Suspect arrested said he strangled Etan Patz who disappeared 33 years ago

New York (CNN) -- Pedro Hernandez was arraigned early Friday evening on a second-degree charge tied to the case of Etan Patz, the New York boy whose disappearance 33 years to the day spurred nationwide attention about missing children.

The suspect appeared about 6:25 p.m. Friday via video feed from Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center, where he is being held for evaluation and is on suicide watch, according to a law enforcement source.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino presided over the proceedings from a New York courtroom, where people watched the arraignment.

Sciarrino denied bail for Hernandez after defense attorney Harvey Fishbein said the suspect has a "long psychiatric history" including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and hallucinations. The lawyer asked that Hernandez undergo a full psychiatric evaluation, a request the judge granted.

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit and sitting at a brown table, Hernandez did not speak and showed no evident emotion during the proceedings.

The next major step in the legal process would be for a grand jury to hear prosecutors' evidence against Hernandez for a potential indictment. It is not clear when this might happen.

The former Manhattan stock clerk who lived in Etan's neighborhood when the boy vanished was arrested Thursday by police following up on a tip.

The next day, he was sent to the hospital "because he's on medications, and we prefer to administer those in a hospital setting," said police spokesman Paul Browne, who declined to elaborate on the medications.

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

Neighbors say suspect in Patz killing lived a quiet life with his family



Suspect says he strangled Etan Patz

Patz suspect: 'I did something bad'

The day Etan Patz disappeared in '79

New clues in Etan Patz mystery Hernandez, who was 19 in 1979, told police he lured Etan to a store with the promise of a soda, choked him and placed his body in the trash about a block and a half away, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. The boy was killed in the basement of a Manhattan building, according to the charging document filed late Friday afternoon by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

"Detectives believe in the credibility of the statement," Kelly said, although investigators had not uncovered any forensic evidence linking Hernandez to the boy's disappearance.

Kelly said it is unlikely that Etan's remains would be found.

Patz investigation a 33-year-long roller coaster ride

"He did the right thing, you know, to confess," Hernandez's brother-in-law Jose Lopez told CNN affiliate KYW. "Get this thing over with for the people out there and the family over here."

But Lisa Cohen, whose 2009 book, "After Etan," is widely considered the definitive account of the case, said she's not convinced that Hernandez killed the boy.

"No, I'm not, but that's not necessarily because he didn't do it," she said. "That's just because this has just happened. I'd never heard his name before."

Hernandez has no criminal record and is the father of a teenage girl, Kelly said.

Etan, 6, went missing on May 25, 1979, a block from his home in Manhattan. He was walking to school alone for the first time when he vanished.

His disappearance helped spawn a national movement to raise awareness of missing children, including the then-novel approach of putting an image of the child's face on thousands of milk cartons.

Missing child case 'awakened America'

In the years after Etan's disappearance, Hernandez told a family member and others that he had "done a bad thing" and killed a child in New York, police said.

While the motive remained unclear, Kelly described it as a crime of opportunity and said Hernandez was remorseful.

"The detectives thought it was a feeling of relief on his part," he said.

Other employees of the store were interviewed after Etan disappeared, but not Hernandez, police said.

"I can't tell you why," Kelly said.

The police investigation continues, as does the FBI's, the agency said in a statement Thursday night.

"The FBI's investigation into the disappearance of Etan Patz remains active and ongoing. We remain determined to solve this case," FBI Assistant Director Janice K. Fedarcyk said in the statement.

Thursday's arrest came nearly a month after investigators searched the former basement workshop of carpenter Othniel Miller, who had given Etan a dollar the day before the boy's disappearance for helping him around the shop. Etan had said before he disappeared that he planned to use the dollar to buy a soda.



What DNA could show in Etan Patz case

Lawyer: Miller did not kill Etan Patz The search produced no apparent clues.

"Mr. Miller is relieved by these developments, as he was not involved in any way with Etan Patz's disappearance," said Miller's attorney, Michael C. Farkas. "At the same time, Mr. Miller is very pleased that those responsible for this heinous crime may be brought to justice, and the Patz family may finally have the closure they deserve."

A separate law enforcement source said Thursday that Hernandez's claims were being treated with "a healthy dose of skepticism."

The tipster whose information led to Hernandez's arrest contacted authorities months ago after news coverage of their renewed search. That contact, at least in part, prompted investigators to question Hernandez.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office, which reopened the case in 2010, declined to comment on the recent development.

