At a Monday morning press conference, New York State Police detailed multiple inconsistencies in Frattolin’s version of events. Investigators said that based on their timeline, Melina was murdered on Saturday evening, shortly after calling her mother around 6:30 p.m. to say she was heading back to Canada.
Her mother held full custody, and Frattolin, who had been estranged from her since 2019, was scheduled to return Melina on Sunday.
Instead, the little girl’s body was found the next day, submerged in a shallow part of a pond near Ticonderoga—approximately 45 miles south of the last location her father claimed she was seen.
“This is certainly a difficult case, a heartbreaking investigation,” said Captain Robert McConnell of the New York State Police. “There was no abduction, and there is no threat to the public. This was an isolated incident.”
Luciano Frattolin, 49, pleaded not guilty when arraigned Monday in Ticonderoga Town Court. An autopsy is pending to determine Melina’s exact cause of death.
While a motive has not been officially confirmed, the timeline strongly suggests the killing occurred just before the scheduled custody return, which investigators are considering significant.
Luciano Frattolin is the founder of “Gambella,” a boutique organic coffee company. On the product’s website, he is described as a multicultural entrepreneur, born in the Ethiopian village of Gambella to an Ethiopian mother and an Italian father, raised between coffee plantations and neoclassical Milan.
His bio paints a picture of a worldly businessman with “a proven track record of building diverse, high-performance businesses,” and someone who values “a distinct cross-cultural ethos.” But behind that polished image, authorities say, was a man allegedly capable of one of the most unspeakable acts: the murder of his own child.