ETAN PATZ - 6 yo (1979) - Manhattan/NYC NY

It is a case that has gone unsolved for decades and remains one of the most notorious of its kind.

Now, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has reopened the case of Etan Patz, who vanished more than 30 years ago.



Patz was just 6 years old when he vanished from nearby the SoHo home where he lived with his parents. Decades later, the new DA is taking a fresh look at the case. "At some point, he must have realized that things were going bad," dad Stan Patz commented last year.

Now, 31 years after his son's kidnapping, Stanley Patz has been told that the case has been reopened.

Etan's abduction during a short walk to the school bus stop on Prince Street made international headlines. He became the first missing child to appear on the side of a milk carton, and he was officially pronounced dead in 2001. "I still gag with the fear that this child must've felt when he realized he was betrayed by an adult," Stanley said.

The prime suspect in the case, Jose Ramos, is in prison for molesting two boys. He was never convicted of kidnapping or harming Etan, but law enforcement found that he had some connection to the little boy, at one time living nearby and dating a woman who used to walk Etan to school.

Stuart Grabois, who worked on the case as an assistant U.S. attorney and is now an adviser to the Patz family, believes there is enough evidence to prove Ramos guilty. But Ramos has long professed his innocence in the Patz case.

"I have no comment on the Patz case whatsoever," Ramos said years ago. "I don't know anything that Grabois knows. Why don't you ask Grabois about it?"

Ramos was found responsible for Etan's death in a 2004 civil case. He was ordered to pay $2 million to the Patz family. They haven't seen a cent. Ramos is scheduled to be released from prison November 2012.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7462433

Search related to Etan Patz case underway in NYC

Susan Candiotti, CNN
updated 12:22 PM EDT, Thu April 19, 2012

New York (CNN) -- Dozens of federal agents gathered outside a commercial building in lower Manhattan Thursday as part of an investigation tied to the search for a six-year-old boy who disappeared in 1979 on his way to a bus stop in New York City.

Etan Patz's disappearance, considered a high-profile cold case, prompted authorities to splash the six-year-old's image on the sides of milk cartons in hopes of gathering more information. It is thought to be the first time that step was taken for a missing child.

"The FBI's Evidence Recovery Team is on the scene," said FBI special agent Peter Donald.

A new development in the case led authorities to the SoHo building on Prince Street in Manhattan, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. It is not clear what that development is.

The FBI is collaborating with the New York City Police Department in the probe.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/19/justice/new-york-etan-patz-investigation/index.html

About 40 FBI agents and New York City police officers lugged hundreds of
pounds of concrete out of a basement in SoHo today in their search for
new evidence in the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz.

As of this writing, authorities have not found a body in the basement of 127 Prince
Street, where neighborhood handyman -- and "target" of the new
investigation -- Othneil Miller, 75, had a workshop at the time of
Patz's disappearance. Now the building is a high-end shoe story.

Investigators spent a large portion of the afternoon moving chunks of
concrete -- and buckets of smaller rubble -- from the basement to a dumpster in the middle of Prince Street
as dozens of reporters and onlookers watched.

Tourists were lovin' it -- one out-of-towner (from Pittsburgh), when
told authorities were looking for the body of a boy who disappeared more
than 30 years ago, said "that's New York for ya!" Another dropped the
standard "only in New York" on us (we almost gagged).

The dumpster was about a third of the way full when we left about 3 p.m.

The concrete taken from the basement, an F.B.I. official at the scene
tells the Voice, will be taken to a landfill and quarantined just in case
it needs to be re-examined by investigators.

Patz -- who was the first missing child to appear on the side of a milk
carton -- was last seen on May 25, 1979, as he was walking just two blocks
to a bus stop on his way to school. It was the first time he'd made the trip alone.
He was never seen again -- and was declared dead in 2001.

When Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance took office two years ago,
he re-opened the case and developed new leads that are currently being
investigated by the NYPD and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. One
of those leads came from Patz's mother, Julie, who told authorities they
should speak with Miller.

After speaking with Miller, law enforcement officials took "scent pads"
--
which allows investigators to "collect scent evidence from hard to
access places" without destroying any other evidence, like fingerprints
-- to the basement of the building on Prince Street.

The scent pads from the basement were then taken to a cadaver dog, which
got a "hit" indicating that human remains are -- or were --
somewhere in the basement.

Miller has not been arrested, or charged with any crimes.

Law enforcement officials expect the investigation of the basement on
Prince Street to take several days.


http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/04/etan_patz_inves.php

Interesting article, lots of pics.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132164/Etan-Patz-case-reopened-Police-search-apartment-Othniel-Miller-worked-Jose-Ramos.html

Carpenter says he's not involved in Etan Patz disappearance. Etan Patz disappeared one block from his home.
NEW YORK (CNN) -
A carpenter whose former Manhattan basement is the scene of an exhaustive search for clues about Etan Patz said Friday through his lawyer that he had no involvement in the 6-year-old boy's disappearance more than three decades ago. Attorney Michael Farkas told CNN that Othniel Miller, 75, who has not been charged with a crime, has long cooperated with authorities and plans to continue to do so.

"Mr. Miller has been cooperating with this investigation for over 30 years," said Farkas. "He has continued to cooperate on multiple occasions. And I am going to assist him in cooperating to the fullest extent possible."

Investigators recently relaunched their probe of the cold case, often described as a milestone effort that helped draw the plight of missing children into the national consciousness.

Patz disappeared May 25, 1979, a block from his home in the city's SoHo neighborhood. It was the first time he walked to the bus stop by himself.

Authorities said both new and old information led them to Miller, a part-time handyman, who met Patz the day before he disappeared and gave him a dollar. Miller faces no charges in connection with the disappearance.

Miller's daughter, Stephanie Miller, told CNN affiliate WCBS that her father had cooperated with federal agents, saying he "doesn't have anything to do with it."

Police and federal agents resumed their search of the Lower Manhattan basement Friday.

It was interest in the carpenter that prompted authorities to bring a cadaver dog about 10 days ago to a SoHo basement, where Patz apparently had encountered the carpenter, then 42, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. The dog picked up a human scent in the basement, where the man had a workshop.

When agents interviewed the man about his connection to the basement, the source said the carpenter blurted out, "What if the body was moved?"........
.....
The boy's disappearance was thought to raise awareness of child abductions and led to new ways to search for missing children.

President Ronald Reagan named May 25, the day Etan went missing, National Missing Children's Day.

