9-year-old Montreal girl found in an upstate New York pond drowned in a homicide

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GLENS FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — A 9-year-old girl from Canada found dead in an upstate New York pond after her father reported her missing was drowned, according to preliminary autopsy results released Tuesday.

Luciano Frattolin, 45, of Montreal, was charged with murdering and concealing the corpse of his daughter, Melina Frattolin. He pleaded not guilty Monday and was being held in a county jail.

Frattolin called 911 on Saturday night and said his daughter went missing from a parking lot near Lake George, a resort town in the Adirondack region. He later told authorities that two men forced his daughter into a white van, according to New York State Police.

Officials issued an Amber Alert, seeking the public’s help in the search. But investigators noticed inconsistencies in the father’s account and eventually concluded there was no evidence the girl had been abducted.

A team led by state forest rangers found the girl’s body on Sunday afternoon in the shallow part of a pond in the woods of Ticonderoga, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Lake George. The criminal complaint said Frattolin concealed her body under a log.

The preliminary autopsy results said the cause of death was “asphyxia due to drowning” and classified it as a homicide, according to state police. Final autopsy results are pending.

Police said the father and daughter had been vacationing since July 11 in the U.S. and were expected back in Montreal that weekend. The girl lived with her mother, who has been estranged from Luciano Frattolin since 2019, police said.

The investigation into the girl’s death is continuing.