Timothy Wiltsey, 5, was healthy, but lost nearly half his first school year in 1991, the school nurse testified. Watch video
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Timothy Wiltsey, 5, was either late or absent almost half of his first year of school at St. Mary's Elementary School in South Amboy, according to testimony Friday morning at the trial of his mother, who is charged with his murder.
Mary Ellen Quirk, who was the school nurse at the elementary school during the 1990-1991 school year when the young boy was in kindergarten, told the jury that she kept track of the children's attendance records as well as their health.
Quirk said Wiltsey was late to school 63 times until the end of May 1991 and was absent from school 25 days. Lodzinski reported him missing from a carnival in Sayreville a week before graduation in May 1991.
The nurse said she did not have the boy's school records and did not know why he was late or absent so often.
She described the young boy as "very quiet and shy, but friendly, a very sweet little boy and very healthy."
Quirk said she knew his mother, Michelle Lodzinski, who she described as "quiet," who would just come in and drop off her son. "There was not a lot of hugging," the nurse said.
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Lodzinski, now 47, was charged in August 2014 with her son's murder.
She reported her son missing from a Sayreville carnival the evening of May 25, 1991, telling authorities that she went to get soda and when she turned around he had disappeared. However, in succeeding weeks, she changed her story, according to police, giving statements that two men, then two men and a woman abducted the young boy.
The child's remains were found 11 months later in April 1992 in a swampy area of Raritan Center in Edison.
In her opening remarks, Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua told the jury that Lodzinski was a struggling single mother who held several jobs to support her son and herself. Lodzinski was 17 years old when the boy was born and 23 when he disappeared.
Friday morning, the prosecution called two men who Lodzinski worked for briefly in 1990.
Mauro Casci, now an attorney in Middletown, said she worked as his secretary when he worked for a firm in Rahway in the spring of 1990, and "she was late a lot," giving two reasons.
"She either said she had car trouble or she had trouble finding a babysitter for her son," Casci said.
He said Lodzinski kept to herself and had a picture of her boyfriend on her desk, not her son.
When asked by the prosecutor as to the last time he saw Lodzinski, Casci said she left work on a Friday afternoon and "didn't show up on Monday."
Russell Jones was president of Eurotainer, a container leasing company in Somerset from 1985 until 2000. He said Michelle Lodzinski began working for his company as an administrative assistant on Nov. 12, 1990, came in late Nov. 15, 1990, called in sick Nov. 20, 1990, came back several days later and then was out again for 10 days. When she returned in early December, she either "was terminated or left on Dec. 5, 1990."
The trial will resume Tuesday morning before Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.