Poster's note: This article has been snipped. You can read the entire four pages here:

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/national/Carpenter-says-he-s-not-involved-in-Etan-Patz-disappearance/-/9379440/11225834/-/item/0/-/7g56bn/-/index.html

Investigators discovered a suspicious stain
Saturday on a concrete wall while tearing apart a basement in their
search for clues in the case of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old who disappeared
more than three decades ago, a law enforcement official told CNN.FBI
agents, assisted by the New York Police Department, discovered the
stain by spraying the chemical luminol, the law enforcement official
said.The chemical can indicate the presence of blood, but is not
always conclusive, according to the official. At this time, the stain is
described only as an area of interest.Investigators used
chainsaws to dig out a piece of the wall, which will be sent to the FBI
laboratory in Virginia for analysis, the official said.The
basement is about a half-block from where the boy's family still lives.
Etan vanished May 25, 1979, a block from his home in the New York City
neighborhood of SoHo. It was the first time he walked to a bus stop by
himself.A carpenter whose former Manhattan basement is the scene
of the search said through his lawyer Friday that he had no involvement
in the disappearance.Othniel Miller, 75, who has not been charged
with a crime, has long cooperated with authorities and plans to
continue to do so, his lawyer said."Mr. Miller has been
cooperating with this investigation for over 30 years," attorney Michael
Farkas said. "He has continued to cooperate on multiple occasions. And I
am going to assist him in cooperating to the fullest extent possible."Miller's
daughter, Stephanie Miller, told CNN affiliate WCBS that her father had
cooperated with federal agents, saying he "doesn't have anything to do
with it."Investigators recently relaunched their probe of the
cold case, often described as a milestone effort that helped draw the
plight of missing children into the national consciousness.Authorities
said both new and old information led them to Miller, a part-time
handyman, who met Etan the day before he disappeared and gave him a
dollar. Miller faces no charges in connection with the disappearance.It
was interest in the carpenter that prompted authorities to bring a
cadaver dog about 10 days ago to a SoHo basement, where Etan apparently
had encountered the carpenter, then 42, according to a source with
knowledge of the investigation. The dog picked up a human scent in the
basement, where the man had a workshop.When agents interviewed
the man about his connection to the basement, the source said the
carpenter blurted out, "What if the body was moved?"Farkas, the attorney, said he will speak to authorities about that alleged remark."I don't know that he asked that," Farkas told reporters.Late
Thursday, authorities set up a grid in the basement and planned to rip
up the concrete floor. They also took out part of the back wall of the
basement, an unoccupied area beneath what was once a restaurant.The
floor was "newly poured" at the time the boy disappeared, according to
another law enforcement source. It was not dug up during the original
investigation.Miller was picked up by the FBI again Thursday, but
is not in custody. He was questioned and returned to his Brooklyn
apartment, the source with knowledge of the investigation said."We're
looking for human remains, clothing or other personal effects of Etan
Patz," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said of the current
investigation. "It's a very painstaking process."In 2010,
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said his office decided to
take another look at the decades-old mystery. FBI leads were then culled
from that case file, sources said.The investigation garnered
national headlines as authorities splashed the child's image on the
sides of milk cartons in the hopes of gathering more information, then a
novel approach.Etan was officially declared dead in 2001 as part
of a civil lawsuit filed by his family against a drifter, Jose Antonio
Ramos, a convicted child molester acquainted with his babysitter.A judge found Ramos responsible for the death and ordered him to pay the family $2 million. He never paid the money.Though
Ramos has been considered a key focus of the probe for years, he has
never been charged in the case. He is serving a 20-year sentence in a
Pennsylvania prison for molesting a different boy and is set to be
released later this year.A source said investigators want to expand the pool of possible suspects beyond Ramos.Stan
and Julie Patz, Etan's parents, still live a block away from the scene
and wouldn't comment on the new developments. A notice on the apartment
building said, "To the hardworking and patient media people: The answer
to all your questions at this time is 'no comment.' Please stop ringing
our bell and calling for interviews."Authorities have reason to
think the new search could lead to the discovery of the boy's remains at
that location, though they remain wary after past leads in the case
failed to pan out, according to two sources familiar with the probe."I hope they find something," said resident Sean Sweeney, who says he's lived in the neighborhood since 1976.SoHo,
a Lower Manhattan neighborhood now known for its boutique shops, art
galleries and loft apartments, at the time was considered a grittier
locale, where abandoned storefronts dotted the city streets.The boy's disappearance was thought to raise awareness of child abductions and led to new ways to search for missing children.President Ronald Reagan named May 25, the day Etan went missing, National Missing Children's Day.

Read more: http://www.wdsu.com/news/30936240/detail.html#ixzz1slgSKScJ

Police end search for Etan Patz remains

By Shimon Prokupecz and Jonathan Dienst, NBCNewYork.com

Authorities have concluded their search of a Manhattan basement for the remains of Etan Patz, who vanished 33 years ago on his walk to the school bus stop.

No remains were found, and NBC New York has learned from a law enforcement official that field tests on a concrete slab that contained a "stain of interest" over the weekend were negative for blood.

Meanwhile, dozens of items, including strands of hair, a piece of paper and other possible bits of forensic evidence, were gathered and will be analyzed further at an FBI laboratory.

The Patz family was briefed Sunday on the investigation and what has been found at the site.

The search for remains of 6-year-old Patz began Thursday in the basement of a building on Prince Street in the SoHo area. The concrete floor was torn up and investigators sifted through the dirt and soil below for evidence.

Everything that investigators have collected, including numerous swabs that will be tested for DNA evidence, is being sent to the FBI laboratory in Virginia.

Some bones were found, but they were determined to be non-human, and were discovered among Chinese food takeout containers, sources said.

Sources told NBC New York that the paper found in the debris is yellow, with handwriting on it, and a piece of tape that contains two or more hairs. Its significance was not clear, but one source said it was important enough to be collected and analyzed.

At the time of Patz's disappearance, the 13-by-62 basement at 127B Prince St. was being used as a workshop by Othniel Miller, a handyman who was friendly with the Patz family.

Investigators collect hair, paper in search for Etan Patz, missing since 1979

Miller, now 75, has been interviewed by investigators several times over the years, but he recently made statements that raised their suspicions, according to law enforcement sources.

In a recent interview with investigators, he blurted out “What if the body was moved?” according to an official.

Sources also say they have evidence to suggest Patz had been in the basement before.

Miller hasn't been named a suspect, and his lawyer says he has nothing to do with the case.

Investigators have also recently questioned a second person, Jesse Snell, in connection with the re-examination of evidence. NBC New York has learned that on the morning Patz disappeared in 1979, Snell was observed at the building where police are searching now, and also worked with Miller. Investigators would not elaborate on why they met with Snell.

