Witnesses at Michelle Lodzinski's trial for her son's 1991 murder said they saw a boy like Timmy going to the carnival.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- The defense in Michelle Lodzinski's trial for the murder of her 54-year-old son, Timothy Wiltsey, called three women to testify they saw the young boy with a woman and two men at the carnival the night he disappeared, May 25, 1991.
Debra Wyckoff, her twin sister, Donna Wyckoff Kokinos, and their friend, Tracy Tylicki, all testified they were 15 years old and leaving the carnival area at 7:45 p.m. when they saw the young boy with the woman and two men behind him headed into the carnival.
The Wyckoff sisters testified the boy was wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sneakers, which they noted because their nephew had them, and a red tank top.
Their description was significant because Lodzinski's description of her son to police had him wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sneakers, a red tank top and red shorts.
The description also placed the boy with a woman and two men, one of the versions of his abduction that Lodzinski gave to police in the days and week's following his disappearance.
But, under cross-examination by Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua, Donna Kokinos, confirmed the boy and the adults were headed into the carnival, not leaving, after Lodzinski had reported her son missing.
When asked how the little boy was behaving, Kokinos smiled and said, "he was laughing and giggling, like he was a boy on a mission (to get to the carnival)."
Earlier in the afternoon, a former worker at the carnival, Diane Courtney, testified, but she said she didn't remember anything from 25 years ago. Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves allowed Courtney to read her statement to Sayreville police to the jury.
In her statement, she said a young boy came to the machine gun alley stand where she was working and wanted to play, but the lady with him wouldn't let him and they left. She described the boy as very thin and wearing a red tank top, print shorts and tennis shoes.
The two then walked toward the concession stand. About 15 minutes later, she heard the same woman calling a little boy's name, Timmy or Jimmy, and she seemed concerned and frustrated.
Later, when she was at police headquarters and first questioned, she was asked to look at a young woman in another room (Michelle Lodzinski) to see if she looked familiar. She told police the woman did look like the woman with the child, but was wearing different clothes.
Under cross-examination, Courtney said she remembered speaking with police, but not telling police those details. She also did not remember telling police several days later that she got many of those details from other carnival workers.
Lodzinski told police originally that her son disappeared while she was paying for a soda at a concession stand, but later gave several other statements that implicated a woman and two men in his abduction.
His skeletal remains were found in a swampy area of Raritan Center in Edison in April 1992.
Lodzinski became the prime suspect in his disappearance early in the investigation but was not charged until August 2014 after the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office reopened the case in 2011.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.