Luciano Frattolin was booked early Monday at the Essex County jail
By Mike Goodwin, Lauren Stanforth, Patrick Tine, Times Union
TICONDEROGA — Luciano Frattolin’s vacation with his daughter, as he described it, had gone horribly wrong.
He’d pulled over near Exit 22 on the Northway in Lake George and ducked into the woods to urinate, he’d later tell police. He returned to find his daughter gone. A white van was fleeing south after two men forced her inside, he told 911 operators around 9:58 p.m. Saturday. The call triggered an Amber Alert and a frantic search for the 9-year-old Canadian girl.
State Police said Frattolin’s story quickly disintegrated.
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“He fabricated the initial report of the abduction,” Capt. Robert McConnell, the Colonie-based leader of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, told reporters Monday.
Melina Galanis Frattolin was found dead in a remote part of Ticonderoga, her body hidden in a pond, troopers said Monday. Her father has been charged with her murder.
Dressed in a disposable Tyvek suit and boots after police seized his clothing, Frattolin was arraigned Monday morning in town court, where a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf. He was sent back to the Essex County jail where he was being held on the murder charge as well as a count of concealment of a human corpse.
Frattolin spoke briefly in court, telling Judge Richard Carpenter that the address listed for him in Montreal was incorrect. Despite a social media presence that touts a love of international travel and luxury cars, Frattolin said he could not afford an attorney.
He was represented Monday by Jared Cadena of the county’s public defender’s office. Essex County District Attorney Michael P. Langey represented the prosecution.
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State Police told reporters earlier Monday that the Canadian-based businessman — who has dual-citizenship in Ethiopia and Italy and a Canadian visa — was in the U.S. with his daughter on vacation. They arrived on July 11, visiting places in Connecticut and New York, including New York City, and were due to return home on Sunday to Montreal. Surveillance footage at a restaurant showed them in Saratoga Springs around 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Melina called her mother about an hour later and seemed fine.
Related: Missing 9-year-old girl found dead in Ticonderoga
Sometime between then and the 911 call, McConnell said Frattolin killed his child and left her in the shallow end of a pond in Ticonderoga. State forest rangers found her there around 10:50 a.m. Sunday. The criminal complaint says he “concealed her body by positioning her under a log.” An autopsy will be done on Monday to determine her cause of death.
A motive is under investigation. State Police said the girl’s mother had full custody of the child, and though the couple split up in 2019, Melina’s mother did not believe her ex-husband posed a danger to their daughter, McConnell said.
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He was booked at the Essex County jail at 2:04 a.m.
The search for Melina prompted an Amber Alert by State Police, sounding on phones around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. It said the girl was last seen in a white van that pulled onto the Northway in Lake George and she was in “imminent danger of serious bodily harm and/or death.” But as Sunday wore on, authorities released few further details about the girl’s disappearance and focused on alleged inconsistencies in her father’s statements to investigators. The alert was canceled at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Warren County dispatchers fielded over 800 calls on Sunday. The child’s body was found by a state Department of Environmental Conservation police officer who was taking part in a grid search on Sunday, according to the officer’s union, the Police Benevolent Association of New York State. State forest rangers coordinated the search. Authorities have not revealed why the search focused on Ticonderoga, but State Police said Monday Frattolin was believed to have visited that area.
The search for Melina was a multiagency effort involving the troopers, Essex County Sheriff’s Office, state Department of Environmental Conservation Police and state forest rangers, local Ticonderoga police, as well as State Police air and K-9 units.
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Frattolin was born in Ethiopia and most recently spent much of his time in 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.”
He is due back in court at 1 p.m. on Friday.
Photo at top: Luciano Frattolin, 45, is escorted away from Ticonderoga Town Court after being arraigned Monday on a second-degree murder charge that accuses him of killing his 9-year-old daughter Melina, on Saturday, before, State Police said, calling 911 to report she’d been abducted. Patrick Tine / Times Union
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