The attorney for Michelle Lodzinski told a judge Tuesday morning an Arizona man has come forward and implicated someone else in the murder of Lodzinski's son, Timothy Wiltsey in 1991.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- An Arizona man has come forward and implicated someone else in the murder of 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey in 1991, the defense attorney for his mother Michelle Lodzinski told a judge Tuesday morning.
Gerald Krovatin is asking Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves to let Damien Dowdle, 42, testify during Lodzinski's murder trial that Bernard Joseph McShane, 53, told Dowdle years ago that McShane lured a small boy away from his parents, and was about to sexually assault him, but became afraid of detection and strangled him instead.
Lodzinski, 47, was indicted in August 2014 for the murder of her son. Her trial is scheduled for Jan. 12, 2016.
The story is similar to one of several different statements that Lodzinski gave to police. She originally told police that she and Wiltsey went to a carnival in Sayreville the evening of May 25, 1991, and he disappeared when she went to a stand to buy a soda.
Krovatin filed the papers Tuesday, when a hearing on other pre-trial motions were scheduled to be argued before Nieves.
In Krovatin's motion papers, Dowdle said McShane told him about strangling the child in New Jersey. McShane did not say specifically where he killed the child.
McShane made this confession to Dowdle after McShane returned to Arizona in the summer of 1991. The two men were cellmates at the Marin County jail, and knew each other as teenagers.
Dowdle contacted Krovatin in October 2015 about McShane, several months after Dowdle was released from prison. Dowdle said using the Internet, he did research and "was struck by the similarities" between McShane's confession and the story of Wiltsey's disappearance.
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In separate matters Tuesday, prosecutors asked the judge to let jurors hear statements Lodzinski gave to the FBI in 1994 when she faked her own abduction as part of a hoax.
Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Joie Pideriet told the judge that the statements show a "consciousness of guilty" on Lodzinski's part, and that her motive for the bizarre hoax was that "nobody believed her about her son Timothy."
But Krovatin argued using statements from 1994 in a case from 1991 is "an indication of how desperate the state is."
Prosecutors are also asking the judge to let them call a forensic psychiatrist to explain to the jury why a mother would her kill child.
Wiltsey's remains were found in a marshy area in Raritan Center in Edison 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 faking her kidnapping and again in 1997 for stealing from an employer.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.