Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn has said an estranged husband’s claim that his missing wife may have faked her disappearance in the manner of Flynn’s bestselling novel “absolutely sickens” her.

Connecticut woman Jennifer Dulos has not been seen since 24 May when she was collecting her children from school, according to ABC News. Police believe the mother of five was assaulted in her home, where bloodstains were found. She was in the process of what has been described as a bitter custody dispute with her husband, Fotis Dulos, whose lawyer, Norm Pattis, insists does not know where she is.

In June, People reported that Dulos and his girlfriend had been arrested and charged with fabricating or tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Jennifer Dulos, who has been missing since 24 May. Photograph: AP

Two weeks ago, Pattis said he was “investigating the possibility that this is a ‘Gone Girl’-type case and considering the possibility that no third party was involved in foul play.”

In Flynn’s breakout novel, adapted into a film starring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck in 2014, a wife disappears and tries to pin her own murder on her husband.

In a statement to the Connecticut TV station WTNH, Flynn said she had read that “Jennifer’s husband and his defence attorney have put forward a so-called ‘Gone Girl theory’ to explain Jennifer’s disappearance”.

“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,” she said.

“This situation is so incredibly painful. I can’t imagine what her children, her family and all those close to her are going through. I am deeply sorry for Jennifer and her loved ones.”