A former bodega stock clerk has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York City in 1979. WNBC-TV's Jonathan Dienst reports.
By Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz, NBCNewYork.com
A former bodega stock clerk arrested for allegedly luring 6-year-old Etan Patz off a SoHo street in 1979 and strangling him in a basement has been placed on suicide watch as a precaution, NBCNewYork.com has learned.
Pedro Hernandez, 51, was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center Friday, a source familiar with the case said. He is in isolation and receiving a medical evaluation at the hospital. Relatives have said Hernandez has a history of mental issues.
Another source told NBCNewYork.com that Hernandez is still scheduled to be arraigned later in the day, but the precise timing is unclear.
Police announced Hernandez's arrest Thursday in the missing child case that has mystified New York City for decades.
Patz vanished on his way to a school bus stop 33 years ago today. The case drew international attention and changed the way parents felt about letting their young children go off alone.
Police announced Thursday that Hernandez, 51, told them he lured Patz into a bodega where he worked, near the boy's house, and attacked the child, choking him to death in the basement. He told them he got Patz to come with him by promising him a soda.
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Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said police focused on Hernandez, who now lives in Maple Shade, N.J., after the Missing Persons Squad received a tip from someone who remembered Hernandez speaking of having killed a child.
"In the years following Etan's disappearance, Hernandez had told a family member, and others, that he had 'done a bad thing' and killed a child in New York," Kelly said.
Based on that information, police went to question Hernandez.
Kelly said Hernandez, who worked at the bodega for about a month, confessed to police after he was picked up Wednesday night. Some of the interviews were conducted at the scene of the crime, Kelly said.
Kelly said the suspect had not given a reason for attacking Patz and said there was "no reason at this time" to suspect the boy was sexually abused. He said it was "unlikely" Patz's remains would ever be found and that Hernandez told them he put the boy's body in the trash.
Police said Hernandez doesn't yet have a lawyer.
His sister, Maria, who did not want her last name used, told NBCNewYork.com on Thursday that her heart ached over the news of her brother's arrest and said she couldn't believe it. She said Hernandez had three children of his own and came from a family of 12 that emmigrated from Puerto Rico in 1973.
Mayor Bloomberg said Thursday that the disappearance of Patz "broke the hearts of millions" across the nation, especially parents, and expressed sympathy again for the boy's family.
"I certainly hope that we are one step closer to bringing them some measure of relief," he said.
Neighbors near Hernandez' house in Maple Shade, N.J., said he lived with a woman and a daughter who attends college.
"I can't believe something like that," said Dan Wollick, 71, who rents the other apartment in the home. "This guy, he doesn't seem that way."
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance had pledged to reopen the decades-old cold case when he took office in 2010.
See a timeline of the case here
The exhaustive search for Patz was renewed several weeks ago when police dug up the basement of a handyman's workshop near where Patz disappeared. A new layer of concrete had been laid over the foundation of the basement shortly after the boy vanished.
That search yielded no new evidence.
A lawyer for the handyman, Othniel Miller, said his client is "relieved by these developments, as he was not involved in any way with Etan Patz's disappearance."
One other man had remained a longtime possible suspect: Jose Ramos, a drifter and onetime boyfriend of Patz's baby sitter. But there was no hard evidence linking Ramos to the crime.
He is in prison in Pennsylvania on a separate case.
The boy's parents, Stan and Julie Patz, were reluctant to move or even change their phone number in case their son tried to reach out. They still live in the same apartment, down the street from the building that was examined in April. They have endured decades of false leads, and a lack of hard evidence.
Police said the family had been notified of the arrest.
Stan Patz had his son declared legally dead in 2