One other man has remained a longtime possible suspect: Jose Ramos, a drifter and onetime boyfriend of Patz's baby sitter. In the early 1980s, he was arrested on theft charges, and had photos of other young, blond boys in his backpack. But there was no hard evidence linking Ramos to the crime.

He is in prison in Pennsylvania on a separate case.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11352788-police-end-search-for-etan-patz-remains?lite

The New York City police commissioner said a person who's in custody
has implicated himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz 33
years ago.

Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement that further details would be released later Thursday.


The 6-year-old disappeared on May 25, 1979 while walking alone to a
bus stop in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. The boy's photo was one of
the first of a missing child to appear on a milk carton.


The suspect was arrested in New Jersey on Wednesday and taken to New York City for questioning, Fox affiliate WNYW reported.


The New York Daily News, citing sources, reported that the suspect is
from New Jersey. He was known to investigators and is not a new figure
in the case, law enforcement sources told WNYW. He worked and lived in
the neighborhood where the boy disappeared.


The April excavation of a Manhattan basement yielded no obvious human
remains and little forensic evidence that would help solve the mystery
of what happened to Patz. The boy was officially declared dead in 2002.


Authorities began ripping up the basement's concrete floor with
jackhammers last month after a cadaver-sniffing dog had recently
indicated the scent of human remains in the basement located steps away
from the boy's home.


The basement is the former workspace of retired handyman Othniel
Miller, 75, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who was seen with Patz the night before
he disappeared. Miller, whose workshop was on the route the boy would
have taken to his bus stop, has denied any wrongdoing.


Investigators have long focused their attention on Jose Ramos, a
drifter and onetime boyfriend of Etan's baby sitter. In the early 1980s,
he was arrested on theft charges, and had photos of other young, blond
boys in his backpack. But there was no hard evidence linking Ramos to
the crime.


Ramos, now 68, reportedly admitted trying to molest Etan on the day
of his disappearance, but denied abducting him or killing him. Ramos has
never been charged criminally in the Patz case and is currently serving
a 20-year prison term in Pennsylvania for abusing an 8-year-old boy
there. Ramos is scheduled to be released from prison in November.


The Patz family, who has remained in the same apartment for 33 years
in the hopes their son would one day return home, has not commented on
the recent developments.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/24/suspect-in-custody-in-decades-old-cold-case-missing-boy-etan-patz-police-say/#ixzz1vmq1nxAR

Man Claims He Strangled Patz and Put Body in Box, Police Say

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Published: May 24, 2012

A man in custody in Manhattan has confessed to strangling Etan Patz, the 6-year-old boy who vanished in SoHo on his way to school in 1979, wrapping his body in a bag and putting it in a box, a law enforcement official said on Thursday.

The man, Pedro Hernandez, told investigators that he left the box at a location in Manhattan, but when he returned several days later the box was no longer there, the official said. Investigators recently took Mr. Hernandez to that location. A second official also said that Mr. Hernandez told the authorities he had strangled the boy and discarded his body.

Shortly after Etan’s disappearance, Mr. Hernandez, who in 1979 worked at a bodega near where the boy disappeared, moved to the Camden area, where he has many relatives, a law enforcement official said.

Investigators interviewed Mr. Hernandez for much of the day on Wednesday in the prosecutor’s office in Camden County in southern New Jersey.

Mr. Hernandez was taken into custody late Wednesday in New Jersey and was taken to the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., whose prosecutors are overseeing the inquiry by New York police detectives and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Investigators were tracking down several of the relatives to interview them to hear what, if anything, Mr. Hernandez has said about the crime. Investigators believe he has alluded or confessed to the crime to several family members over the years, the official said.

Mr. Hernandez was apparently very emotional during the confession, the official said, adding that the confession was videotaped, which is standard practice in New Jersey.

“An individual now in custody has made statements to N.Y.P.D. detectives implicating himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz 33 years ago,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement issued early Thursday.

The 33-year-old investigation into the young boy’s disappearance and presumed death has seen a parade of suspects and a range of theories. Last month, the F.B.I. and the New York Police Department spent five days tearing apart the basement of a building on Prince Street, just doors away from the longtime Patz family home, along the route the boy took on the day he disappeared.

He was on his way to a school bus stop. It was the first time that his parents had allowed him to go the stop by himself.

That search was based on a belief among investigators that a local handyman who kept a workshop in the basement in 1979 had abducted and murdered the boy and possibly buried his body there beneath a concrete floor. No obvious human remains were found. Etan’s parents still live on Prince Street.

The focus on Mr. Hernandez is the latest investigative development since the unsuccessful basement search. But it is unclear whether investigators have been able to independently corroborate the account Mr. Hernandez provided. Without any trace of human remains or other forensic evidence, any possible prosecution of Mr. Hernandez would face significant evidentiary hurdles.

Investigators have focused on Mr. Hernandez as a suspect in the past, one official said, although it was not immediately clear when he became the subject of renewed interest.

Mr. Vance said in 2010 that he would reopen the case, which focused national attention 30 years ago on the problem of missing children and began a new era marked by children’s faces on milk cartons and made-for-television dramas about kidnapped children. President Ronald Reagan declared May 25, the day of Etan’s disappearance, as National Missing Children’s Day.

The police have long had a prime suspect in the case, Jose A. Ramos, a convicted child molester who lived on the Lower East Side and was an acquaintance of a woman who worked for the Patzes as a baby sitter. Mr. Ramos remains imprisoned for molesting a boy in Pennsylvania, but has denied kidnapping or killing Etan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/nyregion/man-claims-he-strangled-etan-patz-police-say.html

Of all the grim questions raised by the confession police say they
obtained this week in the 1979 murder of Etan Patz, one is particularly
troubling: How do you throw the body of a 6-year-old boy in the trash
with no one noticing?

The thought nagged at many walking in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood
on Friday, a day after police said 51-year-old Pedro Hernandez admitted
he choked the boy in the basement of a local bodega and placed the body
in a plastic bag.
Mr. Hernandez told police he dumped the bag
that same morning in front of 113 Thompson St., a three-story building
about a block and a half away, a law-enforcement official said Friday.
The bag was gone when he returned a short while later.

The fresh details raised one unsettling possibility: A sanitation
worker may have lifted the bag containing Etan's 50-pound body and
unwittingly disposed of it in a garbage truck.



In April of this year, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York Police Department descended
upon an apartment building near the corner of Wooster and Prince
streets in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood, half a block from the Patzes' house.
"I was thinking of the garbage man, picking
up a bag and thinking this feels strange," said Susan Lee, 70, who since
1980 has lived in SoHo—the neighborhood where Etan vanished on May 25,
1979, and where his parents still live. "I guess if you pick up a
thousand bags a week, you don't notice," Ms. Lee said. "It's incredible."

