entire right side of the courtroom wore purple pins to express their support.
When the footage showed cops going through Jennifer Dulos’ things — including a notepad with handwritten missives from her late daughter — the mask-clad Farber leaned forward and clutched her cane with a white-knuckle grip.
The sensational case — which has drawn attention from across the globe — will determine if Troconis, 49, conspired with her boyfriend, Fotis Dulos, to cloak Jennifer’s murder.
She vanished after dropping the couple’s five kids off at school. Her body was never found.
And the main suspect — Fotis — died by suicide shortly after being charged with capital murder, murder and kidnapping in January 2020.
A judge officially declared Dulos dead in October 2023.
Troconis, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder, evidence tampering and hindering prosecution, claims she doesn’t know what happened to Dulos — or where her body might be hidden.
And she insists that she didn’t know Fotis Dulos was doing anything wrong when she watched him toss black garbage bags filled with Jennifer’s clothes and four 3-foot-long zip ties stained with Jennifer’s blood across Hartford, Conn., on the night of his wife’s disappearance.
“It appears the Zip Ties were used to secure and incapacitate Jennifer Dulos for some time period, during which her blood transferred onto the ties,” court documents stated in 2020.
“It is reasonable that Jennifer Dulos was alive at the time the Zip Ties were attached to restrain her movements and prevent her escape.”
“It’s been 4 1/2 years since I was wrongly accused,” Troconis wrote in an October X post. “I have faith in Justice and the jury system.”
During a break in the proceedings Thursday, the Troconis family told gathered media that they believed Michelle was innocent.
“We stand together as a family, ’cause that’s what we are, we’re in unity to support my sister,” Claudia Troconis said.
“She’s a mother, a daughter, a sister, an amazing mother, and just an amazing human being,” she continued. “And we know that the truth will prevail and justice will be done because she is innocent … this has been unfair for the past four-and-a-half years.”
Jennifer Dulos belonged to a wealthy New York family — her father, the late Hilliard Farber, founded a brokerage firm.
When Dulos disappeared, she was engaged in a nasty divorce and custody battle with her estranged husband.
Fotis Dulos died in a Bronx hospital on Jan. 30, days after he attempted to take his own life while out of jail on $6 million bail, and a day before he was scheduled to attend another bail hearing.
He proclaimed that he was innocent and had not killed Dulos in his suicide note left at his Farmington, Conn., home.
Farber has been caring for her grandchildren, who are now between 13 and 17, since her daughter’s disappearance.
With Post wires