A Canadian man who reported his nine-year-old daughter missing has been charged with murder after she was found dead.

Luciano Frattolin told Warren County Sheriff’s Office that his daughter, Melina, may have been abducted. An amber alert suggested she was last seen in a white van heading southbound from Exit 22 on the Northway.

Her body was recovered on Sunday morning from the shallow part of a pond north of Lake George village, near the state border with Vermont.

Mr Frattolin has since been charged with second-degree murder and the concealing of a corpse, New York State Police spokesman Robert McConnell said.

Authorities said that there were inconsistencies in the father’s account, and that they concluded there was no evidence of an abduction.