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Thread: 5 Yr Old Timothy Wiltsey's Mother Charged With His Murder 23 Yrs After She Claimed He Went Missing From A Carnival

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    5 Yr Old Timothy Wiltsey's Mother Charged With His Murder 23 Yrs After She Claimed He Went Missing From A Carnival



    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/09..._r=0&referrer=


    Michelle Lodzinski in 1991

    Michelle Lodzinski?s screams rose above the din of clanging rides and carnival games. It was a spring evening in 1991, and she told anyone who was listening that she had brought her 5-year-old son to the carnival in Sayreville, N.J. Now, he was missing.

    Ms. Lodzinski told the police she had looked away for a moment to order a soda, when someone snatched her child.

    The carnival was shut down. Helicopters circled overhead late into the night, and hundreds of police and volunteers searched the park for any sign of the child.

    Almost immediately, the northern New Jersey case attracted national attention, with little Timothy Wiltsey?s picture ? vibrant and smiling ? appearing on the side of thousands of milk cartons and on the Jumbotron at Yankee Stadium. Don Mattingly posed holding his photo.

    Twice, the case was featured on the television show ?America?s Most Wanted.? From the outset, however, something seemed off about the 23-year-old mother?s story. No credible witnesses could recall seeing the boy at the carnival. Ms. Lodzinski?s version of events about what had happened that night changed over time. She did not act the way people might expect of a grieving mother, with neighbors in South Amboy describing her alternately as cold and calculating or too perky. When Timothy?s skeletal remains were found 11 months after he disappeared, the authorities made a point of noting that his mother had not been eliminated as a suspect.



    Still, for more than two decades, they were unable to build a case against her. On Wednesday, though, on what would have been Timothy?s 29th birthday, Ms. Lodzinski was arrested in Florida after being charged with his murder. A resident of Port St. Lucie, she has been living in the state since 2003, working as a paralegal and raising two other sons, 12 and 16. In a one-page indictment unsealed on Thursday, a grand jury in Middlesex County, N.J., found that Ms. Lodzinski, 47, ?did purposely or knowingly kill? Timothy. The indictment does not detail either the cause of death or the evidence the grand jury considered in reaching its conclusion. The Middlesex County prosecutor, who brought the charges, is working to have her extradited to New Jersey.



    Ms. Lodzinski?s relatives did not respond to phone messages on Friday, and she declined to apply to be represented by a public defender during a brief court appearance on Thursday. She has always maintained her innocence. While many questions about the case remain unanswered, Ms. Lodzinski?s arrest stirred vivid memories for Ronald Butkiewicz, a retired agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who helped lead the search after Timothy vanished. ?This case was the biggest unfinished piece in my career,? Mr. Butkiewicz, 69, said on Friday, noting that when he joined the effort to find the boy, he had already been missing for several months. A few years earlier, Mr. Butkiewicz had traveled to Seattle to assist in the case of the so-called Green River killer, who murdered dozens of women and dumped their bodies in remote areas near the river. (Gary L. Ridgway was ultimately convicted in that case after confessing in 2003 to killing 48 women over a 16-year period.)



    Mr. Butkiewicz said he learned two key things while working on the Green River case: Killers often dump bodies in desolate areas with which they are familiar, and the skull is usually the first thing to be discovered during a search because it looks like nothing else found in the woods. When Mr. Butkiewicz joined the hunt for Timothy, he learned that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shoe, just like those that the boy was last seen wearing, had been recovered near the Raritan Center, a three-square-mile industrial park in Edison whose commercial buildings were surrounded in those days by wide expanses of woods and marshes.

    Mr. Butkiewicz said that while investigating Ms. Lodzinski?s background, he interviewed a woman about the various jobs the mother had held. She mentioned the Raritan Center and that Ms. Lodzinski had worked there as a secretary. Mr. Butkiewicz said he immediately pulled out a map and asked the woman to point to the office?s location. Her finger fell almost on the exact spot where the shoe had been found, he said. Soon after Mr. Butkiewicz ordered a search of the area, Timothy?s skull was recovered. The boy?s remains were so badly decomposed that the medical examiner could not determine a cause of death.

