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Thread: Etan Patz - missing since 1979

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    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    Etan Patz - missing since 1979

    This must have been lost in the crash

    New York police have a person in custody for a 33-year-old crime that helped launch a missing children's movement across the United States.

    A man has told police that he suffocated Etan Patz, the 6-year-old boy whose disappearance on his way to school in 1979 helped give rise to the missing-children's movement that put youngsters' faces on milk cartons.

    Pedro Hernandez was picked up late Wednesday in New Jersey, according to a law enforcement official, and was being questioned on Thursday by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

    Hernandez, who is believed to be in his mid-60s, worked at a convenience store in the neighbourhood where Patz lived, and moved to New Jersey shortly after the boy disappeared 33 years ago, according to a second law enforcement official. He has been tied to the case in the past, and investigators recently received a phone call that tipped them off to him, the officials said.

    Hernandez said he suffocated the boy, then put the body in a box, walked down the street and left the box in an alley, the first official said. No body or box has been recovered, and Hernandez has not been charged.

    Investigators said they were still trying to confirm details of the man's story. The development came just before the Friday anniversary of Etan's disappearance, when detectives typically receive a landslide of hoaxes and false leads.

    "Let me caution you that there's still a lot of investigating to do," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

    Hernandez's emergence as a person of interest was not related to the search of a Manhattan basement in April, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The excavation of the basement yielded no obvious human remains, authorities said.

    Both the person familiar with the probe and the officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorised to discuss the case.

    A woman who answered the door at Hernandez's home confirmed he was in custody. Neighbours said he lived with a woman and a daughter who attends college.

    "I can't believe something like that," said Dan Wollick, 71, who rents the other apartment in home. "This guy, he doesn't seem that way."

    Wearing a backpack with elephants printed on it, Etan, a boy with sandy brown hair and a toothy grin, vanished on May 25, 1979, while walking alone to his school bus stop for the first time, two blocks from his home in New York's busy SoHo neighborhood.

    Police conducted an exhaustive search amid a crush of media attention. Thousands of fliers were plastered around the city, buildings canvassed, hundreds of people interviewed.

    SoHo was not a neighbourhood of swank boutiques and galleries as now, but of working-class New Yorkers rattled by the news.

    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. They have endured decades of false leads and a lack of hard evidence.

    They did not return a message requesting comment.

    "I hope this is the end of it," said Roz Radd, who lives a couple of blocks from the Patz family's home and knows Etan's mother casually from walking dogs in the neighbourhood. "There's going to be hopefully closure to her, to know what happened to her son."

    The investigation has ebbed and flowed over the years. It also ushered in an era of anxiety about leaving children unsupervised.

    In the past, the focus was on Jose Ramos, a convicted child molester, now in prison in Pennsylvania. He had been dating Etan's baby sitter at the time the boy disappeared. In 2000, authorities dug up Ramos' former basement in Manhattan, but nothing turned up.

    Stan Patz had his son declared legally dead in 2001 so he could sue Ramos, who has never been charged criminally and denies harming the boy. A civil judge in 2004 found him to be responsible for Etan's death after Ramos failed to respond to the family's lawsuit.

    Recently, investigators questioned a 75-year-old Brooklyn handyman who in 1979 had a workspace in the basement that was excavated last month. The man, Othniel Miller, was not named as a suspect and denied any involvement.

    Miller's lawyer said there was no connection between Miller and Hernandez.

    "There has been no law enforcement action taken or implicated against Mr. Miller as of yet. Mr. Miller is relieved by these developments, as he was not involved in any way with Etan Patz's disappearance," attorney Michael Farkas said.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-boy-...#ixzz1vp2zwymR

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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    I was just reading the CNN article a minute ago and found this kinda fucked up:

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/24/justic...html?hpt=ju_c1

    The boy was officially declared dead in 2001 as part of a lawsuit filed by his family against a drifter, Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child molester acquainted with Etan's babysitter.

