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Jury Begins Deliberations in Trial of Father Accused of Killing Daughter

Jurors will weigh competing accounts after prosecutors presented forensic reconstructions and scene evidence challenging the defendant’s abduction claim.

Overview

  • Luciano Frattolin is charged with second-degree murder and concealment of a human corpse in the death of his nine-year-old daughter, Melina, and has pleaded not guilty.
  • Prosecutors presented autopsy findings that ruled drowning the cause of death and played dive-team and scene evidence showing the body partially covered by a fallen tree with a rock on the chest.
  • The prosecution showed a lengthy route-recreation video and recorded interrogations that it says expose inconsistencies in Frattolin’s claim that two men in a white van abducted his daughter.
  • The defense called witnesses but Frattolin did not testify and both sides made final arguments before the judge instructed the jury to begin deliberations.
  • Frattolin remains held without bail and a verdict will decide whether he faces a possible conviction and sentence while the case continues to draw attention in Montreal, where the family lives.