Red pickup truck seen on day of Farber Dulos’ disappearance at center of testimony in Troconis trial
Retired Connecticut State Police Trooper Gregory LeBeau took the stand in the trial for Michelle Troconis on Tuesday and testified that it took him several days to comb through surveillance video of traffic on the Merritt Parkway on May 24, 2019, keeping an eye out for multiple vehicles investigators thought Fotis Dulos might be driving.
In a video from 6:36 a.m. that morning — the day Jennifer Farber Dulos disappeared — LeBeau said he spotted what appeared to be a red Toyota Tacoma passing by a Fairfield rest area.
Surveillance cameras at rest stops on the Merritt Parkway in Fairfield and New Canaan showed what appeared to be a red Tacoma driving southbound that morning, then northbound a few hours later.
Investigators allege those videos captured Dulos driving that Tacoma en route to New Canaan, where he allegedly laid in wait in his estranged wife’s garage and attacked her when she returned home from dropping their five children off at school.
Troconis, Dulos’ then-girlfriend, is standing trial on charges of conspiring to commit murder, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence. Investigators allege she plotted with Dulos to kill his wife and helped him cover up the crimes. Dulos died after an attempted suicide at his Farmington home in 2020.
Troconis’ trial continued in Stamford Superior Court on Tuesday for the 13th day with much of the testimony circling back to a red pickup truck, owned by an employee of Fotis Dulos’ company, Fore Group project manager Pawel Gumienny.
First thing Tuesday morning, Connecticut State Police Sgt. Michael Beauton returned to the stand and testified about his first interaction with Gumienny on May 31 — just days after Farber Dulos disappeared.
Beauton spoke to Gumienny after he stopped the white Jeep Cherokee he was driving in Farmington near Dulos’ home at 4 Jefferson Crossing. The Cherokee belonged to Dulos and was often driven by both he and Troconis.
Gumienny reportedly told Beauton that he was on his way back from a job site in New Canaan.
Beauton said he questioned Gumienny further because of his demeanor.
“He appeared to me to be very nervous, his breathing rate was very elevated,” he said. “I also observed the carotid artery in his neck was pulsing, indicating that his heart was beating very fast.”
Beauton said he asked Gumienny to step out of the Jeep due to his appearance, breathing and apparent heart rate.
He patted him down and “noticed that his shirt was soaked in sweat,” he said, even though the Jeep’s air conditioning was running. He asked him more about his activities that morning, wondering why he was perspiring so much if he had been on a long air-conditioned drive.
“He had indicated to me that he was removing vehicle seats from a Porsche that belonged to Fotis so that he could put them into his own truck,” Beauton testified. “After that, we learned that he owned a 2001 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, color red.”
Investigators allege Dulos took Gumienny’s red Tacoma that morning and drove it to New Canaan via the Merritt Parkway.
During that stop in Farmington, just before investigators searched 4 Jefferson Crossing, Beauton saw those Porsche seats, along with multiple rolls of paper towels and some tools, in the back of the Jeep.
A seatless Porsche was later found at another property owned by Fore Group. The jury saw photos of the vehicle earlier in the trial.
Gumienny is expected to take the stand as a witness in the state’s case against Troconis. Troconis’ defense attorney Jon Schoenhorn said Tuesday afternoon that he did not know when the state will call Gumienny but noted that his attorney was in the courtroom during the trial on Tuesday.
Although most of Tuesday’s testimony focused on the red pickup truck, prosecutors also questioned witnesses about the start of the search of 4 Jefferson Crossing and Dulos and Troconis’ trip to Litchfield.
The jury saw photos of Troconis and Dulos talking with Beauton at 4 Jefferson Crossing when investigators arrived to search the home. Troconis, wearing black pants with a pink stripe and a striped top, had her arms crossed and was facing Beauton her back to the camera.
Dulos, in jeans and a gray T-shirt, also had his arms crossed and was facing Troconis and Beauton.