    A judge found Ramos responsible for the boy's death and ordered him to pay the family $2 million -- money the Patz family has never received.

    Though Ramos was considered a key focus of the investigation for years, he has never been charged in the case. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Pennsylvania for molesting another boy and is set to be released this year.
    So.. am I to understand that this previous judge is making Ramos pay for Etan's disappearance when they are not sure that he did it? Fuck it, he has hurt kids in the past and they are just sticking him with Etan because they couldn't find someone else? Even with new developments? I don't get it.


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    Superomnininjamember Monter's Avatar
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    I so remember this happening!!! So sad, but fascinating...as a little kid, seeing another little kid who disappeared? Talk about stranger danger...
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    Senior Member rachy's Avatar
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    'He would get angry at nothing': Family of man who 'strangled Etan Patz and dumped body in garbage' describes short temper as sister says he must be punished for crime
    Pedro Hernandez lived just blocks from Etan when he disappeared
    Police tipped off by relative after Hernandez had confessed to the crime
    Set to appear in court tomorrow on charges of second-degree murder
    Comes just weeks after the four-day excavation of handyman Othniel Miller's SoHo basement, where police found no new evidence
    Revelations come nearly 33 years to the day since Etan disappeared - and could solve one of the country's most enduring missing children cases


    The man who has confessed to the murder of iconic missing child Etan Patz has a 'really short fuse', according to his brother-in-law, as dramatic new details about the famous case emerged this evening.

    Pedro Hernandez, who has been arrested on suspicion of killing six-year-old Etan when he was just 19, 'would get angry at nothing' when he was younger, his brother-in-law Jose Lopez told MailOnline.

    Hernandez's family appears to have turned on the self-confessed killer, as his sister insisted that he should 'pay for what he did' if found guilty of second-degree murder.

    The suspect, who is due to appear in court tomorrow - the 33rd anniversary of Etan's disappearance - claims to have lured the boy away from his bus stop by promising him a soda, according to New York police chief Raymond Kelly.

    Hernandez, now 51, took Etan into the basement of the bodega where he worked and strangled him, then wrapped the boy's body in a plastic bag and disposed of it near the store in New York's SoHo district.

    Mr Lopez, 58, told MailOnline that he was not sure whether or not his brother-in-law was capable of murder, but that he did not rule it out.

    'Everything points to him doing it,' he said. 'You do crazy things when you're younger, Pedro did.'

    He added: 'When he was younger Pedro had a really short fuse and would get angry at nothing. There was one time with his ex-wife when they had a row and he broke a window and I had to come round and fix it.

    'I've known Pedro since he was about 10. When he was a teenager, when he's supposed to have done this, he was a tough guy and knew how to handle himself but he was hot blooded and he would snap.

    'I used to stay out of the way of him and his wife as they would row so much. Things did not end well between them, it wasn't good.'

    His wife Margarita Lopez, Hernandez's sister, said: 'If he did something he should pay for it. I have kids and if something happened to them the person that did it will have to pay.

    'It doesn't matter if he's my son, my brother, my father or whatever. They would have to pay for what they did.'

    As Hernandez confessed his crime to police today, according to Mr Kelly, he seemed 'remorseful' and had a 'feeling of relief'.

    Police say they consider Hernandez's signed confession to be reliable, having spent three and a half hours interviewing him on Thursday after receiving a tip-off from a source who told them that the suspect had admitted three decades ago to having 'done a bad thing and killed a child in New York'.

    The source came forward after the famous case received renewed attention last month when police dug up a basement near Etan's home - however, that investigation did not lead to any new clues, and Hernandez was not involved in it, according to Mr Kelly.

    Etan's parents, Julie and Stanley, who have never moved from the SoHo apartment where they lived at the time of his disappearance, were told about Hernandez's confession on Thursday morning.

    Mr Patz was 'taken back and surprised' at the news, according to the NYPD's Christopher Zimmerman, but 'handled it very well'.

    The Patz family has always maintained that the culprit for their son's disappearance was convicted paedophile Jose Ramos.

    New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg paid tribute to the family, saying: 'As a father, I just cannot imagine what they have gone through.

    'And I certainly hope we are one step closer to bringing them some measure of relief.'

    While Mr Kelly was adamant that there was 'probable cause' to arrest Hernandez, who has no previous criminal record he admitted there was no physical evidence tying him to Etan's death, nor could police find any motive for the killing.

    Police do not believe that Etan was sexually assaulted before his death.

    Hernandez was just 12 years older than his six-year-old victim in 1979 when he allegedly lured him with soda and stabbed him to death, before chopping his body to pieces.

    Now aged 51, he has finally only come forward after being diagnosed with cancer which 'made him think about the skeletons in his closet', sources said.

    MailOnline can also reveal that Hernandez's wife Rosemary, 51, took out a restraining order against him but recently allowed him to move back in with her and their daughter, who is in her early 20s.

    Investigators swooped on Hernandez in Camden, New Jersey on Wednesday evening after a relative tipped off police that he had admitted to killing a young boy shortly after Etan vanished.

    The relative only called police after investigators excavated the basement of Othniel Miller, a handyman who had known Etan, in search for evidence last month. None was found.

    According to a source speaking to The New York Post, Hernandez told investigators he had enticed the boy with sweets, stabbed him, cut up his body and put him in plastic bags.

    But in a conflicting report from The Associated Press, another source said Hernandez claimed he suffocated the boy and left his body in a box in a Manhattan alleyway.

    After moving to New Jersey shortly after, Hernandez told family members he had killed a boy but did not mention his name, sources said. He also told a spiritual adviser in the 1980s about killing a child.

    The claims - which come almost exactly 33 years after Etan vanished - could solve a case that shocked America and raised awareness of the plight of missing children across the country.

    The revelations come a day short of the anniversary of his disappearance; he was last seen on May 25, 1979 as he walked to the bus stop - the first time his parents had let him go alone.

    It sparked an international manhunt and he became the first child whose 'missing' photo appeared on the side of a milk carton. May 25 is now National Missing Children's Day.

    Hernandez was working at a bodega close to the area where Etan vanished on that fateful day in 1979. Shortly afterwards he moved to Camden in New Jersey where he has many relatives.

    He has been on disability benefit since a 1993 injury ended his career as a construction worker, according to Mr Kelly.

    His marriage to his wife appears to have become rocky by 2007 at which point she was living with a sister in Hamilton Township, New Jersey,

    She then moved to a humble two bedroom rented property in Maple Shade, New Jersey, which cost $950 a month to rent.

    Mrs Hernandez's landlady, who declined to give her name, said: 'When she moved in in 2007 Rosemary told me she had taken out a restraining order against her husband but she did not explain why, and I didn't ask.

    'I did not know he had moved back in and he was not on the lease so should not have been there.

    'I know she worked as an insurance underwriter and their daughter is about to graduate from college. They are both deeply religious and members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

    'She is a good person and comes in every month to pay her rent and we have a bit of a chat. She and her daughter have never given me any problems at all. They are very polite, very grateful, and deeply in love with their church.'

    The landlady added that she had never met Hernandez, but that she could understand why he had confessed.

    She said: 'A few months ago one of my repair guys who went into the property said he was told Mr Hernandez had cancer.

    'If you were diagnosed with cancer, even if it wasn't terminal, that would make you think about the skeletons in your closet.'

    A neighbour added that Hernandez must have been 'in his own personal hell for the last 33 years' if he killed Etan Patz.

    Dan Wollick said that Hernandez would have been 'driven nearly mad' thinking about what he had done for more than three decades - but showed no sign of it on the outside.

    The 71-year-old retired truck driver said: 'You think you know your neighbours then something like this comes along.

    'I could not believe it when I heard the news as this is not the Pedro I know. He is quiet, respectful and I've never had any problems with him.

