A 33-year-old cold case involving missing 6-year-old boy Etan Patz got a huge break today, as New Jersey resident Pedro Hernandez was arrested and taken to New York City for questioning.
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NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement this morning that Hernandez made statements to NYPD detectives implicating himself in the boy’s disappearance more than 30 years ago.
According to the NY Post, Hernandez told investigators that he lured Patz with candy, stabbed him, cut up his body and put him in plastic bags.
According to NYPD investigators, Hernandez was known to have lived in Patz’s neighborhood at the time of his disappearance.
Officials searched a SoHo basement near his family’s home earlier this year looking to find Etan’s remains, but came up empty.
Patz was last seen on the morning of May 25, 1979 as he walked alone the two blocks from his home to catch his school bus.
Patz’s disappearance sparked an international manhunt and he became the first child whose photo appeared on the side of a milk carton for a missing-kid alert.
The case was officially ended in 2001 and Patz was declared dead, but then it was reopened in 2010.
Police are still conducting their investigation as further details are expected today. Hopefully these new revelations are true, so Patz’s family can have some sort of closure.
