3 Evidence Boxes in Etan Patz Case Found in Police Station
by Colleen Long, The Associated Press
Feb 23, 2015


Three boxes of evidence from the investigation into the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz have turned up while a suspect is on trial for the killing, and his attorney said Monday that she may have to seek a mistrial or at least recall witnesses who have already testified.

Alice Fontier, one of the attorneys representing Pedro Hernandez, said there were more than 1,400 pages of relevant information in one box alone.

"Given this massive disclosure at this point, in the middle of the trial, there may be issues," she said. "We may need to recall some of their witnesses, we may need to move for a mistrial."





The boxes were found recently at a Harlem police station that covers public housing complexes in the area, prosecutors said late last week. The location is miles from the precinct near where Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, as he walked to school. Etan's body has never been found.

The boxes contain police records from the investigation, notes from assistant district attorneys who worked on the case and handwritten memos from a detective who investigated Jose Ramos, a longtime suspect in the case who was never charged.





Some of the information involves two informants who were working with prosecutors to try to link Ramos to Etan's death. Other boxes contain missing-person posters, records of people arrested and catalogs of files made by the original detective on the case.

"There appears to be hundreds of pages of handwritten notes," Fontier said.

Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzi-Orbon said last week that prosecutors were working to turn over the information to the defense attorneys. "They are still working on copying one box," she said Monday.





The discussion came as jurors watched a second videotaped confession and a third video, a shaky cellphone camera taken by police that shows Hernandez leading them from the former location of the bodega to where he said he dumped the body

In the other video, Hernandez admits to New York Police Department detectives that he choked the boy and put him in a bag, but he says the boy was still alive at the time. Hernandez is emotional with police, sobbing while he speaks.

Jurors have already seen Hernandez on tape recount the story to prosecutors.





Hernandez, most recently a resident of Maple Shade, New Jersey, confessed in 2012 to choking Etan in the basement of the SoHo convenience store where he worked as a stock clerk. He told police he put the boy's body in a bag, stuck the bag in a box and walked it down the street where he dumped it with some curbside trash.

His defense says the admissions were the fictional ravings of a mentally ill man with a low IQ who didn't understand his right to silence. Hernandez's defense plans to call some people involved with the investigation into Ramos, a convicted child molester who remains jailed on a Megan's Law violation.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/02/23/3-evidence-boxes-in-etan-patz-case-found-in-police-station/21145805/

That's interesting news, 36 years after his disappearance.

I wasn't aware until just now when I read in another article that Ramos was paroled in 2012, but quickly rearrested. He has been in prison almost non-stop since the 80's. Etan disappeared in 1979. Though Ramos has never been convicted of Etan's murder, I'm at least thankful that Ramos has been behind bars most of the time.

With all of the recent developments in this case, I wish they would show the rerun of the 20/20 episode on Etan Patz. I'm dying to see it.

I'm also somewhat surprised Rudy Guiliani hasn't publicly commented on the case. He's been in the news a lot lately, and he's even mentioned in the book. Rudy was very good at giving the investigators in the case anything and everything they asked for in help catching the killer back when he was a U.S. Attorney. Of course, he went on to become mayor of the city, and considering this is a very famous case there, I'd be interested in hearing what he has to say about it.

It sure will be interesting what the jury decides.

Yet another headline about this case, and an interesting one too. This woman was going through old, undeveloped rolls of film, got them developed, and discovered a picture of Etan Patz on there when he was just 2 years old!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/unseen-candid-photo-of-etan-patz.html

Jury is entering day 7, wonder what's taking them so long.

Also, here's a link to where it says just days before his abduction, Etan told a friend a man with a van was giving him candy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/nyregion/jury-reviews-the-testimony-of-etan-patzs-childhood-friend.html?_r=0

UPDATE: The jury in the Pedro Hernandez trial seems hopelessly deadlocked after 10 days (!!) but the judge sent them back to deliberate some more as he's confident they can achieve a verdict.

And round in circles we go. Jury deadlocked again, the judge has sent them back again. Heading into day 17...

Mistrial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/nyregion/etan-patz-jury-murder-trial.html?_r=0

I can't say I'm surprised.

You know, I'm really starting to wonder if Pedro Hernandez is responsible here. Originally, I just chalked up his confession to him having mental issues, but then I considered these facts:

-While Jose Antonio Ramos has had a long record of child molestation, he has never been known to murder a child.

-I don't know how common this knowledge is, but Etan *did* have one dollar on his person to buy a soft drink. Hernandez worked at a bodega and his confession includes the statement that he lured him downstairs with promises of a soft drink.

-He would have been one of a handful of people who could have encountered Etan in the narrow timeframe.

-He left town not long after Etan disappeared. It wasn't long after that, he started making vague statements to people about having harmed a child in New York City. He, of course, has made similar statements in recent years, and the timespan of these statements is about 30 years or so.

