STAMFORD -- Attorneys representing the Dulos children, Jennifer Dulos, and Jennifer's mother, Gloria Farber, were in court this morning on a custody motion.
Farber, 85, filed a motion to 'intervene', seeking custody of the five Dulos children while Jennifer remains missing. Their father, 51-year-old Fotis Dulos, remains in custody on charges of evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in relation to the disappearance of Jennifer.
Farber filed her custody motion on Monday, the same day that Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, 40, were arraigned on the same charges. The five children have been living with Farber since Jennifer Dulos was reported missing on May 24th.
Farber asserts in her custody motion that she has a "parent-like" relationship with the children, who have regularly stayed at her home in New York City.
"Even if the defendant (Fotis Dulos) is released, on bond or otherwise, it would be detrimental to the children, particularly in the midst of the investigation into the disappearance of their mother, to be forced to leave Mrs. Farber's custody and return to (Fotis Dulos)'s custody, with whom they have not resided for more than two years," Faber's attorney's wrote.
According to the judge, the status of the children's custody has not changed after the court appearance on Wednesday. They reiterated that it was a status conference, not a custody hearing.
The judge and attorneys are working on a hearing date.
Gloria Farber was not in court on Wednesday.
Read the court documents below.
What We Know So Far:
The case has stunned residents of New Canaan, a wealthy suburb of New York City, which is about 60 miles away from Farmington, where Fotis Dulos and Troconis lived in a home together.
The Farmington home was where Jennifer, Fotis, and their children lived before Jennifer moved to New Canaan amidst a contentious divorce and child custody case. The divorce and custody battle had been going on for two years, and their children range in age from 8 to 13.
Court documents filed in the divorce case say Jennifer Dulos feared Fotis would harm her in some way in retaliation for her filing for divorce, and she noted he had a gun. Jennifer Dulos has primary custody of the children, with Fotis seeing them every other weekend.
After Jennifer Dulos went missing on May 24th, Fotis Dulos asked the divorce case judge to grant him custody of the children.
A hearing in the divorce case was scheduled for Wednesday but has been postponed.
Searching for Evidence:
Police and cadaver dogs were combing through a Hartford trash-to-energy plant Tuesday in connection with the investigation into Jennifer Dulos's disappearance. They were back out at the plant Wednesday afternoon as well, and a black van was seen pulling into the property along with an unmarked state police cruiser, according to FOX61 crews at the scene.
Arrest warrants link Fotis Dulos and Troconis to videos of trash bags being dumped in areas where Jennifer Dulos's blood was later found.
Police said garbage dumped in that area during the time Dulos went missing had been sent to the trash plant, but had not yet been incinerated but had been shredded into pieces that were 6 inches or less in diameter.
The warrants show blood spatter and evidence of cleanup attempts were also found at Jennifer Dulos's New Canaan home and police said they believed a "serious physical assault" occurred there.
New Canaan police released the audio call that went out to residents Monday night, looking for any surveillance video that people may have.
Police asked residents with home surveillance video systems to check their footage from Wednesday, May 22nd to Saturday, May 25th, to save any video that captures “vehicular activity” and to contact police, to assist in the search for Jennifer Dulos.
If you have a surveillance video system at your residence or business, and it captures vehicular activity, police request that you please e-mail Kelly.coughlin@newcanaanct.gov with your contact information and address. They instruct to not send any video content.
State Police said they found a large quantity of physical evidence in the garage area and inside the home, at 69 Welles Lane, New Canaan. According to the arrest warrant, stains on the garage floor tested positive for human blood with multiple areas of suspected blood spatter. The warrant said there was evidence of an attempt to clean the scene.
The arrest warrant said that the day after Jennifer Dulos was reported missing, her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, went to the New Canaan Police Department with his attorney.
Police seized his iPhone but, to date, Dulos has declined to cooperate with the investigation.
The arrest warrant said Troconis had refused to cooperate with investigators as well.
You can read the full arrest warrant below:
