Killer convicted in landmark missing child case
A 56-year-old former convenience store clerk was convicted Tuesday of killing Etan Patz, a 6-year-old New York City boy who disappeared from his Soho neighborhood nearly 38 years ago and became one of the most visible symbols for missing children.
Patz went missing on his way to a school bus stop in May 1979. His case shaped parenting and law enforcement practices nationwide.
Pedro Hernandez of Maple Shade, N.J., was a clerk at a store in Etan’s neighborhood when the first-grader disappeared.
He confessed to choking the boy to death, but his attorney Harvey Fishbein argued during the trial that he is mentally ill and made up the confession.
Hernandez’s defense team said evidence in the case points to another suspect with a connection to the family. The other person has never been charged.
Hernandez’s first trial in 2015 ended with a hung jury after 18 days of deliberations.
This time, a jury of eight men and six women reviewed more than 300 exhibits over the course of nine days of deliberations, NBC News reported.
As the verdict was read, the slain boy’s father, Stan Patz, was comforted by the ex-jurors from the first trial, the Associated Press reported.
Authorities may never know exactly what became of Etan. He was one of the first missing children to appear on a milk carton, and the anniversary of his disappearance was desig- nated National Missing Children’s Day.
The case helped establish a national hotline for missing children and made it easier for law enforcement agencies to share information about them, the AP reported.
“It’s a cautionary tale, a defining moment, a loss of innocence,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi said in an opening statement. “It is Etan who will forever symbolize the loss of that innocence.”