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

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.

Although 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.

President Ronald Reagan named May 25, the day Etan went missing, as National Missing Children's Day.

CNN's Ross Levitt and Jordana Ossad contributed to this report.

I can't say I believe this man at all....how can you lure someone away from a bus stop in full view off other people....I think he never made it to the bus stop.

kitti wrote:I can't say I believe this man at all....how can you lure someone away from a bus stop in full view off other people....I think he never made it to the bus stop.

Morning Kitti, this was reported on one of the News Channels and it was mentioned that Hernandez has a history of Mental illness and the confession
may not be safe.

There's an earlier topic called The Disappearance of Etan Patz.

I have doubts about this confession too.

Not Born Yesterday wrote:There's an earlier topic called The Disappearance of Etan Patz.

I have doubts about this confession too.

Morning NBY.....is that on MM? I had a good look u nder Missing Persons before I posted this,terrible filing system here/

The fact that he is in Hospital is not very encouraging and when a Lawyer has been appointed to defend him , I'm sure will declare his Client's
confession unsafe. Even if you were compus mentis, could you remember exactly what you did 33 years ago?

https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t17618-the-disappearance-of-etan-patz?highlight=etan

Sometimes the very simple approach works, Panda. Just type Etan in the Search box!

I think that, unless a person is a serial killer, he will remember the details of his crime.

Not Born Yesterday wrote:https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t17618-the-disappearance-of-etan-patz?highlight=etan

Sometimes the very simple approach works, Panda. Just type Etan in the Search box!

I think that, unless a person is a serial killer, he will remember the details of his crime.

I also looked on the main maddie thread and didn't see it. I will give up posting on anything other than World and U.K. News , unless there is a
breakthrough in the Madeleine case. This computer is playing up anyway, I keep getting a notice" Forumotion cannot dsplay this web page", next thing
it is displayed.!!!!

Why, after all these years would Hernandez confess, it can't be guilt surely? the fact that he is in Hospital will be enough for his Lawyer to contest
his client's confession.IMO

Panda wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t17618-the-disappearance-of-etan-patz?highlight=etan

Sometimes the very simple approach works, Panda. Just type Etan in the Search box!

I think that, unless a person is a serial killer, he will remember the details of his crime.

I also looked on the main maddie thread and didn't see it. I will give up posting on anything other than World and U.K. News , unless there is a
breakthrough in the Madeleine case. This computer is playing up anyway, I keep getting a notice" Forumotion cannot dsplay this web page", next thing
it is displayed.!!!!

Why, after all these years would Hernandez confess, it can't be guilt surely? the fact that he is in Hospital will be enough for his Lawyer to contest
his client's confession.IMO

DON'T GIVE UP POSTING,YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ON ALL FORUMS IS GREATLY APPRECIECATED(SP?)

http://freeellynow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/did-etan-patz-ever-exist.html

Did Etan Patz ever exist?

I'm reading about the recent confession and arrest of the man who strangled Etan to death for no particular reason 33 years ago. Many people have been borne and died during that time. The man who killed him used to remark to his friends and family that he'd done something wrong when he was 19, and killed a kid. There was also a cab driver that he might have used, since several years later a cab driver came forward talking about how on that same day a man and a boy used his cab; later recalling how the child began screaming that it wasn't his way to school and how the adult he was with motioned to him to just drive somewhere. He didn't bother contacting the police straight away as he didn't want to get involved, citing problems of his own as the reason. Well personally, I believe he is almost as guilty as the man who strangled Etan later that day in the basement of a shop. So soon was this boy surrounded by human apathy; most of us are protected from this side of human nature until adulthood. Soon after the murder, the child-killer dumped the small body of Etan in the bin and carried on with his life for 33 years.

I look at pictures of this small boy and he's completely mythological now. I don't see a child, I see another label almost perfectly at peace with the milk products he was for years - and now we know uselessly – plastered onto. It's eerie to think that whilst his actual body was rotting in a garbage dump, his angelic image was kept fresh in thousands of peoples refrigerators.

