ELIZABETHTOWN — A revelation came today in the Luciano Frattolin murder trial when testimony placed him at the site near Eagle Lake where his 9-year-old daughter Melina’s body was found.
Frattolin, 46, of Montreal, is charged with killing his daughter and has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of second-degree murder and concealment of a human corpse.
Testimony continued on day three of the trial with New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation Investigator Daniel Morrow taking the stand to say he questioned the man for 13 hours after Frattolin reported his daughter had been kidnapped by two men in a white van on July 19, 2025.
“The nature of the conversation was if he had changed his clothes during the day,” Morrow said. ”At first, he said no, then he said he changed his shirt. He (said he was) was sweaty.”
Police believe Frattolin changed his clothes, including his shirt, shorts and shoes, because he’d gotten them wet wading into a marsh in the town of Ticonderoga to drown his daughter.
The wet clothing was later found in a trash bag discarded along Interstate-87, the route the two were taking to return Melina to her mother in Montreal after a vacation in the United States.
The jury was shown a video recording made in an interview room at the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, the agency to which Frattolin first reported Melina missing.
“You know something you haven’t told us,” Morrow tells Frattolin in the video.
Frattolin insisted his daughter had been kidnapped.
“We were exploring all possibilities,” Morrow said in court. “He said he’d stepped in a puddle. When he said he was in the water, that opened up new possibilities.”
At the conclusion of the interview with Frattolin on July 20, 2025, police began preparing charging documents for him, Morrow said.
Warren County Assigned Counsel Administrator Brian Pilatzke, representing Frattolin, asked Morrow if police had lied to his client during the interview.
“There are are different techniques, but yes,” Morrow said.
He said Frattolin, who has dual Ethiopian and Italian citizenship, told them he’d been assaulted in Ethiopia and was in a coma for four weeks. After that, his memory and cognitive abilities declined, Morrow said Frattolin told them.
“When he was told his daughter was dead, he didn’t believe you?” Pilatzke asked.
“He wanted to see a picture,” Morrow replied.
Next to testify was BCI Investigator David Mosher, who was called to the Warren County Sheriff’s Department from another assignment.
Mosher said Frattolin told them he and his daughter had vacationed in New York City, Connecticut and Massachussets before heading home July 19.
He said they took Frattolin for what turned out to be a two hour and 20 minute search for the rest area where Frattolin said Melina was taken.
Frattolin finally identified it at the pull-off rest stop between exits 22 and 23 on southbound I-87. Frattolin said he’d turned around to find a rest area for Melina to use the restroom because he couldn’t find one northbound.
“He said he was 99.9% sure that was the one (between exits 22 and 23),” Mosher said.
At one point, Frattolin thought the CIA had kidnapped Melina, he says on the recording made during the search for the rest area.
“That theory seems farfetched,” Mosher told Frattolin.
Mosher told Frattolin they have cellular data that puts him at the marsh where Melina was killed, the video shows.
“I’m not lying,” Frattolin insists.
The trial will resume Tuesday with Mosher continuing his testimony at 9:15 a.m. in Essex County Court.