Third week wraps up in New York trial of man accused of killing daughter

Prosecutors are expected to wrap up their case today in the trial of a man accused of killing his nine-year-old daughter last summer during a trip to New York.

Luciano Frattolin is on trial in Elizabethtown, N.Y., facing a charges of second-degree murder and of the concealment of a human corpse in the death of Melina Frattolin, who lived in Montreal.

The forty-six-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to both charges and has been held without bail since his arrest in July 2025.

On Thursday, the jury saw a video the girl sent her mother in the afternoon of July 19, 2025, less than six hours before she was reported missing.

They also heard testimony that her phone was last used an hour after she sent the video to her mother.

Her body was found the next day in a marsh in a rural area of New York.

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

By Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.