    Alan A. Rockoff, who was the Middlesex County prosecutor when the boy disappeared, said on Friday that all of the evidence against Ms. Lodzinski at the time was circumstantial. DNA testing, still in its infancy, was no help. He said he was happy that after years of hard work, a jury would now get the chance to hear the case against her. ?It has bothered me for the last 23 years,? Mr. Rockoff said. ?This is one of those gnawing cold-cases that we never put in the freezer.? The arrest did not come as a surprise in the South Amboy neighborhood where Timothy grew up, though residents there said nothing seemed unusual about the single mother raising her son before he disappeared. Still, the question lingered: Why would she do it?

    Stephen Illes was among the hundreds of people who lost sleep searching for the missing child. ?I always hoped the little boy would be found, I thought maybe a family member came and got little Timmy at the carnival,? Mr. Illes said, standing in the yard of the two-story wooden home where he has lived since 1963. ?I still can?t believe she?s guilty,? Mr. Illes, 81, added. ?How someone can do that to a child, I can?t even get it in my mind.? But for most people in the town, sympathy for Ms. Lodzinski hardened long ago into skepticism. In 1994, in an odd twist, she was arrested and eventually confessed to lying about being kidnapped by federal agents and taken from her home in Colonia, N.J., to Detroit. Her lawyer at the time said she was not even clear in her own mind why she made up the story.

    She was arrested again in 1997, accused of stealing a computer from work. Since then, she had seemingly lived a quiet life. In 2001, on the 10th anniversary of Timothy?s disappearance, a reporter from The Star-Ledger of Newark tracked Ms. Lodzinski down in Minnesota, where she was living. She said she was trying to get on with her life, to move past what had been a very dark period, though she added that it would always be with her. ?I don?t forget the past. Never,? she said. ?I think about it all the time. I think about him all the time.?

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    http://pix11.com/2016/08/21/sentenci...iltseys-death/

    Sentencing postponed for mom convicted in son Timothy Wiltsey’s death

    A judge has postponed the sentencing of a Florida woman convicted of killing her 5-year-old son in New Jersey in 1991 so he can consider a defense motion to acquit her or grant a new trial.

    Michelle Lodzinski was due to be sentenced Tuesday. The Port St. Lucie woman was convicted of murder and faces up to life in prison.

    It's not clear when the judge will rule on the motion.

    The defense cites what it calls a lack of evidence and the judge's decision to dismiss the jury foreman for undisclosed reasons and replace him with an alternate while the panel was deliberating. The verdict came the next day.

    Lodzinski reported Timothy Wiltsey missing from a carnival in Sayreville. But she almost immediately became a suspect when she changed her story several times, eventually saying he had been kidnapped.

    Wiltsey's skeletal remains were found in a marshy area in Edison 11 months later.

    His death was ruled a homicide and the case sent cold for nearly two decades.

    Prosecutors reopened the case in 2014, arresting the mother in Port St. Lucie in Florida.

    "People remember this case, They remember the details and we examined evidence and I decided it was time to present it to grand jury," Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey told PIX11 in 2014. "The grand jury returned the one count that hasn't expired; the statue of limitations, which is of course the murder count."

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    Senior Member bermstalker's Avatar
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    Seems like nobody was surprised mom did it. The locals have been saying for years it was the mom. She got rid of Timmy because he was cramping her lifestyle.

    Geez, this woman was a total liar. A bad one too. Every lie she told was nuttier than the one before it.


    I found this:
    St. Mary's Grammar School in South Amboy was just up the street from his Augusta Street home, but kindergarten student Timothy Wiltsey struggled to get there on time, if at all.

    Timothy was late 63 times between September 1990 and May 1991, and absent another 25 days, according to Mary Ellen Quirk, 63, who served as school nurse for 25 years.
    In addition to Timothy having issues with school attendance, Lodzinski had work attendance issues, according to two former bosses.
    Mauro Casci, a Middletown attorney for whom Lodzinski worked as a secretary in 1990, testified that she was often late because of car trouble or child care issues. He said she left the job after five months without notifying anyone.

