By KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer
NEW BRUNSWICK — In a soft voice, Michelle Lodzinski told Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves last week that she has decided not to testify in the murder case against her.
Lodzinski is on trial on charges that she “did knowingly or willfully” murder her five-year-old son Timothy “Timmy” Wiltsey in 1991. She wiped her eyes after she told the judge she would not testify.
She did ask the judge to have the jury not make any inference on her decision not to testify when they start deliberating.
Timmy was reported missing the night of May 25, 1991, at a carnival held at Kennedy Park in Sayreville. A massive search for him ensued after Lodzinski told authorities she had only turned her back on Timmy for a few minutes to get a soda at a concession stand when he disappeared.
The state’s position is Lodzinski attended the carnival herself that night, killed Timmy and then dumped his body in the creek off Olympia Drive at the Raritan Center in Edison because he became a burden, preventing her from keeping a steady job and relationship.
Gerald Krovatin, who is representing Lodzinski, has said his client loved Timmy and was a good mother to him.
He called the state’s case against his client circumstantial with no evidence.
Through testimony, law enforcement officials investigating the case in 1991 and 1992 have said Lodzinski was their primary suspect in Timmy’s disappearance. No arrests were made at the time and the case remained cold until it was reopened in 2011.
Lodzinski has never confessed or made any admissions to law enforcement or anybody.
The trial is in its third month.