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