The Man Who Previously Confessed to Killing Etan Patz Will Be Tried a Third Time for His Murder

The body of 6-year-old Etan Patz has never been found. He disappeared in May 1979 while walking to school in the SoHo area of Manhattan. According to The New York Times, his parents last saw him at 8 a.m. on Friday, May 25. Patz normally walked two blocks to the school bus stop, but on that day, the driver said Patz never boarded the bus. Later that afternoon, he was spotted in a neighborhood lumber store by the establishment's manager, Howard Belasco.

Belasco later recognized Patz from fliers that had been distributed around the neighborhood. He told police that Patz purchased nails after "pulling out scraps of lumber" from the dumpster. Patz was declared legally dead in June 2001. More than a decade later, a man named Pedro Hernandez confessed to killing Patz. After a mistrial and retrial, Hernandez was convicted in February 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. That was overturned, but a second trial has been scheduled.

In May 2012, CNN reported that Hernandez, a former Manhattan stock clerk who once lived in the same neighborhood as the Patz family, was arrested in connection with the child's death. Hernandez was 19 at the time and told police he lured Patz to the store where he worked, choked him in the basement, and then disposed of the body. Detectives said it seemed as if Hernandez felt relief following the confession.

Hernandez's 2017 conviction was overturned in July 2025 by a federal appeals court, per The New York Times. The jury foreman in that trial described the deliberations as "difficult." One question about Hernandez's alleged coerced confession could have been answered by the judge differently, which might have swayed the jury's decision.

Four months after Hernandez's conviction was overturned, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Sarah Marquez wrote in a filing that "the available, admissible evidence supports prosecuting [Hernandez] on murder and kidnapping charges." His lawyers maintain their client's confession was made under pressure from the police. His new trial has been scheduled for June 1, 2026.

Former FBI agent Mary Galligan was assigned to the Patz case in 1989, reports The New York Times. She testified about an alternate suspect during Hernandez's first trial. In 1991, Galligan interviewed a convicted child sexual abuser named Jose A. Ramos from a prison in Otisville, N.Y.

Galligan was fed information about Ramos from a prison informant named Jeffrey Rothschild. Ramos told a meandering story about a boy he called Jimmy, whom he spotted in Washington Square Park the day Patz disappeared. Galligan testified that Ramos said he brought the boy back to his apartment and "did to the boy what the old Jose said he did to children." He then put the boy on a subway train.

Rothschild contradicted this story, saying that Ramos alluded to never finding the body because there was no proof. Galligan also planted recording devices in Ramos's and Rothschild's cells, but the former grew suspicious and assaulted his cellmate. It was pointed out by the prosecution that Ramos never used the name Etan Patz. "Correct," said Galligan.