A man from Montreal has been charged with the murder of his 9 year old daughter during a holiday to the United States, following the discovery of her body in upstate New York. Luciano Frattolin, 45, falsely reported his daughter, Melina, as kidnapped after stopping his car off a motorway to urinate, according to officials.
Her body was discovered later that evening under a log in the woods, leading to Frattolin’s arrest in Essex County. New York State Police have charged Frattolin with second-degree murder and concealment of a corpse in relation to Melina Frattolin’s death.
Despite pleading not guilty to both charges, Frattolin will remain in custody until his next court appearance scheduled for Friday. Since 2019, Frattolin had been separated from his wife, with their child living full-time with her mother, stated New York State Police Capt. Robert McConnell.
Frattolin would visit his daughter when in Canada, and his wife was aware of the U.S. trip he had planned, officials confirmed. The pair arrived in the U.S. on 11 July for a planned holiday to Connecticut, New York City and upstate New York, as reported by Global News.
Melina was due to be returned to her mother in Montreal on Sunday, but police received a call on Saturday just before 10 p. m, reporting her missing. The caller claimed his 9 year old daughter had vanished from a rest area near Exit 22 of the I-87 motorway in Lake George reports the Mirror US.
“The suspect’s initial account is that he pulled over in the area of exit 22 in Lake George. Pulled over into a parking lot to urinate,” McConnell said. “As he steps away to a wooded area, returns the vehicle, and at that point, his child is gone from the vehicle. He reports a suspicious white van fleeing the scene southbound during a subsequent interview. He then reports two unknown males forced her into a white van.
“That lead was thoroughly investigated and disproven,” McConnell added.
Frattolin allegedly attempted to conceal his daughter’s remains in a secluded section of woodland in Ticonderoga, situated roughly 30 miles northeast of Lake George close to the New York and Vermont boundary.
The youngster’s body was discovered in “the shallow portion of a pond” during an organised search of the area that had been mentioned by the caller.
Prosecutors claimed in a felony complaint on Friday that Frattolin “had concealed her body by positioning her under a log in a waterway.”
She perished from “asphyxia due to drowning,” according to preliminary post-mortem findings, New York State Police confirmed on Tuesday.
A motive behind the alleged murder remains under investigation.
McConnell stated that Frattolin had no criminal record, and that detectives uncovered no evidence of previous domestic violence.
Frattolin runs a coffee import enterprise in Montreal called Gambella Coffee.
He had described his daughter as “the light of his life,” according to his business’s website. “This is certainly a difficult case and a heartbreaking investigation,” McConnell stated.
“The best we can do is provide some measure of justice to the family.”