Death of Timothy Wiltsey
Timothy Wiltsey | |
|---|---|
 Timothy Wiltsey, from 1991 missing-child flyer | |
| Born | Timothy William Wiltsey August 6, 1985 |
| Died | May 25, 1991 (aged 5) |
| Body discovered | Edison, New Jersey |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | St. Mary Elementary School |
| Known for | Victim of homicide |
| Parent(s) | Michelle Lodzinski George Wiltsey |
Timothy William "Timmy" Wiltsey (August 6, 1985 – May 25, 1991) was a 5-year-old boy from South Amboy, New Jersey, whose 23-year-old single mother, Michelle Lodzinski, reported him missing from a local carnival on May 25, 1991. The case was televised twice on America's Most Wanted, and Timmy's photograph was circulated on thousands of missing-child flyers and milk cartons. On April 23, 1992, his partial remains were discovered across the Raritan River in the marshlands of Edison, New Jersey, near one of Lodzinski's recent employment locations. She was considered the primary suspect in the crime – but despite two failed polygraph tests, years of publicity, a self-kidnapping hoax and other major inconsistencies in her story,[1] she was not charged with Timmy's death until August 6, 2014, which would have been his 29th birthday. On May 18, 2016, a unanimous jury convicted her of Timmy's murder, after the "cold case" prosecution successfully overcame inadmissible facts and a lack of forensic evidence directly connecting Lodzinski to the crime. Following unsuccessful motions of appeal, sentencing was scheduled for January 5, 2017.
Disappearance
The evening of Saturday, May 25, 1991, during the Memorial Day weekend, Michelle Lodzinski said she and her son visited the South Amboy Elks Club carnival in Sayreville's Kennedy Park. Lodzinski reported that her son went missing when she left him waiting in a carnival ride line as she went to buy a soda. Police officers, firefighters, volunteers, and trained dogs immediately launched an exhaustive search of the carnival grounds and the surrounding area, to no avail. Timmy's father, George Wiltsey, was at home in Iowa, uninvolved in the boy's life, and eliminated as a suspect.[1] Coincidentally, May 25 was National Missing Children's Day, an annual observance inspired by a previous high-profile disappearance.[2]
Inconsistencies
Lodzinski reported to investigators that she and her son had spent time at Holmdel Park during the afternoon before driving to the evening carnival. According to park police, the Holmdel lot where she claimed to have parked was closed that day. Despite her claim to have spent more than an hour at the Elks carnival, with Timmy dressed in bright red, the authorities could find no one who had seen her son that night.[1] As one witness testified: "I spoke with her and she did not have a child with her. I was very upset. There was a child missing and there was no child."[3]
Ten days later at a police interview in Sayreville, Lodzinski claimed two men with a knife had taken her son and intimidated her into silence. Later that day, she returned to the police station and recanted the story, as the police began to consider her a leading suspect. The following day, she returned and gave a third story that her son had been taken by two men and a woman. She claimed to have known the woman as Ellen, a local go-go dancer and bank customer. No such woman was ever found, despite an exhaustive FBI search.[1][4][5]
Initial evidence
On October 26, 1991, schoolteacher Dan O'Malley was birdwatching and exploring marshlands in the Raritan Center business park in Edison, New Jersey. He discovered a child's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sneaker, which had been highly publicized as the kind Timmy was wearing when he disappeared. O'Malley brought it to the Sayreville Police Department that same day. The sneaker was shown to Lodzinski, who stated it was not her son’s. It was then stored in an evidence area and apparently forgotten. After three weeks with no word from the police, O'Malley reported the sneaker to a local newspaper, The Home News of New Brunswick, resulting in a front-page story and FBI forensic testing.[1][6][7]
Months later, after the forensic testing had been inconclusive, FBI agent Ron Butkiewicz read the newspaper story, contacted O'Malley, and they toured the location together on April 6, 1992.[7] Upon re-interviewing Lodzinski's friends and family, Butkiewitz learned that she had once worked and taken frequent walks at the Raritan Center complex, within a few blocks of the sneaker's discovery, although Lodzinski herself omitted just this location when investigators had asked for her complete employment history.[8] On April 23–24, 1992, law enforcement teams conducted a full search of the area. They quickly located a matching second sneaker in Timmy's size, and then found the boy's partial skeletal remains in and around a truck tire in Red Root Creek. His identity was confirmed through dental records, and his death was ruled a homicide, although the time, location, and medical cause of death could not be determined due to advanced decomposition.[1][7]
Later developments
On January 21, 1994, Michelle Lodzinski's car was found idling at her New Jersey home. The next day, she turned up in Detroit, Michigan, claiming abduction by FBI agents "to teach her a lesson for talking about Timmy." Two weeks after she returned home, her brother found an FBI business card on her door with the message "It's not over." Agent Butkiewicz resumed his investigation and found a local print shop that had recently printed FBI business cards for Lodzinski. She admitted faking her own kidnapping but refused to discuss her contradictory accounts of Timmy's kidnapping, and was sentenced to house arrest and probation for the FBI hoax.[1][9]
In 1997, pregnant with her second child, Lodzinski pleaded guilty to stealing a computer from a former employer, and was again sentenced to house arrest and probation. In 1998 she moved to Florida, then in 1999 to Minnesota, where she was married in 2001 and started a new family.[1] The marriage did not last long and pregnant with her third child she returned to Florida in 2003, where she bought a small home in Port St. Lucie.[10]