The idea that a sanitation worker could unknowingly lift a bag
containing a 3-foot-4-inch first-grader also suggested to some that Mr.
Hernandez's memory may be faulty.

His attorney, Harvey Fishbein, said in a Manhattan courtroom Friday
that his client—a teenage stock clerk at the bodega when Etan went
missing—had a long history of mental illness, including schizophrenia
and bipolar disease, and had suffered both visual and auditory
hallucinations. There is no physical evidence to corroborate Mr.
Hernandez's story, although police said he had previously told two
relatives and a pastor that he had harmed a child.

Mr. Hernandez, of Maple Shade, N.J., appeared via video in a
Manhattan courtroom on Friday but didn't enter a plea to second-degree murder charges.

"I can't understand how law enforcement missed this 33 years go. It
was right down the street," said Maureen Holland, who brought her
6-year-old daughter to leave flowers and a note outside the home of
Etan's parents. Stanley and Julie Patz declined to comment on the case.

If Mr. Hernandez did kill Etan, police may have had a small window in which to find Etan's body—and missed it.

According to media accounts from the time, Etan's parents didn't
learn that their son was missing until that afternoon, when they called
officials at Public School 3 after their son failed to return home on
the afternoon bus. Bloodhounds picked up the boy's scent and traced it
to a store about three blocks away from the Patzes' home where the trail
went cold. Police assumed the boy had been abducted.

Both law-enforcement and solid-waste experts said it would have been
very possible for investigators and garbage workers to overlook the body.

Retired New York Police Department Deputy Chief Edward Dreher, who
headed up the investigation when Etan went missing, said that garbage
along the route that Etan took from his home to the bus stop would have been thoroughly searched.

But he said trash left a block or two away from the bodega "likely
would be too far" for police to have searched it. "That would be too remote," he said.

New York City Sanitation Department spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins
declined to answer questions about SoHo's trash pickup schedule in 1979
and wouldn't say whether records still exist on specific garbage routes
and the material that was picked up.

"The Sanitation Department is fully cooperating with the police in their investigation," she said.

Etan went missing on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.
Ms. Dawkins wouldn't say what day pickup was scheduled.

"New Yorkers throw out heavy stuff all the time," said a
sanitation-industry expert who asked not to be named because of the
sensitivity of the case. In 1979, before the adoption of recycling
programs, "it was all big black bags—heavy black bags. It's not at all a
stretch for a container to have 50, 75 pounds of material in it. You've
got a worker who's picking up hundreds of stops in a night."

The spot where the bag was left, 113 Thompson St., now has a
restaurant on the ground floor and what look to be apartments above. If
it was a totally residential address in 1979, the trash would have been
picked up by a city garbage truck and likely taken to either Fresh Kills
Landfill on Staten Island or the Fountain Avenue Landfill in Brooklyn,
said David Biderman, general counsel for the National Solid Waste
Management Association and the head of the association's New York City chapter.

If it was a commercial pickup, the trash would have been picked up by
a private carting company and likely taken to the Fountain Avenue
Landfill, Mr. Biderman said. Both landfills are now closed.

"You do wonder why the garbage men didn't notice," said Rob Scott, a
61-year-old art teacher walking in SoHo on Friday. "It's very mysterious
and disturbing. I'm still upset for a little boy to disappear like that."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577426682479321126.html

With all of the latest admissions of guilt and chicanery it seems that
Murdered Children (over 1 Year) is the newest resting point for this series of reports.

NEW YORK – Pedro Hernandez provided
detectives with "intimate details" about the murder of Etan Patz that
only the killer could have known, sources said.


NYPD detectives believe these key clues, kept secret for 33 years,
are proof that the former SoHo bodega stockboy charged in the infamous
abduction knew too much to not be involved.


Sources said investigators were stunned to learn that Hernandez, 51,
had this inside information, which cops never disclosed to the public
despite intense public scrutiny and three decades of frustration in
trying to unravel what happened to the six-year-old in 1979.


The specifics have remained secret and are known by fewer than a
dozen current law enforcement officials, including Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, the sources said.


They said the closely-held details likely relate to Etan's body --
scars, birth marks, moles or other identifying characteristics -- items
he wore or had when he disappeared or knowledge the killer gleaned about
Etan's family before the killing.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/27/suspect-gave-detectives-intimate-details-only-etan-patz-killer-could-have-known/#ixzz1w4HI7R00

Etan Patz Suspect Reportedly Kept Boy's Body in Store Freezer

BY ENJOLI FRANCIS
May 28, 2012



Hernandez said he'd kept the boy's body in the refrigerator until he could dispose of the corpse.

Law enforcement sources said the police department is attempting to confirm the details provided by Hernandez and whether to search for remains, the Post said.

Also, The New York Times reported this weekend that Hernandez had confessed during a prayer meeting in the early 1980s to killing a boy.

The former leader of the prayer group, which was held in a Roman Catholic church in Camden, N.J., told the Times that Hernandez said in front of the meeting's attendees that he had strangled a boy, the paper reported Sunday.

"He confessed to the group," said Tomas Rivera, who often led the meetings at St. Anthony of Padua and was present during the admission. Rivera told the Times he did not tell the police at the time "because he did not confess to me."

Rivera, who said he'd been questioned by New York police last week, said Hernandez had also said he left the body in a trash bin.

The prayer-circle confession was confirmed to the Times by Hernandez's sister, Norma Hernandez, who said that although she'd never talked to Pedro Hernandez about the case, his comments to the prayer group were known to the family. She did not say whether her brother had revealed the identity of the boy.

In a Facebook post on its page, St. Anthony of Padua responded to The Times story:

"At the time the confession in the prayer group would have taken place, the friars had not yet even arrived in Camden. But some members of the prayer group back then are still active in the parish. Please keep the Patz family and the Hernandez family in your prayers," the message said.

Former Store Clerk Charged

Hernandez, now 51, was a clerk at a corner store in the New York City neighborhood where Etan disappeared 33 years ago. Etan had been allowed for the first time to walk to the school bus stop alone May 25, 1979.

Hernandez had worked at the store for nearly a month. He left after Etan's disappearance, according to officials. Etan's body has not been found.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Hernandez had told relatives and friends as early as 1981 that he'd "done a bad thing and killed a child in New York."

Hernandez was formally charged with second-degree murder. He remains at a New York City hospital because authorities fear he might attempt kill himself. His lawyer said no plea had been entered pending a psychiatric evaluation.