Much like Britain's Madeleine McCann, with her trademark coloboma and ghostly smile, we begin to no longer view them as ever really being alive but being indistinct next to the hundreds of other faces we're shown in the media. It's a constant police line-up. They sink into the lowest areas of our minds: to popculture or the easy-question in a pub quiz. Everyone knows at least a little something about our own country's favourite dead-child-mascot, and soon making jokes about how many times they must have been raped before they were killed becomes so easy and spot-on to get a laugh or a bashful smile from your friends that you slowly realise just how deep our acceptance of their non-existence has become, and just how much we truly, privately, care. Maybe we're all just like that cabbie, and no matter how many campaigns try to reverse this, they all predictably end up shouting for our attention next to Peter Andre, Stop Kony, Ban-fur products and other vast media-campaigns.

What shocks me most is just what little effect their image has on me. They've been, for society's sake, frozen in time; kept in their jimjams, kept smiling at the camera – kept alive. But they don't really exist. For adults there are times when we are completely alone and simultaneously in danger; envisioning a child all alone during a moment of extreme violence is so unthinkable that apart of me still finds the concept quite ludicrous. Despite the excerpts of the Old Testament, the video of Ken Bigly and Two Girls and One Cup, I still have a reflexive and completely irrational belief in humanity. But whether your kid has recently been scouted by a modelling agency or scouted by a paedophile, the images released to the public occupy the same place in our minds where neither our subconscious or our local MP will ever pay a visit. You're simply -there- and we're simply -here- staring at you, for a while now anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq9x-ff0fXs The Sundays – Here's Where the Story Ends
Posted by Free Elly Now at 01:47

Badboy wrote:

Panda wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t17618-the-disappearance-of-etan-patz?highlight=etan

Sometimes the very simple approach works, Panda. Just type Etan in the Search box!

I think that, unless a person is a serial killer, he will remember the details of his crime.

I also looked on the main maddie thread and didn't see it. I will give up posting on anything other than World and U.K. News , unless there is a
breakthrough in the Madeleine case. This computer is playing up anyway, I keep getting a notice" Forumotion cannot dsplay this web page", next thing
it is displayed.!!!!

Why, after all these years would Hernandez confess, it can't be guilt surely? the fact that he is in Hospital will be enough for his Lawyer to contest
his client's confession.IMO

DON'T GIVE UP POSTING,YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ON ALL FORUMS IS GREATLY APPRECIECATED(SP?)

Thanks Badboy, there are plenty posting on the main thread so until there is some really exciting breaking News on the main madeleine thread I will just
stick to those topics . BTW have you noticed there are no more "sightings " of Madeleine lately? I like to think that was down to me.

Not Born Yesterday wrote:There's an earlier topic called The Disappearance of Etan Patz.

I have doubts about this confession too.

I have doubts too NBY. This guy wasn't on the radar before but suddenly he's mentioned, arrested and charged within a very short space of time after 30 odd years..

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/25/opinion/lanning-missing-children/index.html?section=cnn_latest

National Missing Children's Day is based on the case of Etan Patz.

Editor's note: Kenneth V. Lanning, a consultant in crimes against children, was a special agent with the FBI for more than 30 years and was assigned to the FBI Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy for 20 of those years.

(CNN) -- May 25, National Missing Children's Day, is a day on which we honor and remember missing children. This date was chosen specifically because it is the date in 1979 when 6-year-old Etan Patz went missing on his way to school in New York.

The Patz case has resurfaced as a result of some potential new leads and an arrest that hopefully will result in the case finally being solved. I have the greatest respect and empathy for the parents of Etan, who are going through what is clearly one of the greatest nightmares any parent can experience -- never again seeing and not knowing what happened to one's own child.

Just as the Lindbergh case in the 1930s became a landmark case for increased national awareness concerning ransom kidnapping, the Patz case became a landmark case for increased national awareness concerning "stranger abduction."

Each of these cases played a major role in creating laws, but they also fueled some confusing stereotypes.

Kenneth V. Lanning

When I joined the FBI in 1970 and someone talked about child abduction, you immediately assumed it was a ransom-motivated case. In less than 20 years, the attitude drastically changed to almost immediately assuming any child abduction involved a sexual predator. Either assumption is obviously not always correct.

Because of his young age and other case factors, it can be reasonably assumed that Etan was most likely abducted. However, children can be missing for a wide variety of reasons (e.g., runaway, lost or injured, benign episode, family abduction) other than nonfamily abduction. Children can also be abducted by nonfamily members for a variety of reasons (e.g., to solve a personal problem, ransom/profit, to kill, miscellaneous criminal activity, political) other than sexual gratification.

