30 year old missing child case may be solved

[Ringel05]

Just saw on the national news that remains were found.

The Associated Press: NYC basement searched for boy who vanished in 1979

 

[Trajan]

yes, my aunt wrote me about this poor child way back when I was in the service....wow. talk about a cold case, good for the cops, I hope they found Etan.

 

[Claudette]

yes, my aunt wrote me about this poor child way back when I was in the service....wow. talk about a cold case, good for the cops, I hope they found Etan.

I remember Etan Patz as well.

Hope they find that little boy and give his family some closure.

 

[Liability]

The NYC Police Commissioner was interviewed on the NY local Fox station by the two morning anchors, one of whom is the Commissioner's son.

It was awkward material. Cringe worthy.

As Howard Stern used to say, "It gave me douche chills."

On the other hand, there is now, at long last, some reason to hope that this bitterly cold case may finally get some closure.

If so, I hope the poor kid can rest in peace and that his family finds some solace.

 

[strollingbones]

after all this time....there is no statue of limitations on murder charges....thankfully.....i wonder if they can now prove which man committed the murder or if they both did?

 

[Liability]

after all this time....there is no statue of limitations on murder charges....thankfully.....i wonder if they can now prove which man committed the murder or if they both did?

Or neither?

But it looks like maybe one guy did help cover up the crime -- among other things.

 

[Rocko]

Read about it in new York Post this morning.
33 years later, police digging for body in Etan Patz murder case - NYPOST.com

Edit: my link has a pic of the suspect

 

[blastoff]

A report I heard this morning said the kid disappeared the first day he was allowed to walk alone the short distance to his school bus stop. If that's true just think how haunting that would be for his parents. Those poor people will never get over it.

 

[Liability]

Scent pads and cadaver dog.

Seriously, that is some wonderful investigation work.

And that dog is amazing.

 

[waltky]

Possible blood stain found in basement search...

After suspension, search for Etan Patz to resume Monday
Sun April 22, 2012 - An FBI spokesman says the search was suspended for "operational reasons"; Official: Possible blood stain found in basement search; A New York carpenter said he had no involvement in the boy's disappearance; The 6-year-old boy disappeared in 1979 on his way to a bus stop in New York

The search for Etan Patz, a 6-year-old New York boy who disappeared more than three decades ago, is expected to resume on Monday after being suspended for "operational reasons," an FBI spokesman said. "I don't want to get into what those reasons were," the spokesman, Peter Donald, said Sunday. "We'll be back in the morning." Around 2 p.m. Sunday, investigators searching a basement in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood abruptly folded up a tent they had erected to shield them from a nasty rainstorm. Moments later, two large New York Police Department vans rolled in, obstructing most of the view of the scene. Through a small break between the vehicles, photographers were able to catch a glimpse of something being loaded into the side of an unmarked blue van.

Sunday's developments came a day after investigators discovered a possible blood stain on a concrete wall while tearing apart the basement in their search for clues in the case, a law enforcement source told CNN. FBI agents, assisted by the NYPD, discovered the stain by spraying the chemical luminol, said the law enforcement source who has been briefed on the investigation. The chemical can indicate the presence of blood, but is not always conclusive, according to the source. At this time, the stain is described only as an area of interest. Investigators used chainsaws to dig out the portion of the wall with the stain, which will be sent to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia for analysis to determine whether the substance is blood and, if so, whose it is, the law enforcement source said. The basement is about a half-block from where the boy's family still lives. Etan vanished May 25, 1979, as he walked to a bus stop by himself for the first time.

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.

More After suspension, search for Etan Patz to resume Monday - CNN.com

See also:

After NYC boy vanished, era of anxiety was born
22 Apr.`12 — A generation of sheltered American children grew up in the shadow of anxiety that fell over this country one day in 1979, when a little boy with a charming grin vanished from a Manhattan street corner.

They never knew his name or saw that angelic-looking face. But their parents would never forget it. For some, their caution was simply a result of what they read in news reports. Others, including Jim Stratton, had an immediate and very personal reason to be afraid. "It sent a chill through everybody," said Stratton, 73, whose son was in the same neighborhood play group as Etan Patz, the 6-year-old who never boarded his school bus on May 25, 1979. "You could not leave your child for a minute. Anywhere. It was like a dark cloud had come over the neighborhood."

