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Fox News
2 days ago
- Fox News
Murder of Etan Patz, one of first missing children on milk cartons, raises confession questions after reversal
The man imprisoned for kidnapping and murdering a six-year-old boy in New York City nearly 45 years ago has had his conviction overturned. 64-year-old Pedro Hernandez has been serving 25 years to life in prison after being convicted in 2017 of killing Etan Patz in 1979. Patz vanished on the first day he was allowed to walk to the school bus stop by himself on May 25, 1979. He was one of the first missing children to be pictured on milk cartons in a case that drew national attention. President Ronald Reagan later declared May 25, 1983, the first National Missing Children's Day in memory of Patz. On the morning of May 25, 1979, the first-grader was granted permission from his parents to walk alone to the bus stop, located just a block and a half away from where the family lived. His mother took him downstairs and watched him walk into the distance – he was never seen again. At the time of Patz's disappearance, Hernandez was working at a convenience shop as a teenager in the child's downtown Manhattan neighborhood. He initially spoke with authorities as they were canvassing for the child, but he did not become a suspect until police received a 2012 tip revealing that Hernandez had previously made remarks about killing a child in New York, but had not mentioned Patz by name. Hernandez was arrested in 2012 and ultimately confessed to the crime after seven hours of questioning, telling investigators he had lured Patz into the store's basement with the promise of giving him a soda. Once inside, Hernandez said he had choked the child because "something just took over me," before putting Patz – who Hernandez said was still alive – inside a box and leaving it alongside a pile of trash. However, Hernandez's lawyers insisted the confession was the result of a mental illness that caused their client to misinterpret his imagination from reality. The attorneys also pointed to Hernandez's very low IQ. "Several factors likely contributed to his confession, including low IQ, mental illness, and heightened suggestibility," Jonathan Alpert, psychotherapist and author of "Therapy Nation," told Fox News Digital. "These make someone more prone to internalizing guilt or fabricating details to meet perceived expectations." Alpert has not treated any of the individuals involved in the case. Hernandez was initially tried in New York state court twice – with the first trial ending in a jury deadlock in 2015 – before an appeal transferred the case into federal court. At the time, prosecutors claimed that Hernandez was faking or exaggerating his illness, pointing to Hernandez reportedly admitting to the crimes before police read him his rights and began recording their interview in 2012. He went on to repeat his confession at least twice while being recorded. The confession ultimately led to questions from jurors during their nine days of deliberations, with their final inquiry revolving around whether they were required to rule out the two recorded confessions if they were to determine that the first one was invalid – with the judge telling them they were not. An appeals court later ruled the judge should have provided a better explanation to the jury regarding their options, which could have included not factoring in all three of Hernandez's confessions. Referring to a jury note during the trial, the appeals court said the judge had provided a "clearly wrong" and "manifestly prejudicial" response to the question posed. The court's decision to overturn Hernandez's conviction and grant him a new trial raises questions regarding mental health and confessions in court cases, as Alpert points to the frequent susceptibility of individuals with mental health disorders to "have an intense need to gain approval from authority figures." "When interrogators suggest a narrative, these individuals can absorb and repeat it, not out of deceit, but out of compliance. Over time, they may even start to believe it themselves, especially when under stress or exhaustion." While a new trial could bring additional clarity for a case that has spanned decades, Alpert warns that it could also lead to misunderstandings regarding testimony and evidence years later. "A retrial has the potential to bring clarity, especially if new psychological insights or evidence are introduced," Alpert told Fox News Digital. "But it could just as easily create more confusion, particularly if the case continues to rely heavily on interpretation rather than hard facts." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB The case garnered national attention, with Patz's photo being one of the first to be circulated on milk cartons throughout the country. His parents spent decades in the same home and with the same phone number, in hopes of their son eventually returning to them. The child's family worked to help establish a national missing-children hotline and pioneered a new way for law enforcement agencies throughout the country to distribute information regarding such cases. "They waited and persevered for 35 years for justice for Etan, which today, sadly, may have been lost," former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. told The Associated Press after hearing about the reversal. The court ordered Hernandez's release unless he receives a new trial within "a reasonable time period." "For more than 13 years, Pedro Hernandez has been in prison for a crime he did not commit and based on a conviction that the Second Circuit has now made clear was obtained in clear violation of law," Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "We are grateful the Court has now given Pedro a chance to get his life back, and we call upon the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to drop these misguided charges and focus their efforts where they belong – on finding those actually responsible for the disappearance of Etan Patz." The Manhattan District Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. "This case highlights a broader issue in the legal system," Alpert said. "Confessions are not always reliable. Mental illness, coercion or desperation can all lead someone to admit guilt falsely. Without physical evidence to support a confession, courts must proceed with extreme caution. Understanding the psychology behind a confession is essential before treating it as fact."