The search for Etan has been one of the largest, longest-lasting and most heartwrenching hunts for a missing child in the country's recent history. His photo was among the first of a missing child to appear on a milk carton.

New York City police hailed Hernandez's arrest, saying that it closed a case that had haunted the city for three decades.

http://abcnews.go.com/News/etan-patz-suspect-reportedly-boys-body-store-freezer/story?id=16444148#.T8TvXdX5DO-

The man who has confessed to killing the
6-year-old boy at the heart of one of the nation's most prominent
missing-child cases remained in a psychiatric hospital as
court-appointed doctors assessed his mental state.


Defense lawyers said Pedro
Hernandez, 51, has schizophrenia and a history of hallucinations and
it's unclear how much that will factor in the case charging him with the
1979 murder of young Etan Patz.


But if his psychiatric record
becomes an issue, he'll encounter a justice system that seeks to strike a
balance between recognizing mental illness and holding people
responsible for their actions _ a balance that has shifted back and
forth over more than a century and a half.



Meanwhile, Etan's father made clear that the attention to the case
since Hernandez's arrest last week had taken a toll, telling reporters
they had "managed to make a difficult situation even worse."
"It
is past time for you to leave me, my family and my neighbors alone,"
Stan Patz said in a note posted on his apartment building's door.
Authorities
on Tuesday continued to try to flesh out the man's startling admission
in a case that galvanized the movement to publicize the problem of
missing children.
Police encountered Hernandez, who worked in a
nearby convenience store, shortly after Etan vanished on his way to
school on May 25, 1979. But investigators never considered Hernandez a
suspect until a tipster pointed them his way this month, saying he had
made incriminating statements. He responded with an emotional and
gruesome confession: He said he strangled the boy, hid his body in a bag
and a box and dumped it near some trash, police said.
His
statements launched police and the Manhattan district attorney's office
into a complex process of building a 33-year-old case with, so far, no
physical evidence.
And it has started the courts on a parallel
path of exploring Hernandez's mental health. After defense lawyer Harvey
Fishbein told a judge that Hernandez was schizophrenic, bipolar, had
had visual and auditory hallucinations, and had been on psychiatric
medication for some time, the judge ordered an examination to see
whether he was mentally fit to stand trial.
The results aren't yet
known, and either side could challenge the findings and get another
exam. It will ultimately be up to a judge to declare whether Hernandez
can go to trial. If not, he would be sent to a psychiatric hospital and
evaluated periodically to see whether he had improved enough to go to
court. Most people found unfit are eventually returned to court, legal
experts say.
Such exams aim to assess whether someone is well
enough to participate in a trial and aid his or her own defense. They
are separate from an insanity defense, which revolves around the
defendant's psychological state at the time of the alleged crime.
In
New York and many other states, defendants have to prove they were so
mentally ill that they didn't know what they were doing was wrong. If
successful, they are sent to psychiatric hospitals until judged well
enough for release, if ever.
Fishbein declined to comment Tuesday
on whether he might pursue an insanity defense. It could be challenging
to portray Hernandez's mindset so long ago, potentially involving
digging up decades-old medical records, tapping friends' and relatives'
memories of his behavior at the time, or both.
"The closer you can
bring his mental health and treatment issues to the time of the crime,
the more plausible it becomes that he was suffering from mental disorder
at the earlier time," said Stephen J. Morse, a University of
Pennsylvania law and psychiatry professor who's not involved in the
case.
One of Hernandez's sisters, Norma Hernandez, said Tuesday
that she went to police in Camden, N.J., years ago to report a rumor he
had confessed at a prayer group. Camden police declined to comment on
her remarks.
http://www.timesonline.com/news/national/doctors-assess-mental-state-of-patz-suspect/article_b0b20b7d-dfc5-5c62-ae66-f545fb4f5849.html

Mother of Etan Patz says she wishes it could all be over

Published: Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 10:55 AM
Updated: Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 10:55 AM
By The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The mother of Etan Patz says she wishes it could all be over.

Julie Patz spoke Tuesday outside her New York City apartment building, a week after a man confessed to killing her 6-year-old son 33 years ago.

According to the Daily News, Patz said: "This is taking my freedom away. I just wish this could be over." She made the remarks after running into reporters and photographers.

Asked if she believed police got the right suspect, Patz said: "No comment. It's an ongoing investigation."

Etan's body hasn't been recovered.

Authorities are continuing to flesh out the case after Pedro Hernandez made the startling admission. He worked at a neighborhood convenience store when Etan vanished on his way to school May 25, 1979.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/mother_of_etan_patz_says_she_w.html

Did Etan Patz Suspect's Sister Try to Turn Him In?



ABCNews.com

Etan Patz Case: Pedro Hernandez Reportedly Wrote Murder Confession On Picture Of Missing Boy


06/08/2012
An important detail has emerged in Pedro Hernandez's confession to the 1979 killing of six-year-old Etan Patz, but authorities are still struggling to provide physical evidence and a motive to substantiate Hernandez's story.

Hernandez reportedly wrote "I killed him" or "I strangled him," across
the photograph-- an interesting development considering previous reports
had Hernandez claiming he'd never before seen the boy in the picture.

Cops also videotaped Hernandez's confession to the boy's murder.


Authorities searched Hernandez's Maple Shade, New Jersey home Wednesday and found "age appropriate" clothing from the 70s and a child's toy from around the same time, The New York Post
reports. The items will be tested for DNA evidence. Cops wouldn't
describe the clothing, and cautioned that Hernandez himself has a son,
to whom the articles could also belong. Hernandez's hard drive was also
confiscated during the search.


Investigators could have difficulty constructing a provable narrative with which to prosecute Hernandez. According to his confession,
Hernandez put Etan's body in a platic bag which he then left on the
side of the street. The bag was likely picked up by a sanitation truck
and police say the body will probably never be found.


Additionally, Hernandez's motive for the crime remains a mystery. Hernandez did admit to being beaten as a child, The Times reports, but that could be too speculative a motive to hold up in court.
Hernandez's wife, Rosemary, doesn't believe her husband's confession, and cited his history of mental illness.


"Mrs. Hernandez has seen her husband's delusions and hallucinations and other mental illnesses for a very long period of time," Robert Gottlieb, the family's new high-profile lawyer, told CNN. "She does not believe the confession at all."