Troconis, whose mother and daughter were also there, and Dulos were briefly allowed inside to collect belongings. The couple was told that they may not be able to go back to the house for a while and should pack overnight bags.
“I kept an eye on what was being packed just to make sure that nothing that was covered under the warrant was being taken out of the home,” Beauton said.
Then they headed to state police Troop L barracks in Litchfield, about 45 minutes away.
McGuiness asked Beauton to “describe Troconis’ demeanor” in Litchfield.
“She was seated in a chair, her head was between her legs, her head in her hands, and she was rocking back and forth.”
Then she shot Dulos a look, he said.
“At some point, she looked over at Fotis with what I would describe as a stern look,” he testified.
Troconis was allegedly, “just shaking her head back and forth at him,” he added. “The way you would shake your head to answer a question non-verbally ‘no.'”
Dulos allegedly looked back, he said.
“When the two made eye contact I would say he made an even sterner look toward her.”
Sister says Troconis ‘not the right answer’ to disappearance as jury views second police interview
McGuiness asked about Dulos’ cell phone. Beauton said a decision was made to seize Dulos’ phone while they were in Litchfield. He said other investigators flagged him that they knew Dulos had a second phone. The nanny for the Dulos children testified earlier in the trial that after Farber Dulos disappeared, Dulos started texting her from another phone number.
Beauton said that he asked Dulos if he could see the phone, and Dulos handed it over. Beauton asked him for the passcode, Dulos gave it and Beauton unlocked the phone.
Dulos then asked for the phone back but Beauton did not give it back.
“I then relayed that he wasn’t going to get it back,” Beauton said. “That it was going to be seized as evidence in conjunction with the investigation.”
He said he seized the phone between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., and Troconis and Dulos left shortly after that.
Another chunk of Tuesday’s testimony included Schoenhorn’s cross-examination of Beauton, in which he showed a lengthy video of drone footage of the area between 80 Mountain Spring and 4 Jefferson Crossing, a property owned by the Fore Group and Dulos’ home.
Schoenhorn said he wanted to show the jury what that area in Farmington looks like since “we’re at the other end of Connecticut and people don’t understand what it’s like up there.” He had previously argued for the trial to be moved to Hartford.
“Everybody in Hartford County would know what it’s like, it’s wooded, there’s mountains, there’s lakes, it’s not easy to get around like it is up here,” except for Stamford’s traffic, he noted. “I felt the topography was important to show and that’s what I did.”
Before anyone was called to the stand Tuesday morning, Schoenhorn and state prosecutor Sean McGuiness went back and forth about how the state would present evidence that showed a red pickup driving in Farmington earlier that morning, pulling out of 80 Mountain Spring Road.
“This is a truck whizzing by,” Schoenhorn said. “You can’t even tell the make [of the vehicle] most of the time.”.
The jury later saw the video — surveillance footage from another home on Mountain Spring Road — that showed a red truck driving by beyond a tree line.
Schoenhorn accused the state of “trying to fit snippets of irrelevant video into a narrative that doesn’t have a proper foundation.”
McGuiness said that they would not be asking any witnesses whether that was Gumienny’s truck, just if it was a truck that appeared to be the red Tacoma.
During other pretrial discussions before the jury came in, Schoenhorn made some comments about what he feels the state has put forth so far as evidence, including what he thinks they are inferring Troconis’ motive would have been.
“So far the state has suggested that the ongoing custody fight and divorce as a motive for Fotis Dulos to murder his wife,” he said. And that “the ongoing divorce somehow created a motive for Mr. Dulos, or my client, to do away with or cause harm to his wife.”
But, Schoenhorn added, “All of the evidence in those two weeks before the disappearance would suggest the opposite.”
He claimed there was evidence to support that Dulos was “going to get custody, if not shared custody,” of the five children he shared with Farber Dulos, and that Troconis was aware of that information.
