The man found guilty of murdering his 9-year-old daughter, Melina, whom he drowned in a marsh in a mountainous area in northeastern New York, was found guilty on Monday. Luciano Frattolin of Canada, who, as stated in court, committed the heinous act to take revenge on his ex-wife.
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Fratolin, a businessman in the coffee industry, killed little Melina in July 2025 while they were on vacation together, then hid her body under a rock.
He then fabricated a story that Melina had been abducted, triggering an Amber Alert and a major police operation to locate the 9-year-old.
Little Melina’s father now faces a life sentence for second-degree murder and concealment of a body.
“Melina’s short life came to a violent end,” said Essex County District Attorney Michael Langi during his closing argument on Monday, looking at Frattolin, who avoided his gaze. “Everything was covered in mud. Her long black hair, which she had just taken out of her braids, was covered in dirt and grass,” the prosecutor added, noting that the jury needed just one hour to reach their verdict.
Melina’s mother, Kali Galanis, had full custody of her daughter after ending her long-distance relationship with Frattolin in 2019. In recent years, however, she had allowed Melina to go on trips with her father.
“She had begged her not to go on the trip”
Testifying in court a few days ago, the 9-year-old’s mother said that the little girl did not want to travel abroad—specifically to Ethiopia—with her father. “She didn’t want to go,” Galanis testified, adding that she herself had begun to feel increasingly uneasy about the trip because, as she said, she had reservations about allowing a trip abroad following a warning from her lawyer regarding cases in which separated parents took their children abroad and then refused to return them.
Galanis also testified that Frattolin later suggested extending the duration of the trip to Ethiopia. As she said, the discussions she had with Melina about the trip ultimately convinced her to cancel it. “I felt uncomfortable. I wasn’t okay with it anymore,” she said, referring to the trip in question.
It was then that, instead of Ethiopia, Fratolin suggested taking Melina on the fateful trip to Connecticut and New York; on the day they were scheduled to return to Quebec, where the 9-year-old’s father lived, he killed her and then claimed she had been kidnapped to cover his tracks.
Source: Proto Thema