Hernandez is thought to suffer from schizophrenia and hallucinations. He is currently being held New York's Bellevue Hospital without bail. His next court date is June 25.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/08/etan-patz-case-pedro-hernandez-confession-home-new-jersey-maple-shade_n_1580890.html?1339168278&icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl7|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D168286

June 20th 2012
NEW YORK — A court date for a man charged with
murdering a New York City boy who vanished in 1979 was postponed
Wednesday for three months as authorities and his lawyer continue to
investigate.


Pedro Hernandez had been due in court Monday for an update in the
case surrounding Etan Patz's death. But the Manhattan district
attorney's office said Wednesday that Hernandez's appearance was put off
to Oct. 1 "to allow all parties to proceed with their investigations in
a measured and fair manner."


Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, declined to comment.


Hernandez was working at a nearby convenience store when Etan
disappeared on his way to school. Police said Hernandez confessed last
month to killing the 6-year-old boy.


Etan became one of the first missing children to appear on a milk
carton in an ad campaign to raise awareness of child abductions and
possibly help find the missing children. The date he vanished is now
National Missing Children's Day.


Hernandez had told a church prayer group in the 1980s that he killed a
child in New York City, according to the group's leader and a sister of
Hernandez's who said she heard about the episode secondhand. A tipster
pointed police to Hernandez last month, after seeing news coverage about
the ongoing investigation into Etan's disappearance.


Hernandez's lawyer and his wife's lawyer have said Hernandez is
mentally ill, and his wife has said through her lawyer that she believes
his confession isn't reliable. A bipolar schizophrenic, he has a
history of hallucinations, Fishbein has said.


A judge last month ordered an evaluation of whether Hernandez was mentally fit for trial. The results aren't yet known.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/06/etan_patz_case_court_date_dela.html

'What is this?' Moment wife of Etan Patz 'killer' found picture of dead boy hidden in their home

By RACHEL QUIGLEY
PUBLISHED: 10:15 EST, 8 August 2012
UPDATED: 11:11 EST, 8 August 2012

Police say they are 'absolutely certain' the man who recently confessed to killing missing boy Etan Patz in 1979 is guilty, after his ex wife told police she found a picture of the six-year-old hidden among his possessions.

Pedro Hernandez, from New Jersey, was questioned by police in May after a relative tipped them off that he had said for years he killed a boy in New York.

Etan Patz was the first missing child to appear on milk cartons after he went missing on May 25, 1979, on his way to school in SoHo, New York - the first time his parents allowed him to go on his own.

According to DNAInfo, Hernandez's first wife discovered the photo in the mid-80s hidden among his personal belongings. It looked like it had been cut out of one of his missing person's posters.

According to law enforcement sources, when she asked her husband about the picture he told her sternly: 'You better put that away. Never touch it again.'

Police have found no trace of the picture but are hoping that the woman's statement could be used as evidence in court.

Hernandez was never questioned in the days after Etan's disappearance. He was just 18-years-old at the time and worked in a bodega around the corner from his home.

He told police he saw the boy walking to school on his own and lured him into the bodega with promises of a soda. Then - acting on a whim - strangled him.

He said he put his body in a black garbage bag before placing it in a cardboard produce box. He then left it at the end of the block with other trash.

Soon after, Hernandez moved from the SoHo area - which police believe again points to his guilt in the murder of Etan.

Sources also say that he was acting very strangely and paranoid in the weeks after he moved back in with his parents.

As well as this, Hernandez was said to have written 'I killed him' on the back of a picture of Etan that police showed him on the day he was arrested.

Authorities have since searched through the mountain of paperwork attached to the decades-old case and found only one mention of Hernandez, which simply noted that he was working on the day Etan disappeared.

When they recently questioned retired detectives who worked on the case, no one could recall Hernandez.

A law enforcement source told DNAInfo: 'Nobody ever did it (questioned him). He wasn’t ever talked to and split town. And the owner, he is dead now and can’t be spoken to.'

Despite any hard evidence in the case, the police are now convinced they have the right man.

For years it was suspected that Jose Ramos, a convicted pedophile who is serving time in prison for an unrelated molestation charge, murdered Etan. His parents Stanley and Julie believe he is responsible for their son's disappearance.

He was dating Etan's babysitter at the time of his disappearance and would have known what route he took to go to school.

Twice a year - on Etan's birthday and the anniversary of his disappearance which is also National Missing Children's Day - Stan Patz sends Ramos a missing persons poster with the words 'What have you done with my son' written on the back.

Though Hernandez has confessed to the murder, he said his only motive for strangling him was that he felt an 'urge'.

He has a long history of schizophrenia and hallucinations and has underwent weeks of psychological evaluation at Bellevue Hospital.

When detectives from the Missing Persons Squad and Major Case Squads searched Hernandez's home, they seized a number of files and his computer as well as old children's clothes that were once suspected to belong to Etan.

Forensic tests however has provided no hard evidence linking Hernandez with Etan.

Hernandez was recently moved to Rikers Island after his stint at Bellevue.

His next court appearance is in October.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185462/Etan-Patz-What-Moment-wife-Pedro-Hernandez-picture-dead-boy-hidden-home-police-say-absolutely-certain-right-man.html#ixzz22yjwnv8j

Cops Search SoHo Basement for Clues in Etan Patz Case Updated

August 8, 2012 7:54pm
August 8, 2012 7:54pm
By Serena Solomon, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

SOHO — Hours after a story on DNAinfo.com New York revealed new insights into the killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz, police descended onto the scene of a former SoHo bodega where the boy's confessed killer, Pedro Hernandez, once worked.

Police spent two hours taking pictures of the building’s basement in an attempt to line up images with Hernandez's confession in May to murdering the SoHo boy, according to a police source. Etan was reported missing on May 25, 1979.

Three or four police trucks were stationed outside the 448 West Broadway location at about 3:45 p.m, according to local dog walker Laura Bong, who said she can still remember the news stories about Etan's disappearance more than 30 years ago.

"They were just all parked along the street," she said, adding that there were no police officers visible at the scene when she was there.

Police were seen carrying out bags, but a law enforcement source said "there was nothing new."

Among the evidence that has left police "absolutely certain" that Hernandez is guilty is the startling new discovery that Hernandez supposedly kept a photo of Etan grouped with his own personal belongings for years, law enforcement sources said.

The image, apparently a cutout of Etan's famous missing persons poster seen all over the city, was discovered by Hernandez’s first wife in the mid-1980s.

While cops hold little hope of finding the picture, sources said the wife's testimony could be used as evidence in a grand jury.

Sources said another strong element in the case is Hernandez's sudden move from SoHo just weeks after Etan disappeared, without ever being questioned by the NYPD, sources revealed.

Since Hernandez's arrest this year, detectives have poured through a mountain of NYPD reports and found that his name surfaced early after Etan went missing.