-Ramos said the boy he took to his apartment was named Jimmy. I had thought he was either mistaken or perhaps Etan gave him a false name due to being scared, but now I wonder if this was perhaps another boy altogether.

I still wonder about Ramos though. The book said he made the statement that he "honored Etan every day", whatever that means, but I took it to mean he was infatuated with Etan and felt guilty and thought about him every day.

Today a jury found Pedro Hernandez guilty in the death of Etan Patz.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jury-reaches-verdict-etan-patz-175017707.html

Today a jury found Pedro Hernandez guilty in the death of Etan Patz.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jury-reaches-verdict-etan-patz-175017707.html

Wow. Thanks for the update!

Saw it on The NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, couldn't believe it!

Man Who Killed NYC Boy Etan Patz in 1979 Gets 25 Years to Life
by Laila Kearney
April 18, 2017


A former delicatessen worker who killed 6-year-old New York City boy Etan Patz in a 1979 slaying that helped raise national awareness about the plight of abducted children was sentenced on Tuesday to 25 years to life in prison.

Pedro Hernandez, 56, showed no emotion as he was handed the sentence for murder by Justice Maxwell Wiley in state court in Manhattan. Hernandez was also given 25 years to life for kidnapping, with both sentences to run concurrently.

A jury found him guilty of the charges in February.





Patz vanished as he walked alone for the first time to a school bus stop in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood on May 25, 1979. He would become one of the first missing children to appear on the side of a milk carton seeking information.

For more than three decades, the case endured as one of the country's most infamous missing child cases until police arrested Hernandez in May 2012 after receiving a tip.





Hernandez, who worked in a bodega near the bus stop, confessed to strangling the boy and then leaving his body in a box outside.

His lawyers argued that the admission was the result of police coercion as well as mental illness that made it difficult for Hernandez to separate fantasy from reality. Patz's body was never found, leaving the confession as the key piece of evidence at trial.





The defense also pointed to another man, Jose Ramos, a convicted pedophile who was long considered a suspect in the crime. Ramos, who is in prison, had a relationship with a woman hired to walk Patz home from school.

A previous trial ended in a mistrial in 2015 when a single juror out of 12 refused to convict Hernandez after weeks of deliberations, prompting prosecutors to retry him.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/18/man-who-killed-nyc-boy-etan-patz-in-1979-gets-25-years-to-life/22044961/

NYC Man Accused of Abducting, Killing Etan Patz in 1979 to Face 3rd Trial
by Ben Kochman
Nov. 25, 2025


A former bodega clerk will face trial for a third time on charges he abducted and murdered little Etan Patz — whose 1979 disappearance shocked the country, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said that it’s “prepared to proceed” to go to trial against Pedro Hernandez, 64, who confessed to killing the boy but whose 2017 murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court in July.

“After thorough review, the district attorney has determined that the available, admissible evidence supports prosecuting” Hernandez on murder and kidnapping charges, Assistant District Attorney Sarah Marquez wrote in a letter filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.




Jury selection in the new trial needs to start by June 1, or Hernandez will be released from an upstate New York prison, according to federal court rulings.

A third trial would be the latest chapter in a saga that baffled the nation for decades after Patz vanished from a SoHo street on May 25, 1979 — the first time he was allowed to walk to the bus stop alone.

Patz’s body was never recovered, and no physical evidence ever tied Hernandez to the murder.




Hernandez’s lawyers insist that he’s an innocent man, and that his confessions to the heinous crime were caused by delusions he suffered as part of a mental illness.

“We are deeply disappointed in the decision by the New York County District Attorney to retry Pedro Hernandez for a third time,” defense attorney Harvey Fishbein told The Post on Tuesday.

“But if this 46-year-old case is actually to be retried,” Fishbein added, “We will be ready.”

https://nypost.com/2025/11/25/us-news/pedro-hernandez-accused-of-abducting-killing-etan-patz-in-1979-to-face-3rd-trial-prosecutors/

My goodness! So the conviction was overturned this July? Can this poor boy ever get justice?

Supreme Court Reinstates Murder Conviction in 1979 Disappearance of Etan Patz
by CBS News
June 22, 2026


The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose case shocked New York City and changed the way parents watched over their kids.

The justices, by a 6-3 vote, granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who had urged them to undo a federal appeals court decision that overturned the verdict. The three liberal justices dissented.

Prosecutors had been preparing to try the man, Pedro Hernandez, for a third time. His first trial ended in a mistrial.




Hernandez, 64, has been serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. Monday's decision means he will continue to serve his sentence at the Elmira Correctional Facility in New York. He will be eligible for parole in 2037.

Attorneys for Hernandez said, "We are firmly disappointed with the decision because we firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime he did not do."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-etan-patz-murder-conviction-pedro-hernandez/