A man from Montreal has been arrested and charged with murder after his 9-year-old daughter was found dead in a remote area in upstate New York on Sunday.
According to New York State Police, 45-year-old Luciano Frattolin took his young daughter, Melina, on a trip to the United States over the weekend.
They were last spotted together around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, in Cerro Springs, N.Y., according to video surveillance footage obtained by authorities.
About an hour later, investigators say the girl spoke to her mother on the phone and that everything seemed normal. Police received a 911 call around 10 p.m. from the girl’s father claiming that two men had abducted her in a suspicious white van.
“As the case progressed, law enforcement identified inconsistencies in the father’s account of events and the timeline he provided,” state police said.
The girl’s body was discovered by police the next day in a shallow pond near Ticonderoga, a historic town about 400 kilometres north of New York City. It’s nestled between Lake George and Lake Champlain, near the state line with Vermont.
Police said K9 and aviation units were involved in the search.
On Monday, the girl’s father was taken into custody and brought to the Essex County Jail in Lewis, N.Y. He was charged with second-degree murder and concealment of a corpse.
A cause of death has not yet been determined.