SOUTH AMBOY, NEW JERSEY: Michelle Lodzinski was convicted in the cold murder case of her 5-year-old son Timothy "Timmy" Wiltsey until she was let go after mutiple appeals.
This cold case kept the whole nation, and especially the state of New Jersey, on edge as the little boy remained missing after being "kidnapped" from a local carnival on May 25, 1991.
There were barely any leads in the case as his body was discovered almost a year later, leaving no possibility for a proper autopsy.
A reopening of the investigation got Lodzinski tangled in the trial and led to her imprisonment decades after her son's death.
NBC's 'Dateline' will be doing a rerun of the episode that delves into the investigation into Timmy's brutal muder. The episode 'The Blue Blanket Mystery' will air on the channel at 9 pm on Friday, September 1, 2023.
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Who is Michelle Lodzinski?
Lodzinski was a teenager, just 17 years old, when she got pregnant with Timmy while dating her then-partner George Wiltsey. The boy was only six months when she had to go back to living with her sister, given George's abusive nature.
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To take care of herself and her son, Lodzinski was making do with multiple jobs here and there while she resided in the South Amboy house owned by her sister and husband before moving out and living on her own.
While without child support as she refused to stay in contact with her ex-partner, she was financially suported by her parents.
Lodzinski was with her son attending a local carnival when she reported that he had gone missing. With close to no leads, Timmy's remains were only found months later.
Why was Michelle Lodzinski convicted for son's murder?
Lodzinski, while previously not a suspect in the murder, became one when the cold case of Timmy's murder was reopened in the 2010s.
At the time of Timmy's murder's active investigation, she had changed her statement multiple times. At first, she had only revealed a simple missing case but reported differently in later conversations with officials, involving some supposed kidnappers that were a woman named "Ellen" and two men.
Lodzinski had also staged her own kidnapping by two men posing as FBI officers, which she later admitted to have faked. She did so in fear of coming off as suspicious because of the account she had provided about her son's possible kidnapping.
An arrest was made in 2014 which led to multiple court trials. At the time, she had moved to Florida where she was living a married life with two sons.
Suspicions also arose during trial when Lodzinski did not recognize a blue blanket found close to Timmy's remains, and which was recognized by his babysitter and Lodzinski's estranged niece Blair-Dilcher.
After the 2016 trial, she was pronounced guilty of her son's murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison without possibility of parole.
Michelle Lodzinski years after son's murder
Lodzinski appealed against the court's decision for mistrial. The case was taken to the Supreme Court of New Jersey while she was serving in Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
Her conviction for Timmy's murder was vacated after the court heard her appeal in 2021, citing lack of evidence against her.
"The prosecution offered no direct or inferential evidence that Lodzinski purposely or knowingly caused Timothy’s death," said the court's decision.
She immediately returned back home in Florida to her family.
"We may never know the truth about what happened in this case," the judges involved in the case wrote about Timmy's murder.
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