Manhattan DA Moves Forward With New Trial in Etan Patz Case After Overturned Conviction

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has announced that it will once again prosecute Pedro Hernandez in the notorious case of Etan Patz, the 6-year-old Jewish child whose disappearance and murder in 1979 shook the nation and transformed how America responds to missing children.

Hernandez, who was convicted in 2017, saw that conviction thrown out earlier this year after an appellate court ruled that the jury had been given flawed legal instructions. That decision wiped out the verdict from his second trial, forcing prosecutors to determine whether they could bring the case forward again.

With a December 1 deadline approaching, prosecutors reviewed the file and informed the court that they intend to proceed. In their formal filing, they wrote, “The District Attorney has determined that the available, admissible evidence supports prosecuting defendant on the charges of Murder in the Second Degree and Kidnapping in the First Degree in this matter, and the People are prepared to proceed.”

Etan Patz vanished in May 1979 on the very first morning his mother allowed him to walk alone to his school bus stop in Manhattan. His disappearance led to one of the most intensive searches in New York City history and marked the beginning of a nationwide transformation in how missing children cases were handled. His photograph was among the first to appear on milk cartons in an effort to enlist the public in the search. Despite decades of investigations, his body was never located.

Years later, another individual was deemed responsible in a civil case, but that man was released in 2012 after Hernandez was criminally charged. Now, more than four decades after Etan’s disappearance, prosecutors plan once again to bring the case before a jury.

{Matzav.com}