NEW CANAAN, Conn. (AP) — 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.

A spokeswoman for Jennifer Dulos’ family on Monday called Pattis’ suggestion “false and irresponsible.”

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