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Authorities have released photos of 45-year-old Luciano Frattolin and his 9-year-old daughter, Melina. (Essex County Sherriff\u2019s Office)<\/p>\nA Montreal man accused in the death of his nine-year-old daughter is making another attempt to limit what prosecutors can present at his upcoming trial in New York state.<\/p>\n
Luciano Frattolin, 45, has submitted a motion asking the court to exclude certain evidence, including material taken from his cellphone and statements he allegedly made to police. The application follows earlier rulings in which a judge declined to dismiss the charges against him or suppress items collected from his Montreal residence.<\/p>\n
Authorities have released photos of 45-year-old Luciano Frattolin and his 9-year-old daughter, Melina. (Essex County Sherriff\u2019s Office)<\/p>\n
Frattolin is facing counts of second-degree murder and concealment of a human corpse in connection with the death of his daughter, Melina.<\/p>\n
The investigation began the night of July 19, 2025, when Frattolin reported to New York State Police that his daughter had been abducted as they were returning to Montreal from a trip. Authorities issued an Amber Alert soon after. Hours later, the search ended tragically when the child\u2019s body was discovered in a shallow pond near Ticonderoga, N.Y., about 200 kilometres south of Montreal.<\/p>\n
Police have said the circumstances point to homicide.<\/p>\n
Early autopsy results determined that Melina died from drowning, with asphyxia identified as the cause of death.<\/p>\n
In the latest filing, Frattolin\u2019s defence lawyer argues that evidence obtained through a search of his phone, as well as comments he allegedly made during a late-night ride with two state troopers while officers were searching for the girl, should not be admitted at trial.<\/p>\n
A judge is set to hear arguments on the motion Wednesday at the Essex County courthouse. The trial is currently scheduled to begin in April.<\/p>\n
Melina and her father entered the United States on July 11\u00a0for\u00a0a vacation to New York and Connecticut and were due back in\u00a0Montreal\u00a0on July 20. <\/p>\n
Frattolin and Melina\u2019s mother have been estranged since 2019. Melina lived full time with her mother, who had\u00a0not\u00a0expressed concerns about letting her daughter spend time with her father, police said.<\/p>\n
On the day she died, Melina spoke with her mother over the phone at about 6:30 p.m. and did\u00a0not\u00a0appear to be under duress, police said. About three-and-a-half hours later, Frattolin called 911 and reported his nine-year-old daughter missing and possibly abducted. But as the case progressed, officers identified alleged inconsistencies in the father\u2019s account\u00a0of\u00a0events and the timeline\u00a0of\u00a0Melina\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n
\u2014With files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Montreal man accused in the death of his nine-year-old daughter is making another attempt to limit what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-497066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}