According to Michelle Troconis' second attorney, Jon Schoenhorn, the entire case against Troconis was 90% based upon these interviews. This is why I find it so remarkable that Michelle Troconis' first attorney, Andrew Bowman, a highly regarded professional with years of experience, would even begin to allow them. According to Hartz, Linda Urso, the attorney for Dulos' former project manager, Pavel Gumienny, stated she would never allow such an interview without an immunity deal on the table. From what I gather, Michelle Troconis appears to have thought she had an informal immunity deal on the table, but that is entirely meaningless as we all know, and any attorney would know that. Hartz again reports that Attorney Schoenhorn commented, "I have no insight as to why any lawyer without either an immunity agreement or a proffer agreement would walk their client into a police interrogation without knowing very much about the offense."
For those of us who have gone through the family court system, we probably have some very similar questions. I personally had one of the top family court attorneys at the beginning of my divorce and he literally destroyed my case within the first five months. This is where you start to wonder whether there is some conspiracy going on or some kinds of back room dealings. I know it sounds paranoid, but seriously, what else are you going to speculate when a distinguished attorney, i.e. Attorney Andrew Bowman, with years of experience acts like a rooky. Actually, even less than a rooky because any one of us who have watched "Law and Order" know better than to cooperate in a police interview without some kind of deal or a defense attorney who actually provides a defense. I actually tend to see Michelle Troconis' complete naivete on that point, or alternatively what you might call a total lack of street smarts, as an indication that maybe she was innocent.
I'm just looking at my notes regarding these interviews. For the better part, from what I see, during these interviews, Michelle was not provided with an interpreter. This is a major issue given that cognitive processing and access to memory can be impacted by the language a person uses. Again, the fact that Attorney Bowman did not request an interpreter, which any person on the street would know should have been done, raises significant questions about what the heck Attorney Bowman thought he was doing.
The first interview was conducted under really horrendous circumstances. Apparently, she was arrested in the middle of the night at the hotel room she was staying in with her mother and daughter. Upon arriving at the police department in New Canaan, she was asked to undress to be photographed, and then peppered with questions from three to five detectives who sometimes lied about the facts of the case. Taylor Hartz of the Hartford Courant reports that detectives stated they had "found hard evidence of a murder" even though they actually didn't. They also stated they found a pillow in one of the bags Fotis Dulos tossed out along Albany Avenue with Farber Dulos' blood on it. In fact, they didn't have any such thing.
Prosecutors have talked about how there were many contradictions and inconsistencies in Michelle Troconis's interviews with detectives. On the other hand, given how many threats and lies the detectives attacked Michelle with, is that so surprising? According to Attorney Mark Sherman, a criminal defense attorney in Stanford, "Police can say whatever they want and there are no consequences." Taylor Hartz of the Hartford Courant reports further, "Police are allowed to lie to suspects during interrogations to gather evidence..." I can imagine that if you have any mental health disability or physical problem such as a lack of sleep or are under a great deal of stress, with people aggressively attacking you verbally, lying to you and tripping you up verbally, you could end up saying all sorts of off the wall remarks.
(As an aside, it is worth noting the point Taylor Hartz further makes that lying to anyone under 18 during a police interrogation in CT was made illegal in 2023. Slowly, but surely, people are waking up to the fact that these tactics are simply no good.)
So when these investigators were lying and misrepresenting facts to Michelle Troconis, what were they doing? They were implementing The Reid Technique, a method of interrogation developed by John E. Reid in the 1950s and currently used as a standard in police departments around the country. (Yes, I know, a 74 year old technique).
This technique is notorious for the fact that 29% of wrongful convictions in criminal cases were the result of false confessions elicited by The Reid Technique. In fact, what is interesting about The Reid Technique is that the first time the technique was used, it elicited a false confession. This took place In 1955, in Lincoln, Nebraska, when John Reid was able to get a suspect, Darrel Parker, to confess to killing his wife. Even though Parker recanted his confession the next day, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. However, later on, another man confessed to the crime. Parker sued the state and received $500,000 in compensation.
Despite this miserable failure at the start in the use of this technique, Reid continued on to write a book on his approach which was published in 1962 entitled "Criminal Interrogations and Confessions". Miranda warnings, made the law in 1966, were actually instituted in order to respond to the abuses of the Reid Technique.
Substantial parts of the Reid Technique have been called into question. For instance, the implication that a police officer can determine guilt or innocence from body movements like fidgeting has been debunked. Further, studies done on the application of the Reid Technique indicate that police are no better than anyone else at determining whether a person is lying or not. In connection to what Michelle Troconis experienced during her interrogations it is worth noting the following reported by CBC News in January 28, 2003, "Abuses of interrogation methods [i.e. Reid Technique] include officers treating accused suspects aggressively and telling them lies about the amount of evidence proving their guilt. Such exaggerated claims of evidence, such as video or genetics, have the potential, when combined with such coercive tactics as threats of harm or promises of leniency, to cause innocent suspects to become psychologically overwhelmed."
Given Michelle Troconis was being threatened over access to her daughter, she was being told she was the most hated woman in America, she was being lied to and grilled under conditions that compromised her mental capacity to cope, then the fact that her responses were inconsistent would make perfect sense. So why didn't her attorney, Jon Schoenhorn put The Reid Technique itself on trial? Other civilized Western nations have stopped using it. Why are we still using it here in Connecticut when it has been so discredited and there are many other more effective approaches? Is there a sort of joy in bullying and railroading people we don't like into jail regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent?
After Michelle Troconis' conviction, in an article published in the Hartford Courant on July 5, 2024 Taylor Hartz quotes Detective John Kimball, one of the lead interrogators in Michelle's case as saying, "I am sure with 100% certainty that she has additional information that could help us determine what happened to Jennifer and where she is located." At the same time, during her trial, Kimball admitted to "using ruse style tactics" against Michelle. Given the history of The Reid Technique, I think it is laughable for him to speak with such confidence. 100 percent. Really? Detective Kimball said that the ultimate goal with Michelle Troconis was to get at the truth. Yet he relied upon a flawed, old fashioned technique with a long history of error when it comes to ascertaining the truth. If he actually cared about the truth, why did he use it?
I can't say that I think much of Michelle Troconis. How foolish could she be to think that she Jennifer and the kids were all going to be one big happy family in Farmington. But did she conspire to commit murder, tamper with evidence, and hinder the prosecution? I'm not sure. The fact is that she was no where near the crime when it occurred. Pavel Gumienny, on the other hand, was in the local area where the crime took place. Unfortunately, the electronic data in the vehicle he drove seems to have had some glitch so it wasn't possible to track his movements. Law enforcement said at the time that there is no way to tamper with that data. However, I've looked it up in google and, in fact, you can tamper with it according to the articles I read.
So what am I saying? I don't know. It is ironic that a mother gets killed in a domestic violence incident and none of the men charged in the case have yet been brought to trial and convicted, but we have the woman, by gosh!
