Lawyer wrong to suggest missing mom Jennifer Dulos staged 'Gone Girl'-style disappearance, family says

NEW CANAAN, Connecticut -- Relatives of a Connecticut mother of five who has been missing for a month are criticizing her estranged husband's lawyer for suggesting she staged her own disappearance in a plot similar to the book and movie "Gone Girl."

Jennifer Dulos vanished May 24 in New Canaan, Connecticut. Her husband, Fotis Dulos, and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, are charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution - accused of discarding evidence containing Jennifer Dulos' blood.

Fotis Dulos' lawyer, Norman Pattis, told the New York Post on Sunday that Jennifer Dulos once wrote a novel similar to "Gone Girl," the 2012 book and 2014 movie in which a wife stages her own disappearance to frame her husband for murder.

Carrie Luft, a spokeswoman for Jennifer Dulos' family, on Monday called Pattis' suggestion "false and irresponsible."

"Drawing any comparison to a work of fiction does an incredible disservice to the family, especially to the children," she said. "This is not a fil. This is not a novel. This our real life."

She released the following statement on behalf of Jennifer's family and friends:

I read Jennifer's novel in installments as she was completing the manuscript. 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). 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.

Trying to tie Jennifer's absence to a book she wrote more than 17 years ago makes no sense. 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.

State police continued searching a trash facility in Hartford on Monday for evidence.

The couple's five children are staying with Jennifer's family.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.