Canadian man convicted of murdering his nine-year-old daughter in New York

On Monday, a jury in Essex County, New York, found Canadian coffee entrepreneur Luciano Frattolin guilty of the second-degree murder of his nine-year-old daughter, Melina. The crime occurred in July 2025 during a vacation in a mountainous region of northeastern New York. Prosecutors established that Frattolin strangled the child and hid her body under a rock as an act of vengeance against his ex-wife.

Following the murder, the father falsely reported that Melina had been kidnapped, triggering a large-scale police operation and the issuance of an Amber Alert. During the trial, Essex County prosecutor Michael Langey described the gruesome state in which the victim was found, highlighting the brutality of the act. The jury reached a guilty verdict after only one hour of deliberation.

Frattolin, who avoided eye contact throughout the proceedings, now faces a sentence of life imprisonment for the murder and the concealment of a corpse. This case has drawn significant attention due to the calculated nature of the crime and the deception used by the perpetrator to cover his tracks.