Before Patz disappeared, the notion that a child could be abducted right off the street, in broad daylight, was not familiar. Children roamed their hometowns freely, unencumbered by fear. They could walk to school and the bus stop and just about anywhere they pleased all by themselves. That all changed after Patz set off for school in his favorite pilot's cap and corduroy jacket and did not return. A new age of paranoia had grabbed hold of the national psyche. And so many years later, that paralyzing sense of fear has yet to fully release its grip. "In many ways, it was the end of an era of innocence," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children. "And parents suddenly became much more protective and much more hovering over their children."

Patz was one of the first missing children whose face would appear on a milk carton. In the coming years more faces would follow, mutely appealing for help from a public that began, for the first time, to mobilize on a grand scale in its efforts to find them. Even now, after more than 30 years, we still haven't given up hope for a resolution, for answers to every parent's worst nightmare. Last week, authorities began ripping up an old basement near Patz's SoHo loft with the aim of finding his remains, spurred on by a cadaver-sniffing dog that picked up a scent there. "He was here the whole time for all of us," said Cass Collins, Stratton's wife, who has been haunted by his disappearance ever since. "He was always in our thoughts."

The ones who never made it home are painfully seared in the nation's collective memory. There was 6-year-old Adam Walsh, kidnapped and killed in 1981 when he wandered away from his mother at a department store in Hollywood, Fla. There was 12-year-old paperboy Johnny Gosch, never again seen after vanishing on his newspaper route in 1982 in West Des Moines, Iowa. There was Jacob Wetterling, abducted and killed by a masked gunman in 1989 while riding his bicycle home from a convenience store in St. Joseph, Minn. "There were some kids who biked around with a switch blade in their basket after it happened," said Alison Feigh, 34, who grew up with Wetterling and sat next to him in sixth-grade math class. "There was a change of our innocence at that time. In sixth grade, I didn't even have the word abduction — that wasn't even part of my vocabulary."

MORE

 

[AnonymousIV]

Praying for Etan's family.

 

[strollingbones]

a bittersweet non finding.....

U.S. News - Police end search for Etan Patz remains

as a parent...at least this allows you false hope.....there is still a chance ...we know as parents every damn one of us....would hope till they handed us the bones of our child...

 

[waltky]

Suspect implicates himself but cops are skeptical...

Man in custody, questioned in disappearance of Etan Patz
May 24, 2012 - New York police are questioning a New Jersey man in connection with the disappearance of Etan Patz, the 6-year-old boy who made national news more than 30 years ago when he vanished as he walked to the school bus.

"An individual now in custody has made statements to NYPD detectives implicating himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz 33 years ago. We expect to provide further details later today," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement. NBC 4 New York and other news outlets, citing undisclosed law enforcement sources, report today that police picked the man up late Wednesday and brought him to New York City for questioning.

The station also warns that some NYPD officials are skeptical about the man's story, noting that he lived and worked in Patz's Manhattan neighborhood when the boy disappeared but had not provided details that would lead them to Patz's body. The disappearance and search for Etan brought widespread attention to the issue of missing children. His face was among the first to appear on milk cartons, and in 1983, President Reagan declared May 25, the date he vanished, as National Missing Children's Day.

Last month, FBI agents and New York City police searched a basement near where Patz had lived. A cadaver dog had picked up the potential scent of human remains. FBI and police officials didn't say then what led them to the site. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said then that no remains were found and that "the search has formally ended."

The now-vacant 13-by-62-foot area, which once housed the workspace of a handyman who knew the boy, is on the route Etan should have taken to the bus stop. AP notes that Etan's parents, Stan and Julie Patz, were reluctant to move or even change their phone number in case their son tried to reach out. They still live in the same apartment, down the street from the building that was examined in April.

Source

See also:

No breakthroughs in basement search for Etan Patz clues
23 Apr.`12 – Five days after a potential new lead emerged, what happened to 6-year-old Etan Patz remains a mystery.

On Monday, police said nothing useful was found in a basement search for clues about the 1979 disappearance of Etan, who vanished while walking to a school bus stop near his Manhattan home. "No obvious human remains were found," said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne. "The search has formally ended." FBI agents and New York City police began to scour the basement on Thursday after a cadaver dog picked up the potential scent of human remains. FBI and police officials didn't say what led them to the site. The now-vacant 13-by-62-foot area, which once housed the workspace of a handyman who knew the boy, is on the route Etan should have taken to the bus stop.