However, some doubts have been cast over the confession from Hernandez, who has a strong history of schizophrenia and hallucinations. And some believe he deluded himself into the confession.

Police have also previously pinned the crime on convicted pedophile Jose Ramos, who was dating Etan's babysitter when the child vanished.

Hernandez was recently moved to Rikers Island after being held at Bellevue Hospital for weeks of psychological evaluation.

His next court appearance is in October.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120808/soho/police-investigation-into-etan-patzs-death-returns-west-broadway

Etan Patz Case: Why the DA Decided to Prosecute Pedro Hernandez

By RICHARD ESPOSITO Nov. 15, 2012

Towards the end of Pedro Hernandez' taped confession to kidnapping and killing six-year-old Etan Patz he can be seen kneeling and praying with the detectives who questioned him, ABC News has learned. At that moment, according to sources who have seen the video, there is the sense that everyone in the room has tears in their eyes. Certainly Hernandez appears to.

Is it textbook police work? Maybe not. Nor are the hugs exchanged by suspect and investigators. But is it a powerful, moving and, most importantly, convincing confession?

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance clearly thinks so.

So do multiple persons familiar with the case interviewed by ABC News.

Following a grand jury indictment of Hernandez on kidnapping and second degree murder charges, the Manhattan DA will now go forward with a prosecution that will by all accounts be a difficult one. No physical evidence found to date links the suspect to the crime, a number of sources say, there are no witnesses, and the crime -- committed in 1979 -- has long been blamed on another man, although that man was never indicted.

Still, in a system of justice that has winners and losers, in a town like New York where sometimes it seems that all that matters is the zero sum game, the decision of prosecutors to go forward speaks to the law as they understand it, sources explain. The prosecutors have seen the psychiatric reports on the suspect, they have viewed and reviewed the confession, they are certain Hernandez is not crazy.

And if he is not crazy and he has confessed to police -- and he has in the past to family members and others -- that he killed Patz, the default position is not that his is a false confession, according to sources familiar with the case, but that it's true. In other words, it's the statement of a guilty man who, at age 51, wants to get a long-ago crime off his chest.

However formidable the burden of proof may be, then, this is a case that appears to be moving forward.

In that sense, the Hernandez case is the polar opposite of another legal firestorm that fell to Manhattan DA Vance -- the arrest of the prominent French politician and IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Depending on jury composition, the presentation of circumstantial evidence, and the skill of the prosecutors, it is conceivable that the case could have been made to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that "DSK" committed the crime.

But in the end, when they examined all the factors they had before them, the prosecutors felt that despite what appeared to be a large body of evidence, they themselves were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that DSK was guilty. So in an atmosphere charged with issues of class and race and the suggestion of preferential treatment for a member of the global elite, Vance and his prosecutors dropped the case.

In the current case, which no one pretends will be anything but an uphill battle, they will move forward.

Their courtroom strategy will be to draw the jury back time and again to Hernandez' own words.

But Harvey Fishbein, the attorney for Hernandez, will have a large arsenal of weapons with which to fight back.

"This case will take time and it will take money," Fishbein said after his client's 90-second court appearance Thursday. And, he added, "This case will not tell the world what happened to Etan Patz."
Fishbein, sources say, is virtually certain to try to cast reasonable doubt on Hernandez's guilt by calling as a witness the former federal prosecutor who identified Jose Ramos, a convicted sex offender, as Patz's likely killer. In effect he will put the ex-prosecutor, Stuart GraBois, and his prime suspect on trial.

Ramos was released from a Pennsylvania prison earlier this month after serving 27 years for molestation in an unrelated case, but was immediately rearrested for allegedly lying about where he planned to live after his release.

Fishbein will elicit all he can about Ramos's past admissions that he was "90 percent certain" he had Patz in his apartment the day he went missing. He may bring forth the testimony of jailhouse snitches incarcerated with Ramos, and he will ask, repeatedly, "Where is the evidence?"

"My client will plead not guilty," Fishbein said. And without suggesting his client's confession was false, he simply noted that it is a documented fact that people confess to crimes they have not committed.

Should the case make it all the way to trial, a knowledgeable insider said, one would probably bet against the prosecution.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/etan-patz-case-da-decided-prosecute-pedro-hernandez/story?id=17728197

Sad case, I remember some of it in the news from time to time.
William

Suspect in Etan Patz case due in NYC court

Published December 12, 2012
Associated Press

NEW YORK – The man charged with killing a 6-year-old New York boy in 1979 is expected to plead not guilty to murder despite police saying he confessed to the crime.

Pedro Hernandez, 51, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday. His attorney has previously said he would plead not guilty to killing Etan Patz.

Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979 as he walked to the bus stop on his way to school. His case touched off a massive search that has ebbed and flowed for three decades until this year, when the surprise arrest was made.

Hernandez's lawyer Harvey Fishbein says his defense will revolve around Hernandez's mental state, but he isn't pursuing an insanity defense. Fishbein says Hernandez will argue he made a false confession because of his mental problems, among other factors.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/12/suspect-in-etan-patz-case-due-in-nyc-court/#ixzz2EqodsJVa

In Etan Patz Case, The Verdict Is…

Nearly two years after Pedro Hernandez was arrested for murdering Etan Patz, he has yet to have an essential hearing on whether the central evidence against him is even admissible.
by Joaquin Sapien
ProPublica, Feb. 20, 2014, 3:45 p.m.

At a hearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, prosecutors and defense lawyers huddled around Judge Maxwell Wiley’s bench. There was much murmuring and some clear signs of exasperation: eyes rolled and heads shook. Finally, a deal was struck.

Its particulars shocked few in the courtroom: there would be more delays in the prosecution of Pedro Hernandez for the 1979 murder of Etan Patz.

The hearing that will decide whether Hernandez’s alleged confession in the infamous missing child case is admissible was pushed back once more, this time from March to June, more than two years from Hernandez’s initial arrest. And a trial, should one occur, will not take place before this coming September.

No one expected the case against Hernandez to be quick or easy. Patz had gone missing more than 30 years ago, and his body has never been found. Hernandez’s confession, which he has now recanted, is the lone publicly known piece of evidence against the former Manhattan bodega clerk who was working near the Patz family apartment on the morning of May 25, 1979. Hernandez’s lawyer has said his client is mentally ill, and potentially complex psychiatric evidence will be presented at any trial.

Still, the slow pace of the proceedings stands out, even among other complicated, high-profile murder cases. The prosecution, for instance, has yet to formally submit the findings of its own psychiatric experts.