  5. #5
    Senior Member rachy's Avatar
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    'In the winter he helped me shovel the snow, in the summer we cut the grass together, he would put out the trash every Thursday. On Sundays he and his wife and daughter would dress nicely and go to church.

    'In the summer and on holidays like Memorial Day he would have friends and family over and they would grill and play around. They weren't drinkers but they had lots of fun, there was food and dancing.

    'If he felt that way around children then there are loads around here so I don't understand why he'd move here - the playground up the road has more than 100 on the weekends. The family across the street has four of them and they're all under six.'

    Mr Wollick added: 'One thing that is a bit strange is that whilst they were pleasant, they didn't mix that much with the other neighbours. Pedro never talked about living in New York or where he was from.

    'I just feel sorry for their daughter. This had nothing to do with her and if her dad did it then that's going to be hanging over her for the rest of her life'.

    According to neighbours FBI agents arrived at Hernandez's home on Wednesday morning at 8.30 before leading him away to a waiting car.

    Charles Diehm, a retired policeman, said: 'There were three FBI cars and three local police cars who turned up. One of the agents went inside the house and they brought Mr Hernandez out.

    'He looked composed, he just stared straight ahead and was not in handcuffs. There were two agents either side of him and they put him in one of the unmarked vehicles.

    'They went back and got the wife and put her in a different car, then went back for the daughter and put her in with the mother.

    'Mr Hernandez has been so quiet since he moved in that when the FBI turned up I thought he was in witness protection. None of the family ever came out the house, even in the height of summer, unless they were having the parties they had every now and then.

    'He would sit by his front door in a chair smoking but if I came out he would go back inside'.

    Hernandez's family are originally thought to have come from Puerto Rico.

    Public records show he and his wife filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001 but the amount they were in debt is unclear.

    Etan was officially declared dead in 2001. In May 2010, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said they were taking a fresh look at the decades-old case of the missing six-year-old.

    Just weeks ago, police launched an intensive search for the missing boy when they dug up the basement workshop of Miller, who knew the six-year-old from the area.

    Miller, now 75, was questioned several times by police after his ex-wife told them about the alleged rape of his niece. He 'sky rocketed to the top of the list' of suspects after the claims, police said.

    The missing boy's mother, Julie Patz, was also said to have told agents to look again at the handyman, who befriended Etan before he vanished and hired Ramos to do odd jobs for him.

    Concrete had been laid over the foundation of the basement shortly after the youngster vanished - but the search did not yield any new evidence.

    When authorities told Miller cadaver dogs picked up the scent of human remains at his basement he allegedly blurted out: 'What if the body was moved?'

    In light of the claims by Hernandez, Michael Farkas, Miller's lawyer, told the Post he 'has said all along that Miller had nothing to do with the case'.

    '[Miller] has nothing to do with this latest suspect, that I know of,' Farkas added.

    While no one has ever been arrested or charged with Etan's disappearance, Jose Ramos - a drifter whose girlfriend was the boy's babysitter - was identified as a prime suspect in 1985.

    Jailed for an unrelated crime, Ramos, 68, later told a prison cell mate he knew every stop of the bus route that took Etan to school and knew the six-year-old got off at the third stop.

    He admitted to taking a boy back to his apartment to rape him on the day Etan disappeared, but he said he let the boy go. He said he was '90 per cent sure' it was the same boy he later saw on TV.

    No hard evidence has linked him to the crime. He is now in a Pennsylvania jail on a 20-year sentence for abusing two boys and is due to be released in November.

    Etan's father has previously said: 'Jose Antonio Ramos is the man who abducted my child. We lost our child to a pedophile, and that's not comprehensible.'

    Along with Etan's mother Julie, Stanley Patz watched over the search in April from their apartment just half a block away.

    They have never moved from their home, in the hope their son would one day find his way back. Nor have they changed their phone number, as Etan knew it off by heart.

    His father said another reason they did not want to move was because of their other two children, Shira, who was eight at the time of the disappearance, and Ari, two.

    Stanley and Julie Patz have continued to fight for a legal resolution to their son’s death. In 2000 they spoke with CBS's 60 Minutes about their refusal to give up hope.

    Julie Patz said at the time: 'We have his belongings all over the house. To put them away, it seems to us and to our children that he's gone and he's not coming back.'

    Convinced that Ramos is guilty of the crime, Stan Patz sends him a copy of the missing child poster twice a year with the words 'What have you done with my little boy' written on the back.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...eath-1979.html

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    Sofa King Tired PunkerDuckie's Avatar
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    This is one of those cases I never thought would ever be really solved. I'm glad this poor family will finally have some closure.
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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    They are putting the new dude on suicide watch..

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/25/justic...html?hpt=hp_t1

    New York (CNN) -- Thirty-three years to the day after Etan Patz disappeared, bringing nationwide attention to missing children, the suspect, Pedro Hernandez, is expected to be arraigned from his bedside at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan where he is being held for evaluation on potential suicide watch, according to a law enforcement source.

    "When Hernandez arrived at the hospital, he began making statements that he wanted to die and a psychiatric evaluation was ordered, " the source said.

    Prosecutors are expected to formally file paperwork Friday charging Hernandez with second-degree murder.


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    Senior Member poppy213's Avatar
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    I question this confession. What motivated an 18 year old to randomly grab the boy, take him back to his work and kill him there? I am sure a coworker of the store would of noticed him with the child?

    "Satisfaction of ones curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life" Linus Pauling

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    Superomnininjamember Monter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by poppy213 View Post
    I question this confession. What motivated an 18 year old to randomly grab the boy, take him back to his work and kill him there? I am sure a coworker of the store would of noticed him with the child?
    Yeah Im questioning it too - Id like to see what backup there is to this. Where is the body, if he really did it?
    You're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts.- D. Moynihan
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    Senior Member danakscully64's Avatar
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    The second I heard about the possible suspect, I was suspicious. I think he's likely lying.

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    Senior Member rachy's Avatar
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    Etan Patz Suspect Reportedly Kept Boy's Body in Store Freezer

    Pedro Hernandez, the former store clerk charged in the 1979 death of 6-year-old Etan Patz after he confessed to the alleged murder, reportedly kept the boy's body in a walk-in refrigerator in the store's basement before discarding it.

    Hernandez was arrested Thursday after telling authorities that he'd lured the child to his death with the promise of soda.

    He reportedly said that he'd strangled Etan and then stuffed the boy's body into a plastic garbage bag, carried it to another location and then dumped it in the trash.

    Citing his confession to police, the New York Post reported today that 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...8#.T8SDt5LQVYE

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    Senior Member rachy's Avatar
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    Hernandez too crazy for cops when he confessed years ago

    Etan Patz's alleged killer tried to confess to cops years ago that he had murdered the long-missing 6-year-old but he was dismissed as a nutjob and detectives never followed through, the suspect's sister told The Post yesterday.

    Every time the anniversary of that little boy came up on TV, I would say, Why doesn't he turn himself in recalled Lucy Suarez, 43, the youngest sister of Pedro Hernandez.

    And my sister said, He did, but the police let him go because they said he was too crazy,Suarez said.

    Sources yesterday also revealed that five days after Etan disappeared, cops saw Hernandez at the bodega, where one of the owners explained away his presence by noting he was merely his brother-in-law. There is no record that police ever interviewed Hernandez that day about Etan.

    Hernandez, 51, confessed to the NYPD Wednesday after a relative ratted him out, police said. He was arraigned on a second-degree murder charge from Bellevue Hospital on the 33rd anniversary of Etan's disappearance.

    Every time the Patz anniversary came up, and we saw it on TV, we would always get haunted by it, Suarez said from her home in Camden, NJ.

    I would say, Damn, this thing isn't dying down. That little boys blood is crying out for mercy. And we would pray, we would pray for God's mercy, so God must have heard us.