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
With a guilty verdict overturned, will Etan Patz's murderer ever be punished?
Decades after six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while walking to school in New York City, stirring widespread public fear in the US about leaving children unattended, his family felt they got some justice when Pedro Hernandez was convicted of murder in 2017. Now that closure has also vanished. On 21 July, a federal appeals court overturned the guilty verdict. The court stated that the judge in the murder trial was 'clearly wrong' and 'manifestly prejudicial' in his response to a jury note concerning Hernandez's alleged confessions. Hernandez should either face a new trial or be released, the court ruled. And so, it is again an open question of whether there will ever be a resolution to Etan's case, which was a seminal event in US criminal history as it started a movement to help find missing children and caused many Americans parents to watch their kids more closely. 'This case has endured for so many decades, it's almost like there are generations of people that learn about it all over again,' said Lisa R Cohen, a journalist who wrote After Etan: The Missing Child Case That Held America Captive. 'It's going to have an effect on any young parent,' Cohen added. On 25 May 1979, Etan's mother, Julie, allowed him, for the first time, to walk to a bus stop just a couple of blocks away in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. After he didn't come home at 3.30pm, Julie learned he never made it to school and reported him missing. Police spent weeks searching for him. His body has never been found. 'I'm not sitting around doing nothing but mourning and thinking of revenge,' Etan's father, Stan, said, according to an excerpt from Cohen's 2009 book. 'But I've also waited 30 years to get justice for Etan. I'll wait as long as it takes.' The stories of Etan and another child, Adam Walsh, inspired a movement to prevent the abduction and murder of adolescents, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 1983, then president Ronald Reagan marked the anniversary of Etan's disappearance by declaring the date National Missing Children's Day. Etan's face also appeared on billboards and milk cartons. Before Etan's disappearance, 'kids played after school and came home for supper and no one was tracking every move', Cohen said. 'And then there is the time after Etan, when everything changed. It was a zeitgeist moment.' A suspect, Jose Antonio Ramos, emerged a few years after Etan went missing, but law enforcement officials initially declared that he was not connected to the crime. A federal prosecutor later treated him as a prime suspect and pursued him. A convicted pedophile, Ramos admitted that he tried to molest the child but said he did not kill him. He was never charged with Etan's disappearance, but his parents won a $2m wrongful death lawsuit against Ramos in 2004. Then, in 2012, Hernandez, who worked at a bodega near the Patz's home, confessed that he lured Etan to his store by promising him a soft drink and took him to the basement and strangled him. His parents became convinced that Hernandez, not Ramos, was the killer, A jury deadlocked on the Hernandez murder trial in 2015, but in a 2017 retrial, the jury found him guilty. 'The Patz family has waited a long time, but we've finally found some measure of justice for our wonderful little boy, Etan,' Stan Patz said at the time. 'I'm really grateful that this jury finally came back with which I have known for a long time that this man, Pedro Hernandez, is guilty of doing something really terrible so many years ago.' But during the investigation, Hernandez had initially confessed after seven hours of questioning from police, who did not read him his Miranda rights against self-incrimination, according to court documents. Only afterwards did police issue them, and he then repeated his confession. During the second trial, the jury asked the judge to explain whether, if the jury found that Hernandez's first confession was not voluntary, it must disregard the later confessions. The judge said no. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion The appeals court ruled that the directive was wrong. David Schwartz, a former prosecutor in New York, said the judge's answer 'was certainly not harmless error' and 'really is contrary to the law of confessions'. 'You certainly want justice to be done for this tragic case, but on the other hand, we have to uphold the integrity of the criminal justice system and fair trials,' he said. Etan's parents have not commented on the case since Hernandez's conviction, the New York Post reported, and it does not appear that they have responded publicly to the appeals court ruling. Louis K Meisel owned an art gallery on the block between the Patz's home and the bus stop and knew the family 'very well', he said. 'It's one of the biggest mysteries, and we're never going to know the end and the answers,' Meisel said. Cyrus Vance Jr, the former Manhattan district attorney who oversaw the two trials, told the New York Times after the ruling that he was 'surprised and saddened for the Patz family'. 'I was certainly convinced myself that Pedro Hernandez killed Etan Patz, and I think that today,' Vance said. Emily Tuttle, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney said: 'We are reviewing the decision.' Schwartz, the former prosecutor, thinks the district attorney would have a difficult time retrying Hernandez. 'The confession was really at the heart of the case,' Schwartz said. 'Unless there is new evidence somehow, which is very unlikely, I'm not sure they are going to be able to retry.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
With a guilty verdict overturned, will Etan Patz's murderer ever be punished?
