Jennifer Dulos’ 2019 murder made national news, featuring in more than a dozen stories in the New York Times alone. The mother of five, who lived in a wealthy Connecticut enclave, disappeared one morning in May after taking her children to school. Although her body was not found, copious amounts of blood in her home evidenced her brutal murder. Her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, was charged, and the case was still in progress when he killed himself in 2020. These grisly details are chronicled with the irresistible pacing of a thriller in Rich Cohen’s Murder in the Dollhouse: The Jennifer Dulos Story.
Cohen, the prolific author of Lake Effect and The Fish That Ate the Whale, assumes Fotis’ guilt from the start, which certainly seems to be the case. Instead of solving the murder, then, Cohen explores a different mystery: Why did such a wealthy and educated woman marry someone as dangerous and unpredictable as Fotis in the first place? For Cohen, a key answer is in the relationship Jennifer had with her father. Hilliard Farber, a Park Avenue banker, financed Jennifer’s life and favored her among his children. Jennifer responded with sheer devotion. She had an unusually strong desire to become a mother, even to the point of buying a crib before she was married or pregnant. Interviews with friends and Jennifer’s writing offer ample evidence of this preoccupation long before Fotis arrived on the scene; Cohen even introduces a few ex-boyfriends to gesture toward what futures could have been.
The marriage was marked by Fotis’ infidelity, controlling behavior and financial precarity. Hilliard lent Fotis millions to invest in his luxury home construction business. After Hilliard’s death, Jennifer’s mother took a different approach to managing finances with Fotis: She demanded the previous loans be repaid. In turn, Fotis pursued a public affair with girlfriend Michelle Troconis and fell deeper into debt. Cohen surmises that the Dulos children’s generous trust funds and the elimination of ugly divorce and child custody proceedings with Jennifer served as Fotis’ motives for the murder. Because Fotis is dead and Troconis—who was convicted for conspiracy to commit murder in 2024—was not interviewed, Cohen’s access to their perceptions is understandably limited. Still, he doesn’t seem interested in humanizing them, preferring instead to train his sympathetic gaze on Jennifer alone.
Murder in the Dollhouse will interest fans of true crime, especially those already familiar with the case. However, others may find the story incomplete and salacious. Nonetheless, the horror of Jennifer’s death is compelling and chilling. As Cohen writes, “Jennifer had restraining orders, bodyguards, and every possible resource, but when someone is determined to do you real harm, no amount of money can protect you.” It’s a haunting takeaway from a story that captured the nation.
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