ELIZABETHTOWN -- A New York State Police investigator told a jury on Thursday that investigators compiled over 200,000 location data points taken from a phone as part of their investigation last summer into the death of a nine-year-old girl from Montreal.
Ryan Munks testified that the data was extracted from apps such as Google Maps on the phone of Luciano Frattolin, who is on trial and charged with second-degree murder and the concealment of a human corpse in the case.
Munks noted that the tens of thousands of data points, which covered a weeklong period, were a larger data set than what he would typically see in an investigation.
“That’s a lot. One of the most I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Melina Frattolin was found drowned to death in a marsh in rural New York, at the end of her trip with her father.
Luciano Frattolin has pleaded not guilty to the two charges and has been held without bail since his arrest last July. He has alleged that his daughter was abducted by two men who drove off in a white van.
Munks also testified that he analyzed data showing that shortly before she disappeared, the girl messaged her mother on her own phone to get in touch with one of her friends. The girl was due to return to Montreal on the same evening.
He also said the data showed that Luciano Frattolin’s phone remained stationary beside a country road for about an hour, before the father called police to report his daughter was missing.
In subsequent testimony, the jury heard how police tracked a silver Prius that Frattolin had rented and used for the trip.
An analyst from the state police, Andrew Munson, said a team of investigators pulled data from licence-plate reading cameras to review the evidence, revealing how the Prius was captured travelling in both directions on the I-87 highway over a three-hour period on the same evening.
The investigators also analyzed images of white vans using an AI tool, but did not find any information hinting at criminal activity based on further analysis of the vehicles and their registered owners, Munson said.
During cross-examination of Munson, Frattolin’s attorneys questioned the accuracy of the AI tool police used.
Munson was also asked by the defence whether there were ways to evade detection by a licence plate reader, such as obscuring or removing the licence plate.
He confirmed this was possible.
More testimony was scheduled for the afternoon.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2026.
Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman, The Canadian Press