Most missing children are not abducted and most abducted children are not missing. The typical child abduction is a relatively brief event in which the child is usually returned before anyone had time to note the child was missing.

The best research data we have indicate that only a very small percentage of missing children were abducted by a nonfamily member. Of these cases, most of the abducted children were teenagers. And of the nonfamily-abducted children, almost all of them were returned alive and relatively uninjured a short time later. Understanding that the terms missing and abducted are not synonymous and interchangeable is important in awareness and prevention efforts.

In addition, sexually motivated nonfamily abduction is probably the only aspect of sexual victimization of children that people think occurs more often than it actually does. People tend to underestimate the likelihood that a family member or trusted acquaintance will sexually victimize their child, but overestimate the likelihood of stranger abduction. I am aware of no research that indicates that children today are any more likely to be abducted by sexual predators than they were 50 years ago.

Many adults love to reminisce about an idealistic childhood during which they did not lock their doors and could play outside with no fear of abduction, but believe that today they cannot let their children out of their sight. However, nonfamily members abduct less than a few hundred children each year in a manner that fits our stereotypical image of an abducted and missing child. The danger of sexual victimization of children comes predominantly from family members and acquaintances, not strangers.

On this important day, we should remember the reality of missing children such as Etan Patz, but not at the expense of ignoring or misunderstanding other types of victimization of our children.

Thanks Annabel , this latest report sheds a bit more light on the mystery.


CNN) -- A day after Pedro Hernandez was charged in the killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz, prosecutors now face the task of corroborating his confession and piecing together a mystery that's confounded investigators for more than three decades.

Neighbors say suspect in Patz killing lived a quiet life with his family

Police say the 51-year-old New Jersey resident confessed to strangling Etan and dumping his body in the trash near a Manhattan bodega where he worked as a teenage stock clerk in 1979.

Attorney Harvey Fishbein said Hernandez -- who is currently on suicide watch at Bellevue Hospital -- has not entered a plea due to a pending psychiatric evaluation.



Has the Etan Patz case been solved?

Who is the Etan Patz suspect?

33 years of mystery in Etan Patz case

Front Lines: Etan Patz suspect arrested Fishbein says his client has a "long psychiatric history" including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and hallucinations.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said earlier this week that authorities interviewed other employees of the store Hernandez worked at, but not him. "I can't tell you why," Kelly said.

Yet two law enforcement sources said Hernandez was in fact interviewed, albeit briefly. A third source said Hernandez not only talked to police, but he confessed -- though he was ruled out as a suspect, because his claims weren't believed.

At that time, Hernandez didn't give a motive and apparently had no prior contact with the 6-year-old boy, police said. And Kelly has said investigators have not uncovered any forensic evidence linking Hernandez to the disappearance of the boy, whose body still has not been found.

Former SoHo resident Roberto Monticello, who says he knew Hernandez at the time of Etan's disappearance, called the former stock clerk a "very strange guy."

"He was always by himself," Monticello recalled to CNN affiliate NY1. "(I) never saw him with people."

Opinion: Missing children, perception vs. reality

His pastor, George Bowen, described Hernandez as a "very quiet, unassuming, almost shy man," attending church regularly with his wife and daughter, and sitting in the same seat almost every Sunday.

"So every Sunday morning I had a conversation with him," Bowen told CNN Saturday. "But the conversation was more or less a greeting."

One of the suspect's sisters told The New York Times that some family members claimed he had told them about the alleged murder in the early 1980s.

"He confessed that he killed a little boy," Norma Hernandez told the Times, saying that the suspect had moved to southern New Jersey shortly after Etan disappeared.

But she said that he had never told her directly and never mentioned the boy's name.

Norma Hernandez, according to the newspaper, said that her family had been torn over whether to inform authorities after the confession, but ultimately did not.

"They did not want to get involved because it was a brother," she told The Times.

Lisa Cohen, whose 2009 book, "After Etan," is widely considered the definitive account of the case, said Saturday that she remains skeptical about the man's confession.

"I had never heard of Pedro Hernandez before this week," she told CNN.

Patz investigation a 33-year-long roller coaster ride

Etan went missing on May 25, 1979, a block from his home in Manhattan after walking to a school bus alone for the first time.