Decades after six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while walking to school in New York City, stirring widespread public fear in the US about leaving children unattended, his family felt they got some justice when Pedro Hernandez was convicted of murder in 2017. Now that closure has also vanished. On 21 July, a federal appeals court overturned the guilty verdict. The court stated that the judge in the murder trial was 'clearly wrong' and 'manifestly prejudicial' in his response to a jury note concerning Hernandez's alleged confessions. Hernandez should either face a new trial or be released, the court ruled. And so, it is again an open question of whether there will ever be a resolution to Etan's case, which was a seminal event in US criminal history as it started a movement to help find missing children and caused many Americans parents to watch their kids more closely. 'This case has endured for so many decades, it's almost like there are generations of people that learn about it all over again,' said Lisa R Cohen, a journalist who wrote After Etan: The Missing Child Case That Held America Captive. 'It's going to have an effect on any young parent,' Cohen added. On 25 May 1979, Etan's mother, Julie, allowed him, for the first time, to walk to a bus stop just a couple of blocks away in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. After he didn't come home at 3.30pm, Julie learned he never made it to school and reported him missing. Police spent weeks searching for him. His body has never been found. 'I'm not sitting around doing nothing but mourning and thinking of revenge,' Etan's father, Stan, said, according to an excerpt from Cohen's 2009 book. 'But I've also waited 30 years to get justice for Etan. I'll wait as long as it takes.' The stories of Etan and another child, Adam Walsh, inspired a movement to prevent the abduction and murder of adolescents, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 1983, then president Ronald Reagan marked the anniversary of Etan's disappearance by declaring the date National Missing Children's Day. Etan's face also appeared on billboards and milk cartons. Before Etan's disappearance, 'kids played after school and came home for supper and no one was tracking every move', Cohen said. 'And then there is the time after Etan, when everything changed. It was a zeitgeist moment.' A suspect, Jose Antonio Ramos, emerged a few years after Etan went missing, but law enforcement officials initially declared that he was not connected to the crime. A federal prosecutor later treated him as a prime suspect and pursued him. A convicted pedophile, Ramos admitted that he tried to molest the child but said he did not kill him. He was never charged with Etan's disappearance, but his parents won a $2m wrongful death lawsuit against Ramos in 2004. Then, in 2012, Hernandez, who worked at a bodega near the Patz's home, confessed that he lured Etan to his store by promising him a soft drink and took him to the basement and strangled him. His parents became convinced that Hernandez, not Ramos, was the killer, A jury deadlocked on the Hernandez murder trial in 2015, but in a 2017 retrial, the jury found him guilty. 'The Patz family has waited a long time, but we've finally found some measure of justice for our wonderful little boy, Etan,' Stan Patz said at the time. 'I'm really grateful that this jury finally came back with which I have known for a long time that this man, Pedro Hernandez, is guilty of doing something really terrible so many years ago.' But during the investigation, Hernandez had initially confessed after seven hours of questioning from police, who did not read him his Miranda rights against self-incrimination, according to court documents. Only afterwards did police issue them, and he then repeated his confession. During the second trial, the jury asked the judge to explain whether, if the jury found that Hernandez's first confession was not voluntary, it must disregard the later confessions. The judge said no. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion The appeals court ruled that the directive was wrong. David Schwartz, a former prosecutor in New York, said the judge's answer 'was certainly not harmless error' and 'really is contrary to the law of confessions'. 'You certainly want justice to be done for this tragic case, but on the other hand, we have to uphold the integrity of the criminal justice system and fair trials,' he said. Etan's parents have not commented on the case since Hernandez's conviction, the New York Post reported, and it does not appear that they have responded publicly to the appeals court ruling. Louis K Meisel owned an art gallery on the block between the Patz's home and the bus stop and knew the family 'very well', he said. 'It's one of the biggest mysteries, and we're never going to know the end and the answers,' Meisel said. Cyrus Vance Jr, the former Manhattan district attorney who oversaw the two trials, told the New York Times after the ruling that he was 'surprised and saddened for the Patz family'. 'I was certainly convinced myself that Pedro Hernandez killed Etan Patz, and I think that today,' Vance said. Emily Tuttle, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney said: 'We are reviewing the decision.' Schwartz, the former prosecutor, thinks the district attorney would have a difficult time retrying Hernandez. 'The confession was really at the heart of the case,' Schwartz said. 'Unless there is new evidence somehow, which is very unlikely, I'm not sure they are going to be able to retry.'
