The lawyer defending Fotis Dulos, the estranged husband of missing person Jennifer Dulos, is arguing that she staged her own disappearance in a plot inspired by Flynn’s novel.
For those few who haven’t read Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel Gone Girl or watched the 2014 blockbuster starring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, they tell the story of a missing woman — Amy Dunne — and the search her family and community conduct for her.
But, SPOILER ALERT: Amy has actually staged her murder in an elaborate plot to frame her husband and punish him for the break-up of their marriage.
It’s the kind of thing that’s definitely in the realms of fiction, but that hasn’t stopped a lawyer arguing that Jennifer Dulos, who went missing in Connecticut in May, has staged her own disappearance in a plot inspired by the novel — much to the disgust of Flynn.
Jennifer Dulos disappeared in the Connecticut town of New Canaan after dropping her children off at school on the morning of May 24. Her estranged husband recently became embroiled in the case after police accused him and his new girlfriend of tampering with evidence and hindering the prosecution.
Fotis Dulos has been involved in proceedings with Jennifer Dulos for the past three years, and it’s his lawyer who’s behind the new theory.
“We’re actively investigating the possibility that this is a Gone Girl–type case, and are considering the possibility that no third party was involved in foul play,” said Fotis Dulos’s lawyer in a statement explaining his theory, which is apparently largely centred on an old manuscript penned by the missing woman.
The defence alleges that Jennifer Dulos, herself an author, wrote a 500-page manuscript with a plot that closely mirrors that of Flynn’s novel, and that she was inspired to enact the events in real life. “This is a person who has a pretty florid imagination and motives to use it to hurt Mr. Dulos,” he told the New York Post.
Now Flynn herself has intervened, publicly rejecting the theory that her book inspired Jennifer Dulos.
“I’ve seen in recent coverage that Jennifer’s husband and his defence attorney have put forward a so-called ‘Gone Girl theory’ to explain Jennifer’s disappearance,” she said in a statement. “It absolutely sickens me that a work of fiction written by me would be used by Fotis Dulos’s lawyer as a defence, and as a hypothetical, sensationalised motive behind Jennifer’s very real and very tragic disappearance.”
Carrie Luft, a spokesperson for Jennifer Dulos, has denied that she was inspired by the novel and that the manuscript on which the defence is pinned was completed in 2002, long before Flynn’s novel was released.
“Trying to tie Jennifer’s absence to a book she wrote more than 17 years ago makes no sense,” she said in a statement. “Evidence shows that Jennifer was the victim of a violent attack in her New Canaan home. As of today, she has been missing for a month. 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.”
Flynn has since shared that she’s been following the case and expressed condolences for Jennifer Dulos’s family.
“This situation is so incredibly painful, I can’t imagine what her children, her family, and all those close to her are going through,” Flynn said. “I am deeply sorry for Jennifer and her loved ones.”
Images: Getty
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