His disappearance helped spawn a national movement to raise awareness of missing children, including the then-novel approach of putting an image of the child's face on thousands of milk cartons.

The tipster whose information led to Hernandez's arrest contacted authorities months ago after news coverage of their renewed search. That contact, at least in part, prompted investigators to question Hernandez.

Police Commissioner Kelly said earlier this week described Hernandez's actions as a crime of opportunity and said the suspect was remorseful.

"The detectives thought (the confession) was a feeling of relief on his part," Kelly said.

After that confession, investigators spent two days talking to witnesses and looking for anyone who could discredit Hernandez and couldn't find any, according to a source with knowledge of the case.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance ultimately gave the green light to file murder charges against Hernandez based largely on his confession, even given the lack of physical evidence and questions about his mental state, the source said.

The next major step in the legal process would be for a grand jury to hear prosecutors' evidence against Hernandez for a potential indictment, after the defense waived its right to an expedited indictment on Friday. It is not clear when this might happen.

Missing child case 'awakened America'

Etan was officially declared dead in 2001 as part of a lawsuit filed by his family against Jose Antonio Ramos, a drifter and 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.

Although 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.

CNN's Susan Candiotti and Ross Levitt contributed to this report.

.


Etan Patz: New York police secure suspect’s confession, but doubts remain


27May




The goal of any police investigation is to secure a confession from the suspect.

That is doubly true for a high-profile murder investigation like the tragic killing of Etan Patz, a six-year-old New Yorker who vanished on his first unaccompanied trip to school 33 years ago.

Now that New Jersey resident Pedro Hernandez has told police that he strangled Etan in the basement of the Soho grocery store where he worked, it would seem the case can finally be closed.

But there are several reasons why the police investigation might still have to proceed cautiously.

1. There is no body. According to Hernandez, he put Etan in a bag and hid it with some trash somewhere in Manhattan. When he returned there several days later, it was gone. That means DNA evidence linking Hernandez to the crime is non-existent. It also means that definitive proof that Hernandez is telling the truth – which the finding of a body would represent – is not likely to happen.

2. Hernandez suffers from mental health issues, including schizophrenia, according to his lawyers. That could mean Hernandez suffers from delusions and hallucinations and could throw doubt on his story.

3. Hernandez’s confession came just a few days before the 33rd anniversary of Etan’s disappearance. Police in high profile cases have long known that they are often flooded with false leads and hoaxes at such times. It also came just a month after a high profile police dig in Soho looking for evidence which also generated a lot of publicity.

Again, that is something that could potentially generate a lot of fake claims.

4. The case is 33 years old and it may be difficult to corroborate much of Hernandez’s story with testimony from other people. Many witnesses may have moved on from the area, died or have memories that have dimmed after more than three decades. The Soho neighbourhood itself has changed beyond recognition from a gritty working-class place to the centre of New York‘s fashion industry.

5. Hernandez does not seem to have been on the radar of anyone on the case for the past three decades. Certainly not compared to Jose Ramos, a convicted paedophile currently serving time in prison for sexually molesting young boys. Ramos’s girlfriend babysat Etan and in 2004 a civil court found him responsible for Etan’s death in a case brought by the Patz family. Ramos has denied being involved.

The Guardian online May 27th, 2012

New York (CNN) -- A member of Pedro Hernandez's family walked into a Camden, New Jersey, police station in the 1980s and reported that Hernandez told relatives and others that he had killed a boy in New York and threw the body near a Dumpster -- but there's no indication anything came out of that report, the family member told CNN.

"You feel like they didn't believe you. I felt empty and a little bit mad," the relative said. "I was expecting something else."

Now, 33 years after Etan Patz disappeared, Pedro Hernandez stands accused of choking to death the 6-year-old youngster after luring him to the basement of a corner grocery store in New York City and throwing away his body inside a trash bag.

The family member, who CNN has agreed to not identify, said there was no receipt of paperwork to document the information provided -- nor was the relative ever contacted again about the report.



Has the Etan Patz case been solved?

Who is the Etan Patz suspect?

33 years of mystery in Etan Patz case

Front Lines: Etan Patz suspect arrested "Police asked whether I was mad at him (Hernandez)," or had an ulterior motive, the source added.

Hernandez allegedly confided the information to a New Jersey church prayer group that included some members of his family and his then-spiritual adviser, the source told CNN.