Etan's disappearance has captivated the country for decades. The search for the boy has been covered on anniversaries and has brought widespread attention to the issue of missing children. His face was among the first to appear on milk cartons. In 1983, President Reagan declared May 25, the date he vanished, as National Missing Children's Day. "This case was in many ways the birthplace of the (missing children) movement," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. There are several reasons why the case resonated with people, said Lisa Cohen, author of After Etan: The Missing Child Case That Held America Hostage. Etan's parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, were articulate and sympathetic, she said. Many of the photos of Etan — taken by his father, a professional photographer — "weren't just typical pictures" of a young child, she said. They were so well lit and beautifully shot that they became iconic.

Over the past 33 years, there have been occasional new clues and developments but no solid answers. No one has been prosecuted for kidnapping or any other crime related to the disappearance, but Etan's father sued a convicted child molester, Jose Ramos, who had been dating Etan's babysitter around the time he disappeared. Ramos has never been charged criminally and denies harming the boy, but in 2004, a civil judge found him responsible for Etan's death. Ramos is not the handyman whose old workspace was searched over the past few days. That carpenter, Othniel Miller, "has absolutely no responsibility for the terrible tragedy," said his lawyer, Michael Farkas.

Etan's parents have not commented publicly since the new dig began, but Cohen said she spoke with Stanley Patz on Monday. Although there have been "so many ups and downs" with the search, she said, he told her he won't give up trying to determine what happened to his son. "He's been through this so many times before," she said. And although the excavation didn't turn up any obvious new evidence, Allen at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said the continued focus on the case is encouraging. "The most important message is that the search goes on," he said. "This sends a loud and clear message to parents and law enforcement across the country: Just because a week, month, year or 33 years have gone by, it doesn't mean that we forget or we give up."

Source

 

[waltky]

Accused Etan Patz killer on suicide watch...

Accused Etan Patz killer taken to hospital on suicide watch
25 May`12 - A former bodega stock clerk has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York City in 1979.

A former bodega stock clerk arrested for allegedly luring 6-year-old Etan Patz off a SoHo street and strangling him in a basement has been placed on suicide watch at a hospital as a precaution, NBC 4 New York has learned. Pedro Hernandez, 51, was taken to Bellevue Friday, a source familiar with the case said. He had been set to be arraigned after police announced his arrest in the 1979 missing child case that has mystified New York City for decades. Pedro Hernandez, 51, was taken to Bellevue Friday, a source familiar with the case said. He had been set to be arraigned after police announced his arrest in the 1979 missing child case that has mystified New York City for decades. A hospital bedside arraignment was expected Friday afternoon.

Hernandez is in isolation and receiving a medical evaluation at the hospital. Another source told NBC 4 New York that this evaluation is precautionary and that such extra steps in a case like this are often routine. Relatives have said Hernandez has a history of some mental issues. His court-appointed lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, declined to comment Friday, saying he hadn't met with his client yet. Patz vanished on his way to a school bus stop 33 years ago Friday. The case drew international attention and changed the way parents felt about letting their young children go off alone. Police said Hernandez had admitted to luring Patz into a bodega where he worked, near the boy's house, and choking him to death in the basement.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said police focused on Hernandez, who now lives in Maple Shade, N.J., after the Missing Persons Squad received a tip from someone who remembered Hernandez speaking of having killed a child. "In the years following Etan's disappearance, Hernandez had told a family member, and others, that he had 'done a bad thing' and killed a child in New York," Kelly said. Based on that information, police went to question Hernandez. Kelly said Hernandez, who worked at the bodega for about a month, confessed to police after he was picked up Wednesday night. Some of the interviews were conducted at the scene of the crime, Kelly said.

Kelly said the suspect had not given a reason for attacking Patz and said there was "no reason at this time" to suspect the boy was sexually abused. He said it was "unlikely" Patz's remains would ever be found and that Hernandez told them he put the boy's body in the trash. Hernandez's lawyer on Friday asked reporters to be respectful of some of Hernandez's relatives assembled at the courthouse, including his wife, daughter and another man, who huddled together on a wooden bench, turning away interview requests for more than an hour. "It's a tough day. The family is upset. Please give them some space,'' Fishbein said.

