Luciano Frattolin, 45, CEO of a Canada based coffee company is on trial, charged with the murder of his a nine-year-old daughter on July 19, 2025

Melina Frattolin was found drowned in a marsh, hours after her father claimed she had been abducted at a rest stop a return trip from New York to Ottawa, Canada

Melina’s parents, Kali Galanis and Luciano Frattolin, were separated, and Galanis had grown concerned about Ethiopian-born Frattolin’s plans to travel overseas with Melina, fearing her estranged spouse might not return with the child

Galanis was further bothered by other ‘troubling and alarming things’ her daughter revealed that her father said about her unwillingness to travel to Ethiopia

The worried mother ultimately decided not to allow Melina to go travel to East Africa

Frattolin compromised with taking Melina to New York instead, where he allegedly drowned her as they drove back to Canada

Prosecutors argue that the trip was just a ploy to kill Melina so that he would no longer have to pay child support

Melina Frattolin, [photo], 9, pleaded with her father not to take her on a trip just months before she was found dead in upstate New York from their home in Ottawa, Canada, in July 20265

A father coldly asked police ‘What’s the benefits?’ when discussing whether to tell the truth about the murder of his nine-year-old daughter, a court heard.
Luciano Frattolin, of Montreal, Canada, the 45-year-old CEO of a coffee company, is on trial for killing his daughter, Melina Frattolin. He has been charged with murder and concealment of a corpse. He has denied the charge of murder.
Prosecutors in court Wednesday claimed that Frattolin queried the purpose of being upfront with the facts, during a police interview recorded on July 20, 2025, shortly after he allegedly killed his daughter Melina during a vacation from their home in Ottawa, to Ticonderoga in New York. 
According to the victim’s mother, Kali Galanis, nine-year-old Melina Frattolin, was pleading with her father to leave her out of a planned trip to Ethiopia, just months before she was found dead in upstate New York, while on a custody trip with her dad.
She was drowned in a marsh while she and her Ethiopian-born father were traveling home to Ottawa, Canada.
Around 4 pm on July 19, 2025, Frattolin had called the help line to report his daughter missing, claiming his daughter had been abducted when they pulled over by the side of the road to use the bathroom. 
The missing girl was found in the shallow portion of a pond in upstate New York near the town of Ticonderoga the next day.
Ultimately, Frattolin was taken into custody within hours of Melina being found drowned in the marshes of Lake George, a small waterside town in the Adirondack region on July 20, 2025.

Luciano Frattolin, CEO of a coffee company on trial, accused of murdering his daughter, was arrested hours after he claimed his daughter had been abducted during a trip. Prosecutors allege Frattolin told cops he didn’t see the ‘benefit’ of telling the truth when interrogated over her death

Frattolin reported that his 9-year-old daughter Melina was last seen at Lake George, [image], a small waterside town in the Adirondack region of upstate New York, on July 19, 2025

Now on trial for killing his daughter, footage played on Wednesday at his trial in Elizabethtown, New York, Frattolin was apparently seen weighing up whether to tell what had really happened to Melina, during his police interview. 
Frattolin, who is the CEO of coffee company Gambella, was seen being questioned on July 20, 2025, by New York State Police [NYSP].
The investigator Ashlee Marks, recounts telling Frattolin she did not believe the kidnapping story at the time.
‘You’re not telling us the truth, I can see it in your face. I can see it in your body language,’ she told him. 
That was when he responded with ‘What are the benefits?’ which prosecutors have suggested was him weighing up whether to confess to his alleged crime.
As prosecutors showed Frattolin’s interrogation footage, he stared blankly and showed no emotion while jurors watched on, court reporters said. 

When Melina [seen photo with her dad], was reported missing by her father on July 19, 2025, he claimed that she had been kidnapped by two men in a white van as they traveled back home to Canada from New York

Experts testified that nine-year-old Melina Frattolin was found in a marshes of a lake along the route, with her lungs, airway and stomach filled with mud, debris and plants after her father allegedly drowned her

While jurors were shown harrowing images of Melina’s body after it was dragged from the marsh, the defendant remained silent, staring at investigators as they prepared to testify. Prosecutors also told the court cell phone data showed hen had been near the lake where his daughter’s body was discovered. 
Frattolin claimed that he and Melina went to the lake to try and swim earlier on July 19, but insisted ‘we both came back to the car.’ Undeterred even when told that his own cell phone data helped lead to his daughter’s body, Frattolin persisted with the claim that they only visited the lake to try to swim. 
He told investigators that they eventually did not swim because around ‘100 homes’ lined the shoreline, however Marks told him she had visited the area earlier that day and said she saw no homes nearby. 
‘It’s changing, you’re adding information, you’re changing information,’ the investigator told him.  
Another prosecution submission stated that Frattolin during the interrogation, initially claimed he had not changed his clothes, then later altered his story, claiming he changed his shirt because he was ‘sweaty’. 
Frattolin’s wet clothes were allegedly later found in a trash bag discarded along Interstate 87, the route where he had been driving Melina back to her mother in Montreal.

Frattolin and his daughter had visited New York City in the days before her death, and he was due to bring her back to hand her back to her mother. Frattolin never returned the child. He has pled not guilty to charges of murder and concealment of a corpse 

Frattolin and his daughter had visited New York City in the days before her death, and he was due to bring her back to hand her back to her mother. The return exchange never happened.
Prosecutors allege he hatched the murder plan as part of a scheme to avoid paying child support. 
Testifying for the prosecution on Wednesday, medical examiner Dr Michael Sikirica, told jurors that Melina’s death was ‘definitely a drowning case.’ 
The ME gave gruesome details on the condition of the child’s body when recovered. Here lungs, airway and stomach were filled with mud, debris and plants from the marsh, and her remains were covered in a ‘large amount of mud’ used in concealment. 
‘The lungs were just full of black material, basically mud and plant debris,’ Sikirica said.
‘It was obvious quickly that her lungs were hyper expanded,’ Sikirica testified, adding it appeared that her remains had been weighted down by a stone in the water. 
Frattolin lives in Canada but was a dual citizen of Ethiopia and Italy and carried an Italian passport.
Wednesday’s testimony came days after it emerged that Melina had begged her mother not to send her on a previously planned overseas trip with her father. Earlier on Tuesday, Melina’s mother Kali Galanis took the stand, where she told jurors that Frattolin’s trip to New York with their daughter came after he unsuccessfully tried to take her on vacation to his native Ethiopia.
The trip to Ethiopia had been planned for January 2025, but Galanis did not allow her daughter to go after Melina told her she did not want to.

Galanis said her daughter sent this photo just hours before she was allegedly murdered by her father. The parents are separated. The mother revealed she’d was uncomfortable with plans by her estranged husband to travel overseas with their daughter Melina  

Kali Galanis and Luciano Frattolin were separated, and she said she had become concerned about Frattolin’s plans to travel overseas with Melina as her lawyer mentioned cases in which estranged spouses take their children to other countries and refuse to return with them.
The worried mother also noted there were other ‘troubling and alarming things’ that the young girl told her that her father said about her unwillingness to travel to the east African nation that Galanis ultimately decided not to allow Melina to go.
‘I became uncomfortable,’ she explained as Frattolin’s murder trial continued. ‘I was not OK with that anymore.’ 
Frattolin compromised with taking Melina to New York instead, where he allegedly drowned her as they drove back to Canada.
Prosecutors argue that the trip was just a ploy to kill Melina so that he would no longer have to pay child support.
Frattolin also allegedly believed that both Galanis and Melina suffered from mental illness and had been planning since early 2025 to end her suffering.