    SOHO PALS SAW THE DEVIL IN ETAN 'KILLER'

    HOW POLICE BLEW IT IN 1979

    OPINION: SOHO WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FORGIVE, FORGET

    'ENOUGH' TO GET CONVICTION

    Cops yesterday denied that Hernandez ever confessed to killing Patz any time before Wednesday.

    I figured you'd be coming for me because the anniversary was coming up, the married dad said, according to sources. I'll tell you everything you need to know about Etan Patz.

    He then wept, repeatedly saying he was sorry as he confessed how he used the promise of a cold soda to lure Etan from the corner of West Broadway and Prince Street, then strangled him from behind in the basement of the bodega at 448 West Broadway.

    He then bagged up the boy's corpse, placed the bag in a box and dumped the box under some trash next to 113 Thompson St., he said.

    The fact that Hernandez is so lucid? and compelling in his confession video is the reason prosecutors pushed forward with the case, a law enforcement source said.

    Hernandez moved to New Jersey a short time later. He told family members and people at a religious retreat, I did a bad thing. I killed a boy in New York.

    His wife and daughter traveled from Maple Shade, NJ, but left Manhattan Criminal Court before his arraignment.

    Hernandez, who cops and family members said has HIV, was taken to Bellevue yesterday after threatening to kill himself, sources said. He was arraigned via a video link to a courtroom.

    The defendant is schizophrenic and bipolar. He's under medication, and he was admitted [to Bellevue] initially because of the medications he was on, said Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein. There is also a history of hallucinations, both visual and auditory.

    Hernandez, who did not enter a plea, was ordered held without bond, and a psychiatric evaluation was ordered by Justice Matthew Sciarrino.

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/m...iaE3UYaCdc0A3J
    Last edited by rachy; 05-29-2012 at 12:37 AM. Reason: fixed the article.

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    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by puzzld View Post
    I think it could be possible he is lying. Crazy stupid shit happens multiple times a day.


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    Superomnininjamember Monter's Avatar
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    An unstable schizophrenic could easily believe he DID do it. Im not convinced either way

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    Without the body it seems hard to prove. And since it was disposed in a dumpster, even harder if no body was ever found. Not sure how this is going to pan out but I don't think it's going to end with the family feeling much more closure.


    Quote Originally Posted by MoonDancer View Post
    And apparently you fuck the mods here.

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    senior cunt emmieslost's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monter View Post
    An unstable schizophrenic could easily believe he DID do it. Im not convinced either way
    this is how i feel. maybe he had some violent fantasies after this happened and really believes they were real. or maybe he did it. i hope they can get to the bottom of it for the sake of the families involved.

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    Senior Member danakscully64's Avatar
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    I've been reading the comment fields of articles regarding this case. I can't believe how many people believe the guy. I really don't think he did it. It's extremely unlikely.

  19. #19
    Superomnininjamember Monter's Avatar
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    I don't know about extremely unlikely...it sounds like a persistent idea for this guy so its possible. I agree with green - sadly I don't think this will give the.family much closure. I imagine there is also bound to be anger over the fact this dude confessed decades ago and no one said anything.

  20. #20
    Senior Member TupeloHoney's Avatar
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    This is a REALLY, REALLY long article, so I only pasted the first section.


    http://www.wnyc.org/story/false-conf...ject_id=337713

    Missing: A Boy and the Evidence Against His Accused Killer

    (Dec. 23, 2013) Shortly after 7 a.m. on May 23, 2012, New York City detectives transported a disabled former construction worker named Pedro Hernandez from his home in Maple Shade, N.J., to an interrogation room at the Camden County prosecutor?s office. Days earlier, the detectives had received a tantalizing tip, and now they believed they might be on the verge of solving one of the country?s most famous missing child cases: the disappearance, 33 years earlier, of a 6-year-old Manhattan boy named Etan Patz.

