Story still developing; State Police say her father had conflicting stories about her disappearance
Updated at 6:15 p.m. Sunday
By Lauren Stanforth, Patrick Tine, Times Union
The father of 9-year-old Melina Galanis Frattolin, the subject of an Amber Alert that transfixed much of eastern New York Sunday, allegedly made inconsistent statements to police about the events surrounding her supposed disappearance before she was found dead in Ticonderoga.
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State Police said late Sunday afternoon that there is “no indication that an abduction occurred” after her father, Luciano Frattolin, reported her missing just before 10 p.m. Saturday near I-87’s Exit 22 in Lake George. Frattolin, 45, is a Canadian businessman with connections to Montreal, according to a biographical page for a coffee company he founded. The page also makes several references to Melina, who is described as “the light of his life.”
A State Police spokesperson said Sunday afternoon that no one had been arrested in connection with Melina’s death. Troopers have not identified a cause of death for the child, or said where in Ticonderoga, Essex County her body was found. The search for Melina was a multi-agency effort involving the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, state Department of Environmental Conservation Police and state forest rangers, local Ticonderoga police as well State Police air and K-9 units.
The initial Amber Alert, which sounded on phones around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, said Melina may have been in a white van heading south from Exit 22 on the Northway. Based on the the update from State Police released late Sunday afternoon, it is now unclear if the girl was ever in Lake George or Warren County, which is about an hour south of Ticonderoga. It was also not known Sunday how long Frattolin had been in the U.S.
At 4:18 p.m., the Amber Alert was canceled.
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The initial alert said she was last seen at 7:40 p.m., but it was changed to the later time shortly afterward. It is unclear if the time change had any link to the allegedly inconsistent statements Frattolin made to police.
The State Police’s Facebook post on the alert noted there was no suspect in the case before the revelation of Melina’s death and the alert’s cancellation. “The child was taken under circumstances that lead police to believe that they are in imminent danger of serious bodily harm and/or death,” the alert had read.
State Police are expected to hold a news conference on the case Monday.
A biographical write-up on the website for Gambella Coffee, a company Frattolin founded, describe him as “an experienced entrepreneur with a proven track record of building diverse, high-performance businesses.”
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The page says he found “great financial success across numerous ventures, from architecture to real estate, to construction (and) mining” in addition to his coffee business. The biographical page says he is the son of an Ethiopian mother and an Italian father and that his mixed ethnicity was a source of difficulty as an adolescent. The page claims he was educated in the United States and United Kingdom and that those experiences changed him.
“He was left reinvigorated and reconciled the difficulties he faced during his youth by embodying the Nietzschean attitude of, ‘That which does not kill him makes him stronger,’” the website says.
The page also makes a cryptic reference to an incident in February 2019 in which Frattolin “was met with an unfortunate event that severely affected his well-being.” The page does not explain the event was but describes his “road to recovery” as “long and arduous.”
Melina features prominently in his publicly available biography. “Seeing the world through her eyes has also helped (Frattolin) look for creative ways to reinforce and empower Melina to know, feel, and understand her own unique individual beauty and intellect, while also teaching her to celebrate those same virtues inherent in the world’s diversity,” the website says.
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The page also says he “currently spends as much time as he can in Montreal, Canada” with his daughter. Information about Melina’s mother or other relatives was not immediately available Sunday.
Highway alert signs told drivers on Sunday to “call 511” to get details on the alert.
About Amber Alerts
The Lake George Amber Alert was the second active one in the U.S. early Sunday morning: An alert related to the disappearance of two teens who went missing in Idaho in June was also still active, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The Times Union previously reported on how Amber Alerts work following the disappearance of a 9-year-old girl from Moreau Lake State Park on Sept. 30, 2023. The alert in that case wasn’t broadcast until roughly 15 hours after the girl’s parents reported her disappearance. The girl was found alive two days later in a trailer used by Craig N. Ross Jr. Ross is currently serving a prison term of 47 years to life.
Amber Alerts blast details about a child’s disappearance or known abduction to media outlets and government-run communications systems, including posting information on public messaging signs. They are named for Amber Rene Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl who was abducted while riding her bike in North Arlington, Texas, in January 1996. Hagerman’s body was discovered four days later; her killer has never been identified.
The Amber Alert system in New York, administered by the State Police, has been in operation since 2002. The number of alerts varies annually, and in some years only a few are issued.
The concept is to seek the public’s help as quickly as possible in trying to find an abducted child, which can be especially helpful if there is a vehicle description and/or the license plate of a suspect. The alerts are usually issued immediately if there are any witnesses to an abduction. But without an eyewitness, the alerts are generally delayed until a search and investigation eliminate other possibilities and law enforcement officials have concluded there is a reasonable basis to believe a child has been abducted.
In abductions where the perpetrator is a family member — crimes that are much more common than kidnappings involving a stranger — the alerts generally are not issued unless there is information that a child may be in imminent danger of harm.
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