Middlesex County Pays Michelle Lodzinski $25K To Settle Lawsuit

SOUTH AMBOY, NJ — Middlesex County has paid convicted child killer Michelle Lodzinski a one-time settlement of $25,000, putting an end to a lawsuit Lodzinski filed against the county after she tripped and fell while being led into court in handcuffs for the 2017 murder trial of her own son.

Lodzinski, 51, sued the Middlesex County Sheriff's office after she fell; she claimed that deputy sheriffs moved her too quickly was they walked her into the courtroom. At the time she fell, both her wrists and ankles were restrained.

In the spring of 2016, a jury found Lodzinski guilty for the 1991 murder of her 5-year-old son. Several months later, from prison, she sued the Middlesex County Sheriff in February of 2018.

This week, the county said the decision to settle avoided a lengthy legal battle and resulted in an overall cost savings to taxpayers.

"The decision to settle was a business decision taken by the Board of Chosen Freeholders, minimizing the cost of litigation, in the best interest of the taxpayers of Middlesex County," said Middlesex County in an official statement. "Middlesex County has settled a lawsuit between Michelle Lodzinski and the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office, as a monetary settlement for $25,000."

The settlement was reached during the week of April 22.

Lodzinski said the fall caused permanent injury to her wrist. Her attorney, Gerald Krovatin said the injury forced her to be on limited work duty at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Hunterdon County, where she is serving her sentence, NJ.com reported. NJ.com also reported that after she fell, Lodzinski asked for medical help while at the county jail, and she did not receive any. She's since had two surgeries on her wrist.

She often appeared during her son's murder trial with her wrist bandaged. She was seeking unspecified damages and costs. She dropped her lawsuit in exchange for the settlement.

A murder case that hit Central Jersey hard, even to this day

Lodzinski is a former South Amboy resident who was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, with no chance of parole, for murdering her 5-year-old son. The tragic murder occurred decades ago: The boy, Timothy Wiltsey, was last seen at a Memorial Day carnival in Sayreville on May 25, 1991. Lodzinski claimed he had been kidnapped that night by a man and a woman.

Residents in Sayreville and from the surrounding area searched for Timmy for weeks after he went missing. A group called the Friends of Timmy organization regularly combed the woods near where he went missing, searching for any sign of the boy. That group was made up of all volunteers, including the principal and several teachers at Timmy's school, St. Mary's elementary in South Amboy.

Chillingly, Lodzinski even helped them on multiple days, walking through the wooded area where the carnival had been held. She has always maintained she never killed her son.

Timmy was never found alive. Five months later, in October of 1991, Daniel O'Malley, a Bound Brook science teacher who was bird watching in the area, found one of the boy's sneakers in Raritan Center, Edison, near where Lodzinski had once worked. The boy's complete skeleton remains were found by State Police a year later, in April, 1992, in a marshy creek area nearby, Red Root Creek.

After his death, Lodzinski moved to Florida, got remarried and had more children. She had long been considered a suspect in her son's disappearance and murder, but she was not charged with his murder until August 2014. She was arrested at her home in Florida on what would have been her son's 29th birthday. Her trial started two years later, and was she was convicted in May of 2016 after an eight-week trial, 25 years after the boy was killed.

Timmy suffered from health problems, including issues with his teeth and stomach, and Michelle seemed to be fed up with it, NJ.com quoted witnesses testifying in court during her trial.

"The older he got, the more medical problems he was having. It was harder for her. You could tell," testified a former girlfriend of Michelle's brother, Eddie Lodzinski, Danielle Marquis, according to NJ.com, which covered the trial.

In exasperation, Michelle, 23 and a single mother at the time, had once told her she was a "weekend mother" and "not made for this (expletive)."

Lodzinski is currently appealing her conviction.