MORE

See also:

Etan Patz death: Pedro Hernandez due in court
25 May 2012 - Etan Patz vanished while walking to a school bus stop on his own for the first time

The man who has confessed to killing six-year-old Etan Patz, who went missing in New York in 1979, is expected in court on Friday. Pedro Hernandez of Maple Shade, New Jersey, was arrested on Thursday after he told police he choked the boy to death. Mr Hernandez, 51, worked in a convenience shop near the Patz family home in Manhattan, New York. Etan vanished while walking to a school bus stop on his own for the first time. His was the first face to appear on milk cartons asking for information about missing children. It is 33 years to the day since Etan went missing. Prosecutors are expected to file second-degree murder charges against Mr Hernandez, CNN reports. He was taken to a New York hospital for a psychological evaluation on Friday.

'Feeling of relief'

"We believe that this is the individual responsible for the crime," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters on Thursday. He added that Mr Hernandez was "remorseful, and I think the detectives thought that it was a feeling of relief on his part". According to Commissioner Kelly, Mr Hernandez allegedly had lured the boy "with the promise of a soda". After leading the boy into the basement he "choked him there and disposed of the body by placing him in a plastic bag and placing it in the trash". No body or bag was ever recovered. Commissioner Kelly told reporters that police took Mr Hernandez back to the scene of the crime, which is now a shop selling spectacles. When the incident took place, Mr Hernandez had been stacking shelves at the small grocery shop for about a month. While other employees of the shop were interviewed around the time of Etan's disappearance, Mr Hernandez was not. "I can't tell you why," Mr Kelly said.

Mr Hernandez worked in construction until he suffered a back injury in 1993. He had no previous criminal record, the police commissioner said. But the 51-year-old told relatives and others, as far back as 1981, that he had "done something bad". Mr Kelly said police had already informed Etan's family of the development in the case. "We can only hope that these developments bring some measure of peace to the family," he said. Etan's parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, became outspoken advocates for missing children in the years after their son's disappearance. The couple have not moved since his disappearance and for years refused to change their phone number, hoping that Etan was alive.

Lt Christopher Zimmerman told reporters that "Mr Patz was taken aback, a little surprised, and I would say overwhelmed, to a degree". "I think after everything Mr Patz has gone through, he handled it very well." Investigators last month searched a handyman's former workshop near the Patz family home. In an apparent breakthrough for the decades-old investigation, the Manhattan basement flat was excavated over four days, but no evidence was found. The handyman, Othniel Miller, was repeatedly questioned by detectives, but denied having anything to do with Etan's disappearance.

BBC News - Etan Patz death: Pedro Hernandez due in court

 

[waltky]

Patz killer kept photo of Etan for years...

Patz's killer kept photo of boy for years, ex-wife says
August 8, 2012 - The man who confessed to killing Etan Patz kept a photo of the boy among his personal possessions for years after the murder, his ex-wife told investigators.

Pedro Hernandez' ex-wife Daisy Rivera said she found the picture, which appeared to be cut from one of the missing persons posters that blanketed the city in 1979, in a “box of his personal papers” that he kept in their New Jersey home, a law enforcement source told The Post. “She brought up that once she was going through a box of his with personal papers and inside that box was the picture of Patz,” the source said. “She said it looked like it came from a missing poster that was put up in the neighborhood.

When confronted with the photo, an angry Hernandez freaked out, Rivera told cops. “She asked ‘What is this?’ He said ‘What are you doing? Put that away! Don’t go through my stuff!” the source said. Cops got a search warrant for the Maple Shade, New Jersey house where Hernandez was living with his second wife and daughter - but came up empty. “One of the things they were looking for when they got a search warrant for the house was this picture or this box but they didn’t find it so they’ll have to use her testimony” if there’s a trial, the source said. Hernandez confessed to murdering the 6-year-old Patz 33 years after the boy disappeared while walking to a school bus stop.

He was charged with second-degree murder after telling cops he lured the innocent child “with the promise of a soda, and led him to the basement of the bodega, and strangled him there,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at the time. Hernandez placed Etan’s body in a bag and left it in a freezer before taking it to another location in the neighborhood and dumping it with the trash. He gave cops no explanation for the killing other than that he had “an urge” to snatch and kill the boy.

Read more: Etan Patz's killer Pedro Hernandez kept photo of boy for years, ex-wife says - NYPOST.com

 

[waltky]

Working toward closure in Etan Patz case...

NY prosecutors press ahead on Etan Patz case
15 Nov.`12 — The alleged killing is more than three decades old, the body's never been found and the motive is murky.

Finally, the only clear piece of evidence — a recent confession — came from a man who, according to his lawyer, is delusional. Those are some of the obstacles facing prosecutors as they move forward with murder charges in one of the most notorious — and notoriously vexing — cases in New York City history: the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz.

Pedro Hernandez, who police say volunteered a confession in May, was to appear in court on Thursday following his long-delayed indictment on murder and kidnapping charges. In announcing the charges on Wednesday, prosecutors said that an exhaustive post-arrest investigation found enough evidence to seek an indictment and proceed to trial.

"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 Erin M. Duggan, spokeswoman for District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

More NY prosecutors press ahead on Etan Patz case - Yahoo! News

 

[TNHarley]

Good news Walt.

 

[waltky]

Pedro Hernandez found guilty of Etan Patz murder...

Suspect Found Guilty in Etan Patz's Murder
February 15, 2017 - A Manhattan jury has found Pedro Hernandez guilty of murder in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, bringing to an official close a notorious case that transfixed New Yorkers for over three decades.

The verdict Tuesday came on the ninth day of deliberations after a three-month retrial. The first trial of Hernandez, 54, of Maple Shade, N.J., a clerk at a bodega in the SoHo neighborhood where Etan disappeared, ended with a jury deadlocked 11-1 for conviction in 2015. Hernandez was identified as a suspect by a relative in 2012 and later confessed to police. But his defense said the confession was a fantasy stemming from a mental problem, and argued that the real culprit was a convicted child molester who had a link to Etan’s family. Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, while on his way to catch a school bus that stopped outside the corner bodega where Hernandez worked. His mother, Julie Patz, in emotional testimony, said it was his first time walking to the bus stop alone and that he had $1 to buy a treat at the bodega.

He never came home, and an intense police dragnet in the neighborhood never turned up a body, or forensic evidence of a crime, or witnesses who recalled seeing him at the bus stop. The case became a cautionary tale for parents, and Etan’s picture was put on milk cartons as part of a nascent national movement to find missing children. In the 1980s, attention in the case focused on Jose Ramos, a convicted child molester who is now serving time in Pennsylvania. Ramos had a social relationship with a woman who walked Etan home from school during a bus strike. Ramos intrigued authorities by telling them that he had an encounter with a boy who could have been Etan on the day he vanished, and also made incriminating remarks to two informants who were placed in jail with him. But he never confessed and was never prosecuted.

Hernandez, according to testimony at trial, made incriminating statements that varied in their details to a prayer group, an ex-wife and a friend. After a lengthy unrecorded interrogation by the NYPD in 2012, he recorded purported confessions for police and prosecutors. He said that he had lured Etan into the basement of the bodega by offering him a soda, strangled him to death, packed his body into a produce box and lugged it to a dumpster two blocks away. He did not give a motive, saying only that “something took over me,” but prosecutors believe he tried to sexually assault the 6-year-old. Both trials were hotly contested. Prosecutors portrayed Hernandez as the missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle — a man at the right place at the right time who put the body in a dumpster where it would have been trucked to a landfill before Etan’s parents ever knew he was missing, and who left New York and sought forgiveness at a religious retreat within weeks of the disappearance.

The defense, however, portrayed Ramos as a far more likely suspect — a man with a string of molestation charges unlike Hernandez, a father whose record was clean except for the Patz allegations. A former FBI supervisor who investigated Ramos testified that she believed he was guilty. The defense called mental health experts — whose conclusions were contested by prosecution experts — to testify that Hernandez had low IQ and suffered from schizotypal personality disorder, a mild form of schizophrenia, that could have produced delusions stemming from his own horrific childhood of abuse. In a case with no body and no forensic evidence to even prove Etan was killed, the defense also hammered on inconsistencies in Hernandez’s purported confession. He said Etan had no hat, but Etan was wearing a hat when he left home. He said he had thrown a pencil bag Etan was carrying behind a refrigerator, but it was never found in the basement.

Suspect Found Guilty in the Murder of Etan Patz | Officer.com

 

[Vastator]

None of the links worked for me... Dammit!

 

[deannalw]

To think the cops could have found him nearly forty years back but didn't deem it worth the cost to rip up that new cement.
It's enough to make you weep.