The third week of the high-profile murder trial concluded as Michelle Lodzinski's niece said she recognized the blue blanket found near Timothy Wiltsey's body a quarter century ago. Watch video
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Jennifer Blair Dilcher took the witness stand in her aunt Michelle Lodzinski's murder trial Friday morning and almost immediately burst into tears.
Dilcher, one of their key witnesses in the high-profile murder trial, dabbed at her eyes as a prosecutor showed her a photo of her cousin, 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey.
A short time later, Dilcher identified a dirty blue blanket discovered with the boy's remains when he was found in a desolate marsh in Edison more than two decades ago as one she had seen in Lodzinski's South Amboy home.
"I used that blanket when I snuggled up with Timothy," Dilcher, 40, said with tears in her eyes.
Dilcher's dramatic testimony, which wrapped up the third week of the high-profile murder trial, was expected to be one of the key elements of the prosecution's case against Lodzinski in the nearly 25-year-old murder of her son.
But Lodzinski's attorney, Gerald Krovatin, tried to discredit Dilcher as a witness during his cross examination. In heated exchanges, Krovatin and Dilcher clashed over her history of drug use and past battles with her aunt.
Investigators said they long suspected Lodzinski, 48, was lying in 1991 when she said her son, Timothy, disappeared from a Sayreville carnival in 1991. His body was found nearly a year later in a marsh in Raritan Center.
Shortly after the body was discovered in 1992, prosecutors showed the blanket found with the boy's skeletal remains to Lodzinski and her mother. Both said they had never seen it before.
It wasn't until decades later that investigators revisiting the cold case showed the blanket to Dilcher, Timothy's cousin and frequent babysitter. Though she was only 14 when Timothy went missing, Dilcher said she recognized the blanket as being from the South Amboy apartment that Lodzinski shared with her son.
Dilcher's recognition of the blanket was the evidence investigators said they needed to link Lodzinski to the death of her son. It helped lead to her arrest and trial, nearly a quarter century after Timothy's death.
Lodzinski's attorney has argued the prosecution's case is weak and the blanket does not link the mother to her son's death.
Under cross-examination, Dilcher admitted she agreed to try to get back into contact with her aunt in 2011 at the request of investigators. She started up a conversation with her aunt on Facebook.
But, she said, Michelle never talked about Timothy.
"Timmy is not discussed among the family," said Dilcher, of Plainfield. "He is taboo. The subject of Timmy doesn't come up."
Dilcher was among those who first searched for the missing boy in 1991. In her testimony, Dilcher described how she and a friend planned to meet Lodzinski and Timmy at the carnival at Kennedy Park in Sayreville.
But, when they got to the park, they only found Lodzinski.
Dilcher and her friend helped search for the boy while police were called. Dilcher said she searched for her cousin until 3 a.m., but Lodzinski never told her teenage niece how Timothy went missing.
When Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Scott La Mountain asked her how she dealt with the news that her cousin's remains were found 11 months later, Dilcher said, "I don't think I dealt with it."
Dilcher admitted she began using drugs a few years later. By 1998, she was hooked on heroin she testified.
In 2001, Lodzinski offered to care for Dilcher's two daughters and arranged for her niece to enter a drug detoxification program in Florida.
But, Dilcher testified Lodzinski betrayed her by calling Dilcher's mother-in-law to take her daughters.
Her mother-in-law was "the one person I didn't want to have my girls," Dilcher testified.
She ended up leaving the detox program to fly back to New Jersey to get her daughters, she testified.
In heated cross examination from Lodzinski's attorney, Dilcher vehemently denied her true reason for leaving detox was to look for heroin.
Dilcher also admitted under cross examination that she wrote letters to an uncle in 2010 in which she accused Lodzinski of "ruining" her life for both giving her daughters to her mother-in-law and also for the "Timmy thing."
Dilcher testified it was not until decades after Timothy's disappearance, when investigators showed her the blue blanket, that she realized her aunt had something to do with the boy's death.
"When I saw the blanket, I started shaking and crying. I recognized the blanket from (Lodzinski's) apartment. It was with his remains," Dilcher said.
The trial is expected to resume Tuesday.
Staff writer Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.