New York Times
4 days ago
- New York Times
A Judge Gave a One-Word Answer. It Torpedoed the Etan Patz Case.
The 12 jurors considering the fate of a man charged with killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in a SoHo basement wanted guidance. The defendant, Pedro Hernandez, had told investigators over and over that he had killed the boy in 1979. But his first confession came before the police had told him of his right to remain silent. Investigators quickly read him his rights and got him to repeat his words for a video camera. Now, in 2017, the jury asked the judge whether, if they found that Mr. Hernandez's first confession was not voluntary, they should then disregard the later recorded version. The judge, Maxwell Wiley, responded, 'The answer is, 'no.'' On Monday, a federal appeals court said that Justice Wiley's one-word answer had failed to explain a Supreme Court precedent that governs such serial confessions. The three judges ordered that Mr. Hernandez be released from his 25-years-to-life sentence or get a new trial. The stunning ruling revived a seemingly settled case that has frustrated law enforcement officials in New York City for the greater part of 45 years. The investigation into Etan's vanishing — his body has never been found — has been filled with sensational turns, tornadoes of tips and alternative suspects. For Justice Wiley, the decision was the coda to a two-decade career on the bench that ended in April. Reached by phone, Justice Wiley said he had 'happily retired.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
7 days ago
- New York Times
Etan Patz's Case Haunted New York. It's Still Not Over.
Good morning. It's Wednesday. Today we'll take a closer look at the appellate court decision that put the case of Etan Patz back in the spotlight, 46 years after he disappeared. We'll also get details on why telephone calls from inmates in New York's state prisons will soon be free. The 51 pages of the appellate court decision that put the Etan Patz case back in the spotlight are dry and legalistic, as appellate court decisions usually are. The judges made no mention of the fact that, as a former assistant district attorney put it after the decision was released on Monday, the Patz case was 'a watershed moment, almost a loss-of-innocence moment for the city.' The court overturned the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who worked at a bodega near where Etan's school bus stopped every morning. The trial, in 2017, was his second; the jury in his first, in 2015, had deadlocked. The guilty verdict was not followed by a collective sigh of relief — perhaps because so much time had passed, perhaps it did not return things to the way they had been before Etan vanished, perhaps because it did not provide meaningful closure to a case that had haunted New York for so long. The year Etan disappeared, 1979, was a long time ago. As my colleague Michael Wilson noted, Etan, a first grader then, would be 52 years old now. New York has lived under six mayors and the nation under eight presidents since he disappeared. For New Yorkers who lived in the city in 1979, there is no forgetting the Patz case, and for those who have grown up since Etan disappeared, there is no escaping how their lives were shaped when a boy finally got a 'yes' to a question many children ask and ask again. The question was, Could he walk to the bus stop by himself? Was he old enough, big enough, city-savvy enough? The city was rougher then. There were 1,700 homicides in 1979, or an average of 4.75 a day. Last year, there were 377. 'The whole city was rethinking, really, what it had begun to assume about neighborhoods,' said Louise Mirrer, the president of New York Historical. 'The main event for parents at the time,' she added, was that those who had decided that the city was a place where they could bring up their children — 'and where they didn't have to worry about them all the time' — were 'shaken.' People wanted to believe that they could still trust their neighbors, Mirrer said. Not just the people across the hall or downstairs in your own building, but the people a child would pass on the way to a bus stop a couple of blocks away. The professor and author Jonathan Haidt told my colleague Michael Wilson that Etan's disappearance and the death of Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old who was abducted and killed in Florida two years later, had 'changed the way we raise kids' in a way that was 'very damaging to human development.' Over the years, there were reminders that kept the case in the public's mind. In 1985, an electronic screen at Broadway and 47th Street showed a photograph of Etan twice an hour. 'Last seen 5-25-79,' the caption said. 'Still missing.' It is possible to forget that the bodega where Hernandez worked was a seedy place, as one man in the neighborhood said in a story I wrote in 2012. He said that you sensed 'a distinctly hostile feeling' as soon as you walked in. The word on the street was that cockfighting went on in the basement, he said. Hernandez later moved to South Jersey and was living there when, the appeals court said, his brother-in-law 'called police with a tip about rumors that Hernandez was involved in the disappearance of Patz.' Until that moment, the appellate ruling said, 'Hernandez's life was quiet and arrest-free,' although Judge Guido Calabresi, writing for the court, noted that Hernandez 'had a documented history of mental illnesses.' Calabresi also wrote that Hernandez has a low IQ. The appeals court said the trial judge's answer to a jury note during the deliberations in 2017 had been 'clearly wrong' and 'manifestly prejudicial.' Hernandez has been serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. It is now up to the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, to decide whether to try him again. Weather Expect sunshine with temperatures in the mid-80s. For tonight, it will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the low 70s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 3 (Tisha B'Av). The latest Metro news Shelters turn away pets: Many New Yorkers have been taking pets to shelters because they can no longer afford to keep them. The shelters, which have had to double up animals in some kennels and crates, will in many cases no longer take in cats, dogs and other pets. Ocasio-Cortez's campaign office is vandalized: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Bronx campaign office was defaced with a message citing the war in Gaza. The vandalism occurred days after she voted against an amendment that would have cut funding for Israel's defense capabilities. Arson charges for a pro-Palestinian activist: The federal authorities said that the man, Jakhi McCray, had sneaked into a Brooklyn parking lot last month and set fire to 10 police vehicles. After he was released on bail worth $300,000, he was taken to Manhattan Criminal Court to be arraigned on state charges related to a protest he had attended. Video shows overcrowded ICE holding cell in Manhattan: Immigrants have complained about unsanitary conditions in the facility at 26 Federal Plaza. On Tuesday, new video footage offered the first glimpse inside one of the four cells in Lower Manhattan. State prisoners' phone calls will soon be free People incarcerated in state prisons in New York are allowed three free calls a week, each lasting no more than 15 minutes. Each call beyond those three costs 2.4 cents a minute to numbers in the United States and territories like Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Starting next month, all of the calls will be free. Five other states and New York City already have similar policies. The change in New York State comes after negotiations between the state agency that runs the prisons, the Department of Corrections and Community Services, and the company that provides its telephone service, Securus Technologies. The state will pay Securus 1.5 cents a minute for each call, which the department described as one of the lowest rates in the country. The change will ease the financial burden for inmates' families and friends. Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, an advocacy group that seeks to dismantle the prison industry, said that New York families spend more than $13 million each year contacting their loved ones behind bars. The costs fall disproportionately on Black and brown women, according to the group. 'It's a win-win for everyone,' Ms. Tylek said. 'For families, incarcerated people, correctional officers and public safety.' METROPOLITAN diary Supermoon Dear Diary: I was walking down a street on the Upper East Side one fall weeknight, lost in some personal problem, when I heard a voice shout, 'Stop!' The voice, it turned out, belonged to a small, older woman in a maroon coat. 'Back up and look up,' she said. I did as I was told. The several steps back I took brought me out from under an awning so that suddenly I could see the moon, big and brilliant, hanging over the street. I hadn't noticed just how bright a night it was. 'It's a supermoon,' the woman said. 'I heard about it on the radio. NPR. I just had to come out and see it.' 'And,' she continued, pointing the pint container in her hand heavenward, 'why wouldn't I get myself some ice cream, too?' 'It's wonderful,' I said, and we stood right there, listening to the happy clatter from a nearby Italian restaurant and admiring the supermoon together. — Sarah Skinner Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Francis Mateo and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
