Guilty Verdict Upheld In Etan Patz Murder Trial
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A New York state judge on Thursday rejected a request from a former delicatessen worker to throw out his February conviction for murdering Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy whose disappearance in 1979 became one of the country’s most infamous missing child cases.
The decision paves the way for Pedro Hernandez, 56, to be sentenced on April 18 for murder and kidnapping. He faces up to life in prison.
Patz vanished as he walked alone to a bus stop in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood on May 25, 1979. The ensuing media attention raised awareness of the plight of missing children, and Patz was one of the first whose photo appeared on a milk carton seeking information.
Hernandez confessed, but his lawyers argued at trial that his admission was the product of mental illness. Patz’s body was never found.
Defense lawyers said in court papers that some jurors at the second trial knew that jurors from the first trial were in the courtroom, sitting near Patz’s father, Stanley Patz.
But Judge Maxwell Wiley ruled on Thursday that fact, even if true, was not enough on its own to throw out the verdict.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
