Overview
- The criminal trial of Luciano Frattolin is underway in Essex County Court with prosecutors presenting medical examiner testimony, police dive and scene video, cell-phone tracking and AirTag data to link him to where his daughter’s body was found.
- Medical testimony described Melina’s lungs, airway and stomach as filled with mud, plant debris and other material consistent with drowning, and photos and tissue samples were shown to jurors.
- State police played hours of recorded interrogations in which investigators say Frattolin repeatedly changed details and continued to assert a kidnapping story investigators found no evidence to support.
- Police divers testified and court video showed the child’s body partially submerged under a log in shallow marsh water with a large rock on her torso and nearby white sneakers recovered at the scene.
- Frattolin has pleaded not guilty and remains held without bail as the prosecution argues the evidence shows he killed his daughter and staged a bogus abduction while the defense disputes that account and the case moves toward further witness testimony.