    The case had both frustrated and exhausted police since 1979, when Patz, allowed to walk to the school bus stop alone for the first time, vanished. Alleged sightings of Etan had poured in over the years. Leads were chased as far away as Israel. But no conclusive answers had ever been produced, a frustration rooted at least in part in a lack of eyewitnesses or physical evidence: The boy's body was never found; there was no actual crime scene; no fingerprints or DNA ever surfaced to aid the dozens of investigators who had been drawn into the case.

    But several people, including relatives of Hernandez, had emerged to tell detectives that Hernandez had occasionally talked of having harmed a young child during his long-ago stint as a bodega clerk in the SoHo neighborhood where the Patz family lived. And court records indicate that, in a brief exchange inside Hernandez's home that May morning, he had said enough to warrant a trip to an interrogation room.

    That Camden interrogation room, it turns out, was fully equipped to do what a growing body of expert opinion has insisted be done in such moments: a full videotaping of a suspect?s interaction with detectives, from the start of an interrogation through any possible formal confession. Judges, defense lawyers, and even many prosecutors have come to see such comprehensive videotaping as the single most important factor in securing reliable confessions and preventing the wrongful convictions that can stem from false confessions. In New Jersey, where Hernandez was being questioned, taping interrogations in homicide cases has been required by law since 2005.

    The detectives, however, never turned the cameras on during what would become seven hours of interrogation. They remained off, in fact, until 2:57 that afternoon, when Hernandez was finally ready to formally confess. In a series of taped statements, Hernandez, a 51-year-old man with no formal criminal history, said he had lured Etan to the bodega's basement with the promise of a soda, instantly choked him, placed him, still alive, in a plastic bag, and then inside a cardboard box, threw the boy's book bag behind a freezer and carried the box in broad daylight several blocks before placing it on the sidewalk. He said he had not known the boy, and he offered no motive.

    Manhattan prosecutors used this confession to gain a murder indictment against Hernandez, publicly disclosing no other evidence, and a trial has been set for the spring. But prosecutors still have to clear a legal hurdle before using the confession. At a hearing in March in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Hernandez?s lawyer will seek to have the confession deemed illegitimate, in significant part because of the failure to record what went on in the Camden interrogation room.


    ProPublica has spent weeks reading the court file in the Patz case, interviewing the people to whom Hernandez had supposedly confessed over the years, and speaking with law enforcement and legislative officials who have pushed to make taping interrogations in New York mandatory. We found that:

    - The accounts of two people who have told investigators of Hernandez's supposed claims of once having harmed a child not only conflict with each other but bear little resemblance to the particulars of Hernandez's confession to police. One of the people, for example, said Hernandez had claimed he had once killed a child, only he said at the time that it had been a black child.

    - The details in Hernandez's confession do not match the few accepted facts of Etan's disappearance. For instance, Hernandez says he lured the boy from the school bus stop. But years of police work have long established that Etan never made it as far as the bus stop.

    - Just months before Hernandez was arrested, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the two men now overseeing the Patz case, served on a state task force that called for the mandatory taping of interrogations in New York, citing it as perhaps the single most important tool in preventing wrongful convictions.

    - Several former Manhattan prosecutors said opinion is divided in Vance's office about whether there is sufficient evidence to pursue a conviction against Hernandez.


    In court papers, Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, has said that his client?s confession is a consequence of a long history of mental illness, and as a result it is not surprising that prosecutors have found nothing to substantiate it.

    "In the six months since Mr. Hernandez's arrest, the NYPD and the New York County District Attorney's Office have conducted an intensive investigation attempting to corroborate Mr. Hernandez's statements," Fishbein wrote in December 2012. "However, I am told by the District Attorney's Office that they have found nothing."

    Fishbein has also asserted that the untaped interrogation of Hernandez violated New Jersey law, that Hernandez was not properly advised of his Miranda rights, and that some of the most respected experts on the question of mental illness and false confessions have examined Hernandez and suggested his admissions could well be fiction.

    "All of the statements are tainted by the initial illegality," Fishbein said of the confession, "and must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree."

