PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Just as with the Colorado husband, father and convicted murderer Chris Watts, we gasp when the domestic partner is arrested, as if we are shocked to learn — all over again — that intimate-partner killings, particularly where the victim is female, are an ongoing social crisis of the highest order. According to a 2018 investigation by The Washington Post, nearly half of the women murdered in the prior decade were killed by contemporaneous or former intimate partners."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "The facts of Jennifer Farber Dulos’s disappearance indeed look quite damning for her husband: The couple fought viciously. He is alleged to have cheated; the mistress, an Argentine nearly a decade his junior. The ensuing divorce was acrimonious, and protracted. Dulos accused her husband of being controlling and threatening, fearing he might kidnap their children and abscond overseas. He publicly questioned her soundness of mind, alleging an abuse of prescription drugs. Amendments to court filings flew back and forth. She moved their children in with her parents. He — notably given what we know about domestic-violence warning signs — bought a gun. And most damning of all, Dulos has already been arrested on charges of tampering with evidence and interfering with an investigation in connection with his wife’s disappearance.
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COMMENTARY: "Who killed Jennifer Dulos? Why the arrest of Fotis Dulos is so tragically predictable," by Jake Flanagan, published by NBC News on January 8, 2020.
SUB-HEADING: "When
Jennifer Farber Dulos’s disappearance is inevitably made into a true
crime drama, I hope that her story is told for what it is: the outgrowth
of a national disease."
GIST: "She was the beautiful wife of a hotshot
real-estate developer. They lived in one of the most affluent towns in
America. But behind closed doors, their marriage was on the rocks, their finances teetering on the edge of collapse. In short order, she disappeared, leaving behind only a blood-stained garment, tossed unceremoniously in a trash can miles from her leafy suburban neighborhood. This
could be the set-up of a Liane Moriarty thriller, or the beginning of
any number of news stories published in the last few years, rehashing
the disappearances of wives like Laci Peterson and Shannan Watts. But this week it refers to Jennifer Farber Dulos, 50, who has not been seen or heard from since dropping her children at school on a Friday morning in May. On Tuesday, her husband, Fotis Dulos, 52, was arrested and charged with murder, along with his former girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, 44. For American readers, crimes that upset the tranquility of wealthy, predominantly white suburbs are a voyeur’s catnip. Media
coverage of the crime is likely to retread old ground: Tabloid
reporters will write about Jennifer Dulos’ alleged vices, be they real
or a concoction of her husband’s mind. The couple’s reported financial
troubles, and Fotis Dulos’ extramarital dalliances, will fill in the
corners. The thrust of these stories is
understandable. For American readers, crimes that upset the tranquility
of wealthy, predominantly white suburbs are a voyeur’s catnip. A murder
in New Canaan, where the Duloses lived, and which boasts the highest
median-household income in the state of Connecticut, is supposedly an
aberration. But there is also an odd feeling of surprise that accompanies these high-profile arrests. Just as with the Colorado husband, father and convicted murderer Chris Watts,
we gasp when the domestic partner is arrested, as if we are shocked to
learn — all over again — that intimate-partner killings, particularly
where the victim is female, are an ongoing social crisis of the highest
order. According to a 2018 investigation
by The Washington Post, nearly half of the women murdered in the prior
decade were killed by contemporaneous or former intimate partners. Nearly a quarter of U.S. women will experience general relationship
violence in their lifetimes, according to the National Domestic Abuse
Hotline. (There is no allegation that Fotis Dulos was physically abusive
toward his wife prior to her disappearance, although she did allege
emotional abuse in divorce filings.) And the risk is markedly higher for
low-income women, according to a study by sociologists at the
University of Miami and the University of Texas at Austin. These numbers are not static — they’re rising. Research compiled
by James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor of criminal justice at
Northeastern University, and Emma E. Fridel, a doctoral student at the
time, measured a 19 percent increase in homicides by intimate partners
from 2014 to 2017 alone. Gun-related domestic murders increased by 26
percent from 2010 to 2017. The majority of victims of intimate-partner
murders in 2017 were female. In her 2019 book, “No Visible Bruises,”
journalist and domestic-violence expert Rachel Louise Snyder paints an
even more vivid and disturbing picture of America’s
relationship-violence epidemic. She contends 50 women a month are shot
and killed by intimate partners; 80 percent of hostage situations
involve an intimate partner; and domestic violence is the third-leading
cause of homelessness nationwide. Few solutions to these problems have appeared on the horizon. Notably, a reauthorization of the federal Violence Against Women Act of 1994
passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 263 to 158. The
modified version of the bill would have closed a loophole in the law — the so-called boyfriend loophole
— by implementing a lifetime ban on firearm purchases by individuals
who have been convicted on misdemeanor charges of domestic abuse,
regardless of marital status. That bill now languishes on the floor of
the Republican-controlled Senate, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declining to bring it to a vote. Amendments
to court filings flew back and forth. She moved their children in with
her parents. He — notably given what we know about domestic-violence
warning signs — bought a gun. The
facts of Jennifer Farber Dulos’s disappearance indeed look quite damning
for her husband: The couple fought viciously. He is alleged to have
cheated; the mistress, an Argentine nearly a decade his junior. The
ensuing divorce was acrimonious, and protracted. Dulos accused her
husband of being controlling and threatening, fearing he might kidnap
their children and abscond overseas. He publicly questioned her
soundness of mind, alleging an abuse of prescription drugs. Amendments
to court filings flew back and forth. She moved their children in with
her parents. He — notably given what we know about domestic-violence
warning signs — bought a gun. And most damning of all, Dulos has already
been arrested on charges of tampering with evidence and interfering
with an investigation in connection with his wife’s disappearance. But
the fact is, while the alleged murder of a woman by her partner may
indeed be an aberration among the manicured lawns and six-bedroom
colonials of New Canaan, it should neither thrill nor shock the nation. And
in a few months time, when the true-crime podcast about Farber Dulos’s
disappearance is inevitably made, I hope — as a fellow true-crime writer
and producer — that her story is told for what it is: not an
aberration, but an outgrowth of an insidious, national disease that even
the wealthiest, most privileged among us cannot ignore."
