The coffee entrepreneur is accused of murdering his daughter Melina, 9.
Luciano Frattolin, 45, has been arrested and charged with the murder of his daughter, Melina. Instagram/Luciano Frattolin
Luciano Frattolin is the father of deceased Quebec child Melina Frattolin and the founder of Gambella coffee, among other business interests.
“This investigation has revealed that on July 11, 2025, Mr. Frattolin and Melina, both residents of Montreal, Que., legally entered the United States for the purpose of a vacation," he said.
He said the father and daughter were expected to return to Canada on July 20, where Emlina would be "returned to the custody of her mother in Montreal. The mother and Mr. Frattolin had been estranged since 2019.”On July 19, 2025, at approximately 9:58 p.m., Warren County 911 "received a call from a man reporting his 9-year-old daughter missing, with a possible abduction, in the area of Exit 22 of I-87 in Lake George, New York. The child was identified as Melina Frattolin, age 9, and the caller as her father, Luciano Frattolin, age 45, both residents of Canada," it reads. Authorities said they later discovered inconsistencies in the father's statements.
Melina’s body was found Sunday afternoon in Ticonderoga, New York, about 30 miles from the Lake George area where she and her dad had been vacationing. New York State Police
According to a web page, Frattolin is the founder of Gambella Coffee, a company based in Montreal. In a biography, Melina is described as "the light of his life."
"The son of an Ethiopian mother and an Italian father, Luciano was born in the small, remote village of Gambella. With a childhood spent running between rows of crimson coffee buds on the Ethiopian family plantation, and the neoclassical architecture of his father’s Milano, his vision of the world and his pursuits within, reflect these hyphenated cultures."
On Frattolin’s bio page for his Montreal-based coffee company Gambella Coffee, he alludes to painful hardships he has had to endure, including “incidences of racism,” “feelings of isolation” and the death of his father as a teenager.
He mentions an “unfortunate event” in 2019 that he says “severely affected his well-being” and necessitated a “long and arduous” road to recovery, too. He did not see elaborate on what happened, although cops said his relationship with his former wife apparently badly soured around that time.
Police say Frattolin called in a bogus kidnapping report hours before her body was recovered in shallow water in Ticonderoga, New York, on Sunday while they were on vacation in the Lake George area some 30 miles away.
Investigators later said there were no indications she had been abducted and that her father’s story contained inconsistencies, WRGB reported.
Frattolin, who was born in Ethiopia, was booked into Essex County Jail at 2:04 a.m. Monday and charged with Melina’s murder.