    Another boss, Russell Jones, president of a specialized container leasing company in the Somerset section of Franklin, said Lodzinski called out sick three days after starting a new job as an administrative assistant in November 1990, came in late, and then missed 10 to 12 days before either being terminated or leaving that job after less than a month.
    http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story...days/81940030/

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    Riotous Defective snowfallsoon's Avatar
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    A co -worker says she never spoke about her son.
    Police suspected her from the start.
    I cant post the article from my phone.
    http://nj1015.com/4-troubling-storie...lle-lodzinski/

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    Riotous Defective snowfallsoon's Avatar
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    Scoopski Potatoes Nic B's Avatar
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    I'm curious as to the evidence they have against her. Has any of that been released?


    Quote Originally Posted by marakisses View Post
    yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??
    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    Happy Birthday! I hid a dead body in your backyard to celebrate. Good luck finding it under the cement. You can only use a stick to look for it.

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    Senior Member bermstalker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    I'm curious as to the evidence they have against her. Has any of that been released?
    There's lots of evidence against her. This is just some that I remember.

    The blanket wrapped around the dead boy's body is the same blanket that was on mom's sofa.

    The lot where she claimed to park at (at the Carnival) was closed that day.

    Nobody ever saw Timmy at the Carnival even tho he was supposedly wearing dark red. They saw mom, but never Timmy.

    Mom 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

    A man discovered a Teenaged ninja turtle shoe (that Timmy was wearing)in an area and the cops showed it to mom. She said no, it wasn't his. Later a cop found out mom used to work in that area....so he went back and found another matching shoe. They then found Timmy's remains.

    Mom faked a kidnapping. She said the kidnappers did it because she talked about Timmy when they told her not too. A lie.

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    Scoopski Potatoes Nic B's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bermstalker View Post
    There's lots of evidence against her. This is just some that I remember.

    The blanket wrapped around the dead boy's body is the same blanket that was on mom's sofa.

    The lot where she claimed to park at (at the Carnival) was closed that day.

    Nobody ever saw Timmy at the Carnival even tho he was supposedly wearing dark red. They saw mom, but never Timmy.

    Mom 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

    A man discovered a Teenaged ninja turtle shoe (that Timmy was wearing)in an area and the cops showed it to mom. She said no, it wasn't his. Later a cop found out mom used to work in that area....so he went back and found another matching shoe. They then found Timmy's remains.

    Mom faked a kidnapping. She said the kidnappers did it because she talked about Timmy when they told her not too. A lie.
    Thanks! I wonder what her other kids think, knowing their own mother had killed her own child in the past...lucky to be alive, I bet!


    Quote Originally Posted by marakisses View Post
    yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??
    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    Happy Birthday! I hid a dead body in your backyard to celebrate. Good luck finding it under the cement. You can only use a stick to look for it.

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    Scoopski Potatoes Nic B's Avatar
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    Oh wow!


    Quote Originally Posted by marakisses View Post
    yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??
    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    Happy Birthday! I hid a dead body in your backyard to celebrate. Good luck finding it under the cement. You can only use a stick to look for it.

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    Senior Member SuchAClassicGirl's Avatar
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    Crazy story! Still want more details!
    Quote Originally Posted by blighted star
    I was about to be annoyed that this thread was still active, but I see now it's morphed into offers of sex for chilli confectionary, so carry on guys :)

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    Senior Member Daisychain's Avatar
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    I just read about this whole case, cause ya know I had to figure out why the judge who was brought in as the tie breaker overturned the ruling, and though I know in theory he is right... I know I am doing the right thing by throwing my jury summons in the recycle bin every time because you don't want me on a jury. I don't believe in coincidence, I'd be like...oh, she used to work at that factory across the river where they found his body? She's guilty.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daisychain View Post
    I just read about this whole case, cause ya know I had to figure out why the judge who was brought in as the tie breaker overturned the ruling, and though I know in theory he is right... I know I am doing the right thing by throwing my jury summons in the recycle bin every time because you don't want me on a jury. I don't believe in coincidence, I'd be like...oh, she used to work at that factory across the river where they found his body? She's guilty.
    Be careful, you know they can charge you for not showing up for jury duty, right? I have only served on one jury and I was ready to convict. I ended up being the alternate so got no say. They found him not guilty.

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    Senior Member Daisychain's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by raisedbywolves View Post
    Be careful, you know they can charge you for not showing up for jury duty, right? I have only served on one jury and I was ready to convict. I ended up being the alternate so got no say. They found him not guilty.
    Nah. I can't serve on a jury anyhow. I'm crazy. (The government says so. Lol)

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