As part of a "cold case" review that NJ prosecutors began in 2011, three of Timmy's former babysitters were each able to identify a distinctive blanket that had been discovered near his remains.[11] Investigators realized that the boy would not have been carrying a 10-foot (3 m) blanket through a carnival on the humid 90 °F (32 °C) day when he disappeared, and concluded that the blanket was taken from Lodzinski's South Amboy home, for covering the boy after his death, despite her denial of ever having such a blanket.[12]
Arrest and trial
On August 6, 2014, which would have been Timmy's 29th birthday, following a sealed indictment by a grand jury, Lodzinski was arrested in Florida and charged with her son's murder.[13] After reviewing extensive legal arguments from the defense and prosecution,[14][15] New Jersey Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves issued a key pretrial ruling that "Lodzinski's active omission and hindrances to the investigation through her statements may reasonably establish circumstantial evidence of her guilt."[12] Her criminal trial began on March 16, 2016,[16] and after testimony from 68 witnesses,[17] the unanimous jury delivered a widely publicized guilty verdict on May 18, a week before the 25th anniversary of Timmy's disappearance.[18][19][20][21] Sentencing was scheduled for August 2016 and then postponed, as Lodzinski's attorney appealed the judge's earlier rulings on juror misconduct and insufficient evidence.[22][23][24] On October 25, Nieves denied the request for a new trial.[25] Sentencing was re-scheduled for January 5, 2017.[26]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Fisher, Robin Gaby (May 20, 2001). "Timothy Wiltsey: Ten years after the 5-year-old South Amboy boy disappeared". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
- ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (May 22, 2015). "National Missing Children's Day 2015". Retrieved May 25, 2016.
- ^ Epstein, Sue (March 23, 2016). "A mother on trial: Lodzinski was at the carnival, but no one saw Timothy". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ Epstein, Sue (September 24, 2015). "4 conflicting Lodzinski statements from 1991 played in court". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
- ^ Livio, Susan K.; Stirling, Stephen (September 18, 2015). "Striking new details revealed in FBI documents on Timothy Wiltsey investigation". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
- ^ Hutchinson, Jennifer (November 19, 1991). "Missing boy's sneaker may have been located". The Home News. New Brunswick, NJ.
- ^ a b c Federal Bureau of Investigation (2000), Timothy William Wiltsey, retrieved March 4, 2016
- ^ Mueller, Mark (September 23, 2015). "Did she kill Timmy Wiltsey? Evidence includes blanket, pillowcase". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- ^ Staff (September 24, 1994). "Woman Admits to a Judge She Faked Her Abduction". The New York Times. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
- ^ Bichao, Sergio; Russell, Suzanne (March 24, 2016). "Follow the Lodzinski murder case – all you need to know". Home News Tribune. Retrieved March 26, 2016.
- ^ Russell, Suzanne (April 7, 2016). "Testimony: Could Timothy Wiltsey have been strangled?". Home News Tribune. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
- ^ a b Mueller, Mark; Livio, Susan K. (September 23, 2015). "Murder trial against Michelle Lodzinski will proceed, judge says". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
- ^ Wallace, Sarah; Sedensky, Matt (August 8, 2014). "Mom Arrested for New Jersey Son's Death in 1991". Associated Press. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
- ^ "State of New Jersey v. Michelle Lodzinski: Defendant's Pretrial Motions". July 10, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- ^ "State of New Jersey v. Michelle Lodzinski: State Opposition Brief". August 27, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- ^ Epstein, Sue (March 17, 2016). "Tears, drama as murder trial begins for mom whose child disappeared in 1991". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ^ Epstein, Sue; Mueller, Mark (May 19, 2016). "'You just knew' Lodzinski was guilty, juror says". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
- ^ Santora, Marc; Grant, Jason (May 18, 2016). "Woman Found Guilty of Murder in 1991 Death of Her Son, 5". The New York Times. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
- ^ Russell, Suzanne (May 18, 2016). "Mom found guilty of murdering son 25 years ago". Home News Tribune. USA Today Network. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
- ^ Porter, David (May 18, 2016). "Woman convicted of killing 5-year-old son in 1991". Associated Press. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
- ^ Howard, Marcus E. (May 18, 2016). "Florida Woman Found Guilty in 1991 Murder of Five-Year-Old Son". Reuters. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
- ^ Sherman, Ted; Epstein, Sue (May 18, 2016). "Michelle Lodzinski guilty of murdering son Timmy Wiltsey". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- ^ Sherman, Ted (August 23, 2016). "Juror misconduct and lack of evidence at center of Lodzinski appeal". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
- ^ Sherman, Ted (August 23, 2016). "No quick ruling on Lodzinski bid for new trial". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
- ^ Goldman, Jeff (October 26, 2016). "Michelle Lodzinski denied new trial in killing of her 5-year-old son". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
- ^ Kent, Spencer (December 1, 2016). "Michelle Lodzinski to be sentenced next month in killing of 5-year-old son". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved December 1, 2016.