Prosecution witnesses earlier described Michelle Lodzinski as calm and emotionless after she reported her son missing in 1991. Watch video
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Linda Hisey told a jury Tuesday afternoon that her sister, Michelle Lodzinski was "distraught, upset, wasn't sleeping or eating," in the days following the disappearance of her son, Timothy Wiltsey, 5, in May 1991.
Hisey said when Lodzinski called to tell her Timmy disappeared, hours after she reported him missing the evening of May 25, 1991, "she was crying, she was upset."
"During that time, I spoke to her every day," she said. "She was distraught, she wasn't sleeping. She wasn't eating."
Hisey said she came up from her Florida home to be with her and lend her moral support.
Hisey's testimony, during the 16th day of testimony in the trial of Lodzinski for the murder of her son, is in direct contrast to the prosecution witnesses who described Lodzinski as calm and emotionless after she reported him missing from a Sayreville carnival.
The sister said she and her father, Edward Lodzinski Jr., had to hold Michelle up during funeral services for the boy, held sometime after his skeletal remains were found in April 1992 in a swampy area of Raritan Center in Edison.
Like her other family members who testified before her, including Lodzinski's two sons, Daniel, 18, and Benjamin, 14, Hisey said members of the family spoke about Timmy and denied a claim by another family member, niece Jennifer Dilcher, that his name was "taboo in the family."
Under cross-examination by Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua, Hisey admitted that in 2012, after the county prosecutor's office reopened the case of her nephew's death, she called an investigator who left his business card at her Florida home and told him she wanted "nothing to do with you."
"I've always been on my sister's side," she told the jury Tuesday. "They (the police) were only out for dirt."
Hisey said she knew her sister told police different versions of how Timmy disappeared from the carnival, but she believed the version her sister gave her--that he was taken away by a woman named Ellen and two men.
Lodzinski was charged in August 2014, but she was the prime suspect in the case soon after her son's disappearance, according to testimony during the trial, because of the different statements she gave police.
The trial is expected to resume Wednesday morning.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.