ELIZABETHTOWN — The second day of the Luciano Frattolin murder trial today featured a three-hour recording made by police as they drive Frattolin around to try to find the place where he said his daughter was kidnapped.
The July 19, 2025, recording was made inside a Warren County Sheriff’s Department vehicle as officers searched for Frattolin’s missing 9-year-old daughter, Melina.
He’d reported she was kidnapped from an I-87 southbound Capital District rest area by two men in a white van, a story police said turned out to be false.
Her body was found in a marsh in the Town of Ticonderoga, and an autopsy said she’d been drowned.
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.
The recording captured the exchanges between Frattolin and officers who drove him up and down I-87.
On the recording, Frattolin says none of the places look familiar and that he could not recognize the site where Melina was allegedly taken.
Frattolin and his daughter were returning to Canada from a vacation in the United States when she went missing.
The girl lived in Montreal with her mother, Kali Galanis, who is expected to testify.
The trial will continue Monday at 9:15 a.m. in Essex County Court.