Two Court Cases This Week: Quebec Girl's Mother Testifies Daughter Feared Trip Before Death, Idaho Dad Charged After Son Died While He Was on His Phone

The Frattolin trial: a mother's warning ignored

Kali Galanis took the stand Tuesday in Essex County Court and told jurors her 9-year-old daughter, Melina Frattolin, did not want to travel overseas with her father, Luciano Frattolin, months before prosecutors say he killed her, according to Fox News.

Galanis testified that Frattolin wanted to take Melina to his native Ethiopia for two weeks in January 2025. The trip never happened. Galanis said Melina objected, and that objection changed everything.

"She didn't want to go," Galanis testified, according to Fox News.

Galanis said she had been uneasy about international travel with Frattolin since the couple separated in 2019. Her attorney had warned her about cases where estranged parents took children abroad and never brought them back. When Frattolin later proposed extending the Ethiopia trip, those warnings hardened into a decision. Galanis testified she told him no.

Frattolin then proposed something narrower: a vacation through the northeastern United States instead. Galanis agreed to that. Authorities say Frattolin and Melina traveled through Connecticut and New York on that trip.

On the day Melina was scheduled to return home to Quebec, prosecutors allege Frattolin instead falsely reported she had been abducted by two men in a white van. That report led to an Amber Alert. Investigators found no evidence of any kidnapping. Melina's body was later found, according to Fox News.

Frattolin has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and concealment of a human corpse. He remains on trial. Nothing in Galanis's testimony proves what happened to Melina during the trip itself, only that her mother's unease about her father predated the girl's death by months. The trial is ongoing, and the burden remains on prosecutors to prove the murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

Idaho: manslaughter charge after phone use preceded fatal crash

Separately, in Canyon County, Idaho, 31-year-old Austin Summers faces a manslaughter charge after his 7-year-old son, Graham, was killed in a November 25 crash on Interstate 84, according to the Idaho Statesman's review of court documents, reported by the New York Post.

Court records say Summers was driving a GMC Sierra truck and rear-ended a 2013 Ford F450 that was experiencing mechanical problems and traveling at roughly 7 mph in the right lane of a 65 mph zone. Summers was allegedly going between 73 and 75 mph at the moment of impact.

Phone records obtained by investigators, after Summers reportedly withdrew his initial consent to hand them over and police secured a warrant, show he was active on his phone from 2:45 p.m. to 3:02 p.m., the minutes leading up to the crash. According to the documents cited by the New York Post, he scrolled Instagram, browsed Amazon, photographed another crash scene, and drafted an Instagram story that read, "Avoid th freeway heading." He also texted Graham's mother, Ashley Summers, from whom he is separated, writing "Stick in traffic."

He reportedly viewed another Instagram picture at 3:03 p.m., one minute before the 911 call was logged. Idaho State Police concluded reckless driving was the primary cause of the crash, with the Ford's mechanical trouble listed as a secondary factor. The Ford's 21-year-old driver was not injured.

A urine sample taken from Summers after the crash tested positive for cocaine and opiates, according to court documents. Ashley Summers told police her estranged husband had admitted using cocaine three days before the crash. Summers told investigators his other two children, ages 3 and 5 at the time, were unharmed in the back seat, and that Graham had removed his seatbelt during the drive.

Summers has not disputed the underlying facts of the crash. In a statement to police, he said: "While I am devastated by the loss of my son, I take responsibility not in that I was impaired by any means, or that Graham unilaterally took his seat belt off while I was driving on the freeway, but that I should have immediately pulled over and made sure he was properly buckled. That will haunt me forever."

That statement is a direct denial of impairment, even as the toxicology results and the phone log tell a different story about what he was doing behind the wheel. Both claims, his denial and the physical evidence against him, are now part of the same manslaughter case and will be weighed by a court, not settled by court documents alone.

What's unresolved

Summers has been charged but not convicted. The case will proceed through Idaho's court system, where prosecutors will have to establish that his driving, not the mechanical failure ahead of him, was the primary cause of Graham's death. Frattolin's trial in Essex County continues, with jurors still hearing testimony before any verdict on the murder and corpse-concealment charges. Neither man has been found guilty of anything as of this reporting.