CEO Father’s Chilling Question After Arrest in 9-Year-Old Daughter’s Murder

A coffee company executive accused of killing his nine-year-old daughter asked police, “What are the benefits?” as investigators pressed him about whether he would tell the truth, a New York court heard. Luciano Frattolin, 45, allegedly made the remark during a recorded police interview after the death of his daughter, Melina, while the pair were returning to Canada from a trip to Ticonderoga, New York, in July 2025. Frattolin, who lives in Ottawa, has denied a murder charge. Prosecutors say Melina was drowned in a marsh, while Frattolin initially told authorities she had been abducted after they stopped along the roadside so she could use the bathroom.

Jurors in Elizabethtown, New York, were shown interrogation footage on Wednesday in which New York State Police Investigator Ashlee Marks challenged Frattolin’s account. Marks told the Gambella coffee CEO she did not believe his kidnapping story, saying, “You’re not telling us the truth, I can see it in your face. I can see it in your body language.” Frattolin then replied, “What are the benefits?”—a statement prosecutors have framed as evidence that he was considering whether to admit what happened. Court reporters said Frattolin showed little visible reaction as the video played and as jurors were later shown disturbing images of Melina’s body after it was recovered from the marsh. Prosecutors also said cellphone records placed Frattolin near the lake where his daughter was found.

Frattolin told investigators he and Melina had gone to the lake earlier on July 19 because they intended to swim, but he insisted that “we both came back to the car.” Even after police said his phone data helped lead them to the location of Melina’s body, he stood by his explanation that they had only visited the area for a possible swim. He claimed they ultimately decided against getting in the water because there were roughly “100 homes” along the shoreline. Marks pushed back, telling him she had been to the site that day and had not seen homes nearby. “It’s changing, you’re adding information, you’re changing information,” she told him.

Investigators also confronted Frattolin over what they described as inconsistencies about his clothing. He first said he had not changed clothes, then revised that account and said he changed his shirt because he was “sweaty.” Prosecutors allege wet clothing belonging to him was later discovered in a trash bag dumped along Interstate 87, the route he had been taking as he drove Melina back toward Montreal to reunite her with her mother. Frattolin and Melina had spent time in New York City in the days before her death, and he was scheduled to return the child to her mother at the end of the trip.

Prosecutors allege Frattolin killed his daughter as part of a plan to avoid paying child support. On Wednesday, medical examiner Dr. Michael Sikirica testified that Melina’s death was “definitely a drowning case.” He told jurors her lungs, airway and stomach contained mud, plant matter and other debris from the marsh, and said her body had been covered in a “large amount of mud” in what appeared to be an effort to conceal it. “The lungs were just full of black material, basically mud and plant debris,” Sikirica testified.

Sikirica said it quickly became clear during the examination that Melina’s lungs were “hyper expanded,” a finding consistent with drowning. He also testified that her body appeared to have been weighed down in the water with a stone. The medical testimony followed earlier evidence about Melina’s relationship with her father and a separate trip he had tried to arrange. Her mother, Kali Galanis, testified Tuesday that before the New York trip, Frattolin had unsuccessfully sought to take Melina to his native Ethiopia.

Galanis told jurors that the Ethiopia trip had been planned for January 2025, but she refused to allow Melina to go after the child said she did not want to travel. Galanis and Frattolin were separated at the time, and she said she grew increasingly uneasy about the overseas plan after her lawyer raised concerns about cases in which estranged parents take children abroad and do not return with them.

The mother said Melina also shared other “troubling and alarming things” her father had allegedly said about the child’s reluctance to visit the East African country, leading Galanis to withdraw her permission for the trip. “I became uncomfortable,” she testified. “I was not OK with that anymore.” Frattolin later agreed to take Melina to New York instead, prosecutors say, but they allege the trip was a cover for a plan to kill her and end his child support obligations. Prosecutors have also alleged Frattolin believed Galanis and Melina suffered from mental illness and had been planning since early 2025 to end the child’s suffering, according to CBS6 Albany. The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday.