Defense suggests Jennifer Dulos faked her own 'Gone Girl' disappearance
The lawyer for Jennifer Dulos' estranged husband says the missing mom of five one penned a 'Gone Girl'-esque manuscript.
The author of "Gone Girl" says that allegations connecting missing Connecticut mother Jennifer Dulos to her book's main character — who concocts her disappearance to make it seem as though her husband murdered her — makes her sick.
Author Gillian Flynn said she's been following 50-year-old Dulos' story, and describes the situation as "so incredibly painful."
"I’ve seen in recent coverage that Jennifer’s husband and his defense attorney have put forward a so-called 'Gone Girl theory' to explain Jennifer’s disappearance," Flynn told WTNH-TV. "It absolutely sickens me that a work of fiction written by me would be used by Fotis Dulos’s lawyer as a defense, and as a hypothetical, sensationalized motive behind Jennifer’s very real and very tragic disappearance."
MISSING CONNECTICUT MOM JENNIFER DULOS' FAMILY, FRIENDS DENY HER CASE IS A 'GONE GIRL' DISPPEARANCE
Flynn's story "Gone Girl," published in 2012, revolves around a seemingly happy married couple. On their wedding anniversary, the wife suddenly disappears, and the husband becomes the prime suspect.
Jennifer Dulos, pictured here, was reported missing on May 24. She was last seen dropping off her children at school in New Canaan, Conn. (New Canaan Police Department via AP)
Norm Pattis, a lawyer for Fotis Dulos, Jennifer's estranged husband, told Fox News last month that Jennifer "had a troubled past," and described her as a writer who "wrote a manuscript similar to 'Gone Girl."
He said Fotis was "emotional, tired, distraught" over the "exhausting ordeal," and the disappearance of Jennifer.
A spokesperson for the missing woman's family and friends slammed the comments, saying: "This is not fiction or a movie. This is real life, as experienced every single day by Jennifer’s five young children, her family, and her friends.”
“We are heartbroken. Jennifer is not here to protect her children, and these false and irresponsible allegations hurt the children now and into the future," spokesperson Carrie Luft added. “Evidence shows that Jennifer was the victim of a violent attack in her New Canaan home.”
Jennifer Dulos was reported missing on May 24 and was last seen driving a black Chevy Suburban as she dropped off her kids at their private school in New Canaan.
The couple was in the midst of a bitter custody battle over the five children. Pattis said Jennifer Dulos "seemed intent" on moving the children to New York, where her mother lived, against the joint custody agreement.
However, court documents revealed Jennifer Dulos was "terrified for [her] family's safety." She alleged that her husband, a custom home builder who was born and raised in Greece but attended Brown University in the U.S., "has a history of controlling, volatile and delusional behavior."
Luft said Pattis’ suggestion that Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance was tied to a book she wrote was nonsensical.
“I read Jennifer’s novel in installments as she was completing the manuscript,” Luft said. “She finished the draft around 2002. (This was before she was dating Fotis Dulos.) Her book has nothing to do with Gone Girl (published in 2012).”
She added, “Jennifer’s novel is not a mystery. It’s a character-driven story that follows a young woman through relationships and self-discovery over a period of years. Like all of Jennifer’s writing, it expresses a deep longing for human connection and the need to be accepted as one’s true self.”
Fotis Dulos and his live-in girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, both pleaded not guilty to charges of evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in June.
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Pattis, in a previously released statement, said, “We are continuing our investigation of Ms. Dulos’s disappearance, and believe it to be entirely consistent with the evidence to conclude that she was not a victim of foul play at the hands of third parties.”
He continued, “Efforts to distance Ms. Dulos from a Gone Girl-type scenario are well-meaning, to be sure. But the fact remains that Ms. Dulos remains accountably ‘Gone,’ and had the imagination, means and motive to disappear."
Fox News' Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.
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