Michelle Lodzinski's trial for the murder of Timothy Wiltsey, 5, is off for another few weeks.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Michelle Lodzinski's trial for the alleged murder of Timothy Wiltsey, 5, is being postponed for nearly two months.
After consulting with the prosecutors and Lodzinski's attorney, Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves announced the delay in court Wednesday afternoon, slightly less than a week before jury selection was set to begin in the 24-year-old case.
Nieves said he expects the trial to begin in six or seven weeks.
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The judge also set a court date on Jan. 15 to have Damien Dowdle of Arizona come to New Brunswick to testify about what he may know about the death of Timothy Wiltsey.
Dowdle contacted Lodzinski's attorney, Gerald Krovatin in October and told implicated someone else in Wiltsey's death in 1991.
Dowdle told Krovatin and an investigator for the Middlesex County public defender's office, that Bernard Joseph McShane, 53, told Dowdle in 1991 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.
The story is similar to several different statements that Lodzinski gave 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 soda.
Dowdle and McShane were sharing a jail cell in Arizona when McShane told him about the child, according to the motion papers Krovatin filed with the court, asking to permit Dowdle to testify in Lodzinski's trial.
In the papers, Dowdle said McShane told him about strangling the child in New Jersey. McShane did not say specifically where he killed the child.
But, Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua argued Dowdle originally said McShane told him it was in Atlanta, Ga., not New Jersey.
Nieves wants to hear from Dowdle before he makes a decision on letting him testify before a jury in Lodzinski's trial.
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, authorities have 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.
Lodzinski was indicted for the murder of her son in August 2014. She was living in Florida and has been held in the Middlesex County jail since her return to New Jersey.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.