A New York jury has heard evidence in the trial of Luciano Frattolin, who denies murdering his nine-year-old daughter, Melina, during a holiday contact visit. Prosecutors allege that he drowned her and concealed her body before falsely reporting that she had been abducted, making the case centred on whether his account and the digital evidence support those allegations.

Melina’s body was found in a shallow pond near Ticonderoga, New York, on 20 July 2025, after police examined Frattolin’s phone-location data. He had reported that two men in a white van had abducted her the previous night, prompting an Amber Alert, but police identified discrepancies in his account; he has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and concealing a human corpse.