In April of 1989, five teenage boys were arrested for the brutal rape and assault of a 28-year-old woman in Central Park, an event that would become widely known as the Central Park jogger case. There were allegations that those charged had been tricked or coerced into confessing, but even in that case, the confessions were evaluated by a court in less than a year. The first trial took place in August 1990.

John Hinckley Jr., who presented an insanity defense at his 1982 trial for the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, was tried just a year after his arrest.

And Andrew Goldstein, a schizophrenic man who pushed a young woman into an oncoming subway train in Manhattan in 1999, was tried mere months later.

In court papers, Hernandez’s lawyer has complained about the delays – in everything from having potentially exculpatory evidence turned over to him by prosecutors to having his client examined by the prosecution’s experts. He asserts that prosecutors have “moved at a glacial speed” on their obligations to turn over investigative reports, witness statements, and other material that might come out at trial.

Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance have blamed the FBI for some of the delays in turning over material to Hernandez’s lawyer. They have also asserted that Hernandez’s lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, has himself been responsible for the length of the proceedings.

In court papers filed last December, prosecutors said the 18 months Hernandez had then spent in custody was “nowhere near unreasonable, uncommon or unfair.”

A spokesman for Vance’s office would not comment when asked about the most recent rescheduling.

When prosecutors first won a murder indictment against Hernandez in the fall of 2012 – one that claimed he had lured the boy into the local bodega and then strangled him – prosecutors evinced considerable confidence in their case.

“We believe the evidence that Mr. Hernandez killed Etan Patz to be credible and persuasive, and that his statements are not the product of any mental illness,” said a spokesperson for the office in November 2012. “The grand jury has found sufficient evidence to charge the defendant, and this is a case that we believe should be presented to a jury at trial.”

Fifteen months later, there has yet to be a hearing into the admissibility of Hernandez’s confession. Fishbein is set to argue that Hernandez, in part because of his mental illness and in part because of the length of his initial, unrecorded interrogation, was incapable of understanding his rights while being questioned.

That hearing was first scheduled to take place last month, only to be moved to March 17. Now, it will not take place until June.

http://www.propublica.org/article/in-etan-patz-case-the-verdict-is

Trial date set for N.J. man charged with murdering Etan Patz

By Alex Napoliello/NJ.com
on May 08, 2014 at 9:53 AM

The trial for the Burlington County man charged with killing Etan Patz is set to begin on Jan. 5, 2015, according to a report from the New York Post.

The trial is expected to last at least two months, the report said.

Six-year-old Patz went missing from a Manhattan neighborhood on May 25, 1979, the first day his parents allowed him to walk his school bus alone. The case haunted the city for more than three decades before Pedro Hernandez reportedly confessed in May 2012 that he had killed Patz.

Hernandez, of Maple Shade, was charged with second-degree murder.

Pre-trial hearings will start on Sept. 18, where defense attorneys are expected to challenge Hernandez's confession on the grounds that he's mentally ill and falsely confessed, the report said.

Hernandez was 18-years-old and worked as a store clerk in a shop near Patz's bus stop. He apparently lured Patz into the basement of the store and choked him to death. Hernandez put the boy's remains in a trash bag which was then removed from the bodega, though police never recovered the body.

Jose Ramos was tied to the disappearance of Patz in 2004, and will testify at the trial as a material witness. He remains at a prison facility in rural Pennsylvania for sexually molesting two boys in 1990.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/05/trial_date_set_for_nj_man_charged_with_murdering_etan_patz.html

Man’s confession to killing Etan Patz heard in court: ‘Something just took over me and I choked him’

A video confession made public Monday showed Pedro Hernandez in 2012 talk about killing the 6-year-old in 1979. The video was played during a hearing to determine the admissibility of his alleged confession. His lawyer said the confession was coerced and wants it recanted.

BY Shayna Jacobs, Ginger Adams Otis

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Monday, September 15, 2014, 1:27 PM

Updated: Monday, September 15, 2014, 11:07 PM



Pool The confession of Pedro Hernandez — seen here in 2012 — allegedly shows him confessing to killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979. 

In a chilling video confession made public for the first time Monday, the man suspected of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz decades ago said the boy “was still alive” and “moving his legs” when he stuffed him inside a plastic bag.

“I started choking him,” Pedro Hernandez said in the opening moments of the confession, later demonstrating on his own neck how he tried to snuff the life out of young Etan 33 years ago.

“He wasn’t dead. He was still gasping,” said Hernandez, 53.

Hernandez, who defense attorneys say is mentally ill, told cops he lured Etan — on his first solo walk through SoHo to catch his school bus on the corner — into his bodega with the promise of a soda.

Then the shopkeeper brought the child into the basement.


“I told him, you know, to go down to the basement with me,” said Hernandez, who gave a three-hour taped interview to prosecutors in 2012. Cops sought him out after receiving a tip about his role in Etan’s disappearance.

The tape was played in Manhattan Supreme Court at a hearing to determine the admissibility of Hernandez’s alleged confession. A trial is scheduled for January.

His attorney, Harvey Fishbein, has argued cops violated Hernandez’s rights and interrogated him improperly for hours before filming his confession.

Etan’s parents showed up for the hearing, but Julie Patz left as the tape played. Etan’s photographer father remained and sat stoically as Hernandez detailed the events that he said led to Patz’s disappearance on May 25, 1979.

“It was like something took over me and, I don’t know, something just took over me and I choked him,” said Hernandez, who was 18 years old at the time of the crime.

He added that he “took a plastic bag” and put Etan inside.
Stanley K. Patz/AP The 6-year-old went missing in May 1979. His body has never been recovered.  

“He was still alive. He was moving his legs,” Hernandez said, adding that even though the boy was not dead, “I put him in the plastic bag.”

He told cops he put the plastic bag in a box, carried the box upstairs and left it a few blocks away. When he came back the next day, it was gone.

“Why did you pick there?” a prosecutor asked.

“Because that was the only place I just kind of figured I’d put it,” said Hernandez, who denied sexually assaulting Etan before choking him.

“I know I did something wrong, but it didn’t bother me that much. I just kept working,” he said.
Stanley Patz, the father of Etan Patz, was present for Monday's hearing where the video was played.   




Hernandez claims he confessed years later to his wife and also in front of a church group, but nobody called cops until 2012.

The boy’s fate has remained one of the city’s enduring mysteries. For years, suspicion has fallen on a pedophile named Jose Ramos.

Ramos was involved with Etan’s baby-sitter at the time the boy vanished and was the prime suspect until Hernandez’s name emerged in 2012.





http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/new-jersey-man-confession-killing-etan-patz-played-court-article-1.1940185