At 19, shortly after Patz's disappearance on May 25, 1979, Hernandez left his job as a stock clerk and returned to his mother's home in North Camden, New Jersey. The attempt to tell police that Hernandez might have killed a child happened a few years after that.

CNN has not been able to reach Camden police for comment.

"When he moved home, he was really nervous and shaking all the time," the family source said of Hernandez. "He constantly had diarrhea, and he spent a lot of time just looking out the window," the source added, saying the behavior was out of character for Hernandez.

Hernandez also allegedly told his first wife that he had killed a boy, according to the source. CNN has not been able to reach her. The two divorced, and Hernandez has remarried.

Before Hernandez was picked up for questioning last week, the family source was visited by police and asked about any previous confessions from Hernandez about killing someone.

Surprised to be contacted after so many years had gone by without hearing anything, the family member asked, "What took you so long?"

The family member didn't get an answer and doesn't know what prompted police to visit.

The relative had no explanation for why no other relative spoke up years ago. "Maybe they didn't want to get involved," the source said. "I wasn't going to stay quiet. I have a conscience."

On Friday, when Hernandez' defense attorney announced in court that his client has a long psychiatric history, is on medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and suffers from hallucinations, the family source was surprised.

Attorney Harvey Fishbein said Hernandez -- who was on suicide watch at Bellevue Hospital on Sunday -- has not entered a plea due to a pending psychiatric evaluation.

New York police say they tracked down Hernandez after a tipster they won't identify contacted police last month. The person came forward after seeing publicity surrounding the FBI's search of an unrelated basement in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, a half block from Etan Patz' home.

New York police have not responded to a request for comment about the latest development.

But in a press conference Thursday, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said no family members or spiritual advisers ever contacted police. It's not clear whether Kelly was referring to the New York Police Department or any police department.

The Patz case was the first of several high-profile cases that catapulted concern about missing children to the forefront of national consciousness.

The relative of Hernandez is concerned about what Etan Patz's parents must be going through.

"At this moment, they must be hoping this is the right guy, and they don't go through this again," the source said. "It's going to be like a nightmare for them, if it turns out it's not Hernandez."

"They must want to know the truth and get this over with," the relative added. "At least they will know."

Moorestown, New Jersey (CNN) -- Rosemary Hernandez was going through hard times, coping with financial woes after recently losing her job at an insurance company, all that coming years after an accident left her husband unable to work.

Yet it was something else entirely on her mind when she and her daughter came weeping into their Moorestown, New Jersey, church Thursday, according to their pastor.

"I knew it was something bad," Marantha Christian Fellowship church Senior Pastor George Bowen told CNN on Sunday.

Hernandez told Bowen that police came to her door the previous day, saying their visit had "something to do with the Etan Patz case."

Relative: Man now suspected in Etan Patz death was reported to police decades ago


"Inside Edition" reveals this photo of Pedro Hernandez, the suspect who reportedly confessed to killing Etan Patz 33 years ago.
The 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan helped trigger a national movement focusing on missing children. Here is the New York Police Department's original poster for Etan, who went missing May 25, 1979, a block from his SoHo home. He was walking to the school bus stop by himself for the first time when he disappeared.
After more than 30 years, a break in the case appeared to develop in April 2012 when police closed off two blocks in New York's SoHo neighborhood and searched a basement in the area for clues. But the search came up empty.
On April 20, 2012, New York police and FBI agents removed concrete slabs from a basement in search of clues in the 33-year-old disappearance of Etan. The basement is about a half-block from where the boy's family still lives.
A note from Stan Patz, Etan's father, pleads for privacy from the media during renewed interest in the 33-year-old case in April 2012. The boy's parents have not commented on the new developments in the case.
Etan was officially declared dead in 2001. His disappearance was the first of several high-profile cases that catapulted concern about missing children to the forefront of national consciousness.

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<<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 >>> Searching for Etan Patz

Who is the Etan Patz suspect?

33 years of mystery in Etan Patz case

Front Lines: Etan Patz suspect arrested

Questions remain about Patz suspect The 6-year-old boy's sudden disappearance a block from his Manhattan home on May 25, 1979, spawned a national movement to raise awareness of missing children, including the then-novel approach of putting an image of the child's face on milk cartons.

Her husband, Pedro Hernandez, ended up leaving the family home with police -- and, with his subsequent arrest, he hasn't returned.

