Etan patz why now

They said he was susceptible to being influenced by police investigators due to his low IQ. His lawyers pointed to one moment during his hours-long interrogation in which he curled on the floor into a foetal position and repeatedly asked detectives if he could go home. Etan Patz had vanished while walking to a school bus stop on his own for the first time in the Soho neighbourhood of lower Manhattan on 25 May No trace of the boy has ever been found, and no physical evidence was presented during the trial.

Etan's disappearance changed how parents approached childcare in New York and around the nation. His face became one of the first to appear on milk cartons asking for information about missing children. The disappearance led to changes in parenting techniques, and the way that schools track their students who fail to show up for lessons. Etan's parents, Julie and Stan Patz, called for a national fingerprint database, and for federal laws requiring parents to notify their schools when their children are to be absent, and for schools to notify parents if their child does not show up.

Hernandez was not considered a suspect until after his brother-in-law informed police that he had made statements about killing a child to several people. Though Ramos faced suspicion for years in the case, he has never been charged and has denied involvement. He remains behind bars in Pennsylvania in another case. We are faced with a very real question: Is our son dead or alive? Julie said in that they were resolved to face the uncertain future. FB Tweet More. You'll get the latest updates on this topic in your browser notifications.

Missing NYC Boy. All rights reserved. Parents ask judge to overturn civil ruling. In the basement, prosecutors said, Hernandez choked the boy to death and put his body in a plastic garbage bag that he concealed inside a cardboard box. Hernandez eventually left the box with other trash in an alley more than a block from the store. Defense attorney Harvey Fishbein has long maintained his client has an "IQ in the borderline-to-mild mental retardation range" that made him susceptible to a false confession.

He vowed an appeal. Pedro Hernandez was convicted in the kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz. Hernandez has been diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, one of a group of conditions informally thought of as "eccentric" personality disorders. Juror Mike Castellon called the mental health issue "a red herring.

We think that he could tell right from wrong. He could tell fantasy from reality. This case will no longer be remembered as one of the city's oldest and most painful unsolved crimes.