A coffee company chief accused in the death of his nine-year-old daughter asked investigators, “What are the benefits?” as they pressed him on whether he would tell the truth, a court has heard.
Luciano Frattolin, 45, is said to have made the remark during a police interview recorded on July 19, 2025, soon after prosecutors allege he killed his daughter, Melina, while the pair were on a trip from their home in Ottawa, Canada, to Ticonderoga, New York. Frattolin has denied the murder charge.
Jurors at his trial in Elizabethtown, New York, were shown footage on Wednesday that prosecutors say captured Frattolin appearing to consider whether to reveal what had happened to Melina.
Authorities say the child was drowned in a marsh as she and her Ethiopian-born father were heading back toward Canada. Frattolin had claimed Melina was kidnapped after they stopped along the roadside so she could use the bathroom.
Frattolin, CEO of the coffee company Gambella, was questioned on July 20, 2025, by New York State Police Investigator Ashlee Marks, who challenged his account and told him she did not believe the abduction story.
“You’re not telling us the truth, I can see it in your face. I can see it in your body language,” Marks told him during the interrogation.
According to prosecutors, Frattolin then replied, “What are the benefits?” — a response they argue showed him calculating whether it was in his interest to confess to the alleged killing.
Luciano Frattolin, 45, the coffee CEO accused of murdering his nine-year-old daughter, allegedly told police he did not see the “benefit” of telling the truth during questioning over her death, prosecutors say. He is pictured arriving at court on Friday, July 24, 2026
Melina Frattolin, nine, was found with her lungs, airway and stomach filled with mud, debris and plants after her father allegedly drowned her, experts testified this week
As prosecutors showed Frattolin’s interrogation footage, he stared blankly and showed no emotion while jurors watched on, court reporters said.
Jurors were shown harrowing images of Melina’s body after it was dragged from the marsh, but Frattolin remained silent and stared at investigators as they prepared to testify.
Prosecutors told the court that they obtained cell phone data that showed Frattolin had been near the lake where his daughter’s body was discovered.
Frattolin claimed that he and Melina went to the lake to try and swim earlier on July 19, but insisted ‘we both came back to the car.’
Despite being told that his own cell phone data helped lead to his daughter’s body, Frattolin maintained his story about only visiting the lake to try to swim.
He told investigators that they eventually did not swim because around ‘100 homes’ lined the shoreline, however Marks told him she had visited the area earlier that day and said she saw no homes nearby.
‘It’s changing, you’re adding information, you’re changing information,’ the investigator told him.
Frattolin appeared to be caught in another lie during the interrogation, as he also initially claimed he had not changed his clothes.
He later altered his story to say that he changed his shirt because he was ‘sweaty’.
Frattolin’s wet clothes were allegedly later found in a trash bag discarded along Interstate 87, the route where he had been driving Melina back to her mother in Montreal.
When Melina was reported missing by her father on July 19, 2025, he claimed that she had been kidnapped by two men in a white van as they traveled back home to Canada from New York
Frattolin has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and concealment of a corpse
Frattolin and his daughter had visited New York City in the days before her death, and he was due to bring her back to hand her back to her mother.
Prosecutors allege he hatched the murder plan as part of a scheme to avoid paying child support.
On Wednesday, prosecutors brought forward medical examiner Dr Michael Sikirica, who told jurors that the nine-year-old’s death was ‘definitely a drowning case.’
He gave gruesome details over how Melina’s lungs, airway and stomach were filled with mud, debris and plants from the marsh, and her remains were covered in a ‘large amount of mud’ to conceal her.
‘The lungs were just full of black material, basically mud and plant debris,’ Sikirica said. ‘It was obvious quickly that her lungs were hyper expanded,’ Sikirica testified, adding that her remains appeared to be weighted down by a stone in the water.
The testimony came days after it emerged that Melina had begged her mother not to send her on a previously planned trip with her father to his homeland of Ethiopia.
Earlier on Tuesday, Melina’s mother Kali Galanis took the stand, where she told jurors that Frattolin’s trip to New York with their daughter came after he unsuccessfully tried to take her on vacation to his native Ethiopia.
The trip to Ethiopia had been planned for January 2025, but Galanis did not allow her daughter to go after Melina told her she did not want to.
Melina’s mother said she sent her this picture just hours before she was allegedly murdered
Galanis and Frattolin were separated, and she said she had become concerned about Frattolin’s plans to travel overseas with Melina as her lawyer mentioned cases in which estranged spouses take their children to other countries and refuse to return with them.
The worried mother also noted there were other ‘troubling and alarming things’ that the young girl told her that her father said about her unwillingness to travel to the east African nation that Galanis ultimately decided not to allow Melina to go.
‘I became uncomfortable,’ she explained as Frattolin’s murder trial continued. ‘I was not OK with that anymore.’
Frattolin compromised with taking Melina to New York instead, where he allegedly drowned her as they drove back to Canada.
Prosecutors argue that the trip was just a ploy to kill Melina so that he would no longer have to pay child support.
Frattolin also allegedly believed that both Galanis and Melina suffered from mental illness and had been planning since early 2025 to end her suffering, CBS6 Albany reports.
His trial continues on Thursday.