"She seemed absolutely shell-shocked," Bowen recalled Sunday of his conversation three days earlier with Rosemary Hernandez. "She was crying. She had an expression on her face like, 'How could this ever happen?'"

That same day, police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters that Pedro Hernandez had admitted -- as a then-19-year-old clerk in a Manhattan bodega -- to luring Etan to the store with the promise of a soda, choking him and placing his body in the trash about a block and a half away.

The Manhattan district attorney's office charged Pedro Hernandez with second-degree murder, finding his confession credible even given that authorities concede there is no physical evidence linking him and that Patz's body has never been found.

Defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein claims his client -- who is on suicide watch at New York's Bellevue Hospital, according to a law enforcement source -- has a "long psychiatric history" including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and hallucinations.

Hernandez has not entered a plea due to a pending psychiatric evaluation.

Rosemary Hernandez is Pedro Hernandez's second wife.

Bowen, the New Jersey pastor, said he got the impression Pedro Hernandez never mentioned anything about the Patz case or about killing anyone to his wife, while ceding he never posed the question directly to Rosemary Hernandez.

What he did know for certain was that the Hernandez family attended the church regularly.

Neighbors say suspect in Patz killing lived a quiet life with his family

The couple faithfully sat in the second row during services, the pastor said.

Rosemary Hernandez and her daughter were active in church ministries. But Pedro Hernandez, who Kelly has said had been collecting disability payments since a 1993 accident prevented him from working, was more in the background.

"He's very quiet, very shy," Bowen said, describing him as "socially awkward."

The pastor said that his interactions with the husband typically consisted of brief greetings and little else. Once, the couple came to him for counseling -- for an issue he say was not related to their marriage or a crime -- and Rosemary Hernandez "did all the talking," Bowen said.

For this Sunday's services, Rosemary Hernandez and her daughter were not in their regular spot in the second row.

But they were on Bowen's mind, as was Pedro Hernandez's alleged victim and the boy's family.

"Please pray for the Patz family, pray for Rosemary and (her daughter)," the pastor told his congregation. "Please pray for Pedro."

on McCann Exposure: Exposing myth, distortion, corruption and truth

Pedro Hernandez claims he kept Etan Patz body in refrigerator
by Hardlinemarxist

Media reports that Pedro Hernandez strangled Etan Patz, bagged and boxed up his corpse, and then placed it in a basement walk-in refrigerator before depositing it with the trash.

It's not clear how long Hernandez kept the Patz's body hidden in the basement fridge at his family's SoHo bodega after killing him.

Authorities are said to be examining blue prints of the building and cross checking information with Hernandez story in order to verify its authenticity. They are also in discussion with the city's sanitation department in a bid to determine if searches for Etan's remains and/or related evidence might prove fruitful. After 33 years it is hard to imagine that it would.

Meanwhile, Tomas Rivera, a prayer group leader, is claiming that Hernandez confessed to killing Patz during group confession in the early 1980s. He absolves himself of responsibility for not reporting the matter to the police by claiming that he told Hernandez family of the confession. If true, nice guy!

"Relatives should have told cops" he said, adding: “If they didn’t do it, that’s not my responsibility.”

New York Daily News, online May 29th, 2012

Hernandez sister, Norma Hernandez, claims...
...she told police in Camden, N.J., 25 years ago that her brother had admitted killing a little boy.“I reported it. Nobody did anything,”

New York Daily News, online May 29th, 2012



Despite all the talk of confession, it seems Hernandez's story is questionable. He claims he enticed Patz into basement on the promise of pop, then strangled him - a seemingly motiveless murder. Hernandez claimed he bagged and boxed up Patz's corpse, placed it in a walk-in refrigerator before dumping it with the trash a short time later. However, "John Saracco, 56 — whose father, Charles, owned the property at the time — said investigators scoured the building’s basement, and every other building in the area, after the boy disappeared." (New York Daily News, 2012). Grid searches of the area were also conducted at the time. Either searches were not adequately conducted or Hernandez is lying. To problematise matters, Hernandez reportedly has a history of mental illness, suffering delusions and hallucinations due to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. According to his family these conditions are currently treated by olanzpine.



Hardlinemarxist | 29/05/2012 at 9:05 am | Categories: Missing children, Missing Persons | URL: http://wp.me/pCs0i-1VP