The man on trial again for murder in the case of a 6-year-old New York City boy who vanished 37 years ago is innocent, and his surprise confession in one of the nation’s most influential missing children’s cases was wrongly obtained, his lawyer said Monday.
Pedro Hernandez admitted in 2012 to choking Etan Patz in the basement of a convenience store where he worked as a teenage stock boy. The sandy-haired first-grader vanished on his way to school on May 25, 1979. His body was never found. The case helped to make missing children a national cause in the United States, and Etan’s mother became a national advocate.