    Prosecutors have defended the integrity of the confession, and rejected any claim that they were bound by New Jersey law to tape Hernandez's interrogation. They have minimized Fishbein's claims of Hernandez's mental illness, and insisted they have enough corroborating evidence to proceed. This month, using material provided to them by the defense, prosecutors sought to portray Hernandez as a lifelong violent man, one given to fits of rage and abuse of his two wives.

    Asked by ProPublica who had made the decision not to tape the entire interrogation, Kelly, the police commissioner, refused to say. Vance also would not answer questions about the decision, including how it could be reconciled with the task force?s explicit recommendations.

    ProPublica, as part of its examination of the case, determined that after the initial media excitement and legal jousting, prosecutors came to an unusual agreement with Fishbein: They agreed to delay seeking an indictment in order to give both sides time to look deeper into the case. According to court filings, the parties were in frequent contact over the next six months.

    Fishbein ultimately opted to share what he said was the entirety of Hernandez's medical history, as well as the reports done by psychiatric experts who had examined Hernandez and his alleged confession. Fishbein then made a formal presentation to Vance's office in the fall of 2012, and, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting, emerged confident he had persuaded prosecutors to exercise their discretion and abandon the case.

    Fishbein never heard back, and on Nov. 12, 2012, he received a call from a reporter asking him for a response to the news of Hernandez's indictment on murder charges.

    "This indictment is the outcome of a lengthy and deliberative process, involving months of factual investigation and legal analysis," Erin Duggan, a spokesman for Vance, said in announcing the indictment. "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. 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."

    If the case makes it to trial, of course, prosecutors will have to convince a jury of Hernandez's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Fishbein has said any such attempt will only cause more pain and disappointment for the Patz family, and the city that was consumed with their tragedy.

    "The really sad part of this case," Fishbein said, "is that it will take time, it will take money and it will not tell the city what happened to Etan Patz."
    Quote Originally Posted by Not your business View Post
    I will out think the fucking pants off of you and you would thank me for helping you out of them.

  21. #21
    Senior Member bermstalker's Avatar
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    Jury selection begins in Etan Patz murder trial nearly 36 years after the boy, 6, disappeared
    Etan Patz vanished after leaving his parents' Manhattan townhouse to walk alone for the first time to the bus stop to go to school on May 25, 1979
    Pedro Hernandez, 53, who worked in a nearby grocery store at the time, is on trial for the murder and kidnapping of Etan
    He confessed to police in 2012 to killing the boy, but has since recanted his confession and pleads not guilty
    Patz's parents only realized he was missing when he failed to return home at the end of the day and his body has never been found

    No body has ever been found and Etan was declared legally dead in 2001.
    Hernandez initially appeared to settle the mystery over Patz's disappearance when he came forward and confessed in May 2012.
    He told police on video tape that he lured the boy to the basement of the store where he worked and strangled him, before stuffing him into a plastic bag and then a box.
    Hernandez would have been 19 at the time of the murder.
    His initial confession came as a shock.
    Jose Ramos, a 71-year-old convicted sex offender, was never indicted but long suspected of involvement with the case.
    He was jailed in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years for child molestation.
    Etan's parents sued him and he was declared responsible in a civil action and ordered to pay $2 million.


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3O8RR3FXK
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    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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  23. #23
    Certified Grumple Bottoms Ron_NYC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monter View Post
    I so remember this happening!!! So sad, but fascinating...as a little kid, seeing another little kid who disappeared? Talk about stranger danger...
    This, and Adam Walsh are the two that changed the game.

    Marking.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Ron was the best part, hands down.

  24. #24
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Whether he turns out to be right or wrong, that one juror's got guts.

  25. #25
    Superomnininjamember Monter's Avatar
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    I remember this from when I was a little kid....I hope the family finds peace in this.
    You're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts.- D. Moynihan
    Quote Originally Posted by aquatwins View Post
    I WILL STICK MY DICK IN YOUR HEAD

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