Tape recordings of four conflicting statements given by Michelle Lodzinski in the days following her son, Timmy Wiltsey's disappearance in 1991, were played in court in New Brunswick Thursday. Watch video
NEW BRUNSWICK -- The prosecutor played tape recordings Thursday of four conflicting statements given by Michelle Lodzinski to authorities in the week following the disappearance of her five-year-old son, Timothy Wiltsey in May 1991.
The stories ranged from: he disappeared when she turned around to pay for her soda to two men and a woman abducted him at knifepoint.
The tapes were played during a hearing in Superior Court in New Brunswick to determine if they could be heard clearly, especially by a jury.
Lodzinski, 47, is charged with the murder of her son, who disappeared in 1991.
The first taped statement was made on May 26, 1991, the day after Lodzinski reported her son missing from a carnival in Sayreville.
In the statement, she told police he was standing off to the side waiting for her as she stood in the concession line buying a soda. But after paying for her drink, she turned around, she said, and he was gone.
On June 7, 1991, she came back and told police she did not tell them the whole story.
Lodzinski told officers she met a woman named Ellen at the carnival, someone she knew when she worked as a teller at a bank.
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The woman, who was accompanied by two men and a young child, was at one of the kiddy rides, Lodzinski said. They talked about the carnival, she added.
Lodzinski said when she mentioned she wanted to get a soda, Ellen told her to go get it, she'd watch Timmy.
"I left Timmy with her to get the soda," Lodzinski said.
She said she gave Ellen the tickets for the ride, but when she came back with her soda, Ellen, Timmy, the men and the child were all gone.
On June 13, 1991, Lodzinski gave statements to the State Police and Sayreville police, and admitted to Sayreville police she told different versions to both police organizations.
Under questioning by Sayreville police, she admitted she told the State Police that when she went to get a drink, the two men and Ellen came up around her and one of them pulled a knife on her.
But, she said during the statement, she didn't tell the State Police that the man told her "to keep my mouth shut and that I would be getting a phone call and about the reappearance of Timmy in about a month."
Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves, who is presiding over the case and denied a defense motion to dismiss the murder indictment against Lodzinski Wednesday, did not rule on the admissibility of the tapes.
In another tape played at the hearing, Lodzinski's then boyfriend, Fred Bruno, is heard telling a police officer about a conversation he had with her on June 7, 1991, in which she told him she knew who took Timmy and saw him being abducted, but was afraid to call police in case they would injure him.
Bruno told police that Lodzinski said she needed more money for rides. So she, Timmy, the woman, accompanied by the two men and child, walked back to their cars. But the woman pulled a knife on her, the men grabbed Timmy and pulled him into a car.
Bruno wore a wire the next day and arranged to meet Lodzinski to talk about her son's disappearance. The tape of that conversation was difficult to make out, but she did not repeat the same story to him at that meeting.
Wiltsey's remains were found in a marshy area in Raritan Center 11 months after his disappearance.
In the months and years following Timmy's death, Lodzinski's behavior was puzzling and bizarre, authorities said. In addition to changing the story she gave law enforcement several times, she was later arrested twice--once for allegedly faking her own kidnapping and again in 1997 for stealing from an employer.
There are more motions scheduled for Oct. 27-Oct. 29 and the trial is scheduled for January.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.