TICONDEROGA, NY — Hundreds of locals from the close-knit upstate community where 9-year-old Melina Frattolin was allegedly murdered by her father mourned the little girl in a heartbreaking vigil Tuesday.
“If this is going to be the resting place where he left her, this is going to be her community now,” Bridgette Cruz, a mom and local business owner who organized a vigil in Ticonderoga told a crowd of a few hundred people.
“She will be one of us,” Cruz added.
Little Melina, a Canadian tourist, was found in a shallow pond on the western end of Eagle Lake, about 10 miles away near the edge of town, where authorities allege her father, Luciuano Frattolin, drowned her before placing a bogus 911 call claiming she was kidnapped.
“As a mother, my heart has ached and stomach has churned since 1:30 that morning when that amber alert hit,” Cruz said.
She’s not alone.
“It really does kind of take the wind out of us, right? That’s why we’re so glad to be able to participate in something like this,” said Adam Dubuque, an army vet who moved to the area in 2011 to get away.
“My faith has been a big building block for my life post-service. It’s really cool to see the area start to embrace it and have us do things like this, show unity amongst the community, especially when things are kind of divided right now,” Dubuque added.
Tabitha Farmer described the murder as “heartbreaking” and said she stayed up listening to the police scanner Saturday night when Melina’s dad reported her missing.
Farmer and her husband, Jason, drove 45 minutes from Minerva, New York, to light a candle for Melina.
“Something like this is just unheard of around here,” her husband said.
A separate memorial was held in Schroon Lake on Tuesday evening.
“Number one, as a parent, you cannot believe that a parent would actually do that to their own child,” Tonya LaFrance, a lifelong Ticonderoga resident, told The Post.
“And secondly, it’s a very, very tight knit, close community, most of the people here, everybody knows everybody,” she added.
She said the murder brings a level of “terror” to the community and a sense of frustration that its reputation should be marred by such a disgusting tragedy.
“That is very very hard for everybody to swallow right now,” she said.
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