Prosecution rests in trial of man accused of killing his nine-year-old daughter

ELIZABETHTOWN — The prosecution wrapped up its case against a man charged with second-degree murder in the death of his daughter with a five-hour video recreating the route he may have taken in the hours before he reported her missing.

On Friday, the jury finished watching the New York State Police video based on data from the man’s phone and his car’s location. Jurors watched close to four hours of the footage.

Frattolin is also charged with concealment of a human corpse in the death of his nine-year-old daughter, Melina Frattolin, who lived in Montreal.

The 46-year-old has pleaded not guilty to both charges and has been held without bail since his arrest.

The footage Friday showed a police vehicle following the location data of Frattolin’s car and phone from the time he left a McDonald’s with Melina to the moment he arrived at the sheriff’s office after reporting her missing.

The car stopped for more than an hour in a parking area next to a hiking trail close to the place the girl’s body was found.

Frattolin reported his daughter missing on July 19, 2025, and her body was found the next day in a marsh in a rural area near Ticonderoga, N.Y., about 400 kilometres north of New York City. Police arrested Frattolin on July 21.

Earlier in the trial, the jury saw a police interview where Frattolin told investigators he and Melina visited a hiking trail in that area. However, he said they left together and that she was later kidnapped by two men who drove off in a white van.

As part of the filming of the video, Jason Cooper, who works for the forensic video multimedia services unit of the state police force, walked down the trail to the place where the body was found and back to the car. He testified this took a little more than 20 minutes.

Later in the footage, the car stopped for a few seconds on the shoulder of the interstate in the place where a garbage bag of clothing with Frattolin’s DNA was found.

In cross-examination, Brian Pilatzke, one of Frattolin’s defence lawyers, asked Cooper about the bodies of water in many of the areas where the car stopped. He asked Cooper if it was possible to know what the people in the car did during this stop. Cooper answered it was not.

“You could see bodies of water? There was nature to observe?” asked Pilatzke of the areas in which the car stopped. Cooper agreed.

Frattolin had previously claimed that he and Melina had tried to hike down to a body of water but were unable to find a way to reach it.

Pilatzke also asked Cooper about two signs pointing to a police station that the car came across and seemingly followed later in its journey. Location data indicated that Frattolin would have come across those signs a few minutes before he called 911 to report his daughter had been abducted.

Once the prosecution was done, the defence called a private investigator, Terry Makham, to the stand as their first witness in the case.

He testified to weighing a rock from the area where the body was found that matched the measurements of the one found on the body. It weighed close to 45 kilograms.

Under cross-examination, the prosecutor questioned whether it was the same rock. Markham was not able to confirm whether it matched all the measurements taken by police.

The trial is expected to continue on Monday. It is uncertain whether Frattolin will testify in his defence.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 7, 2026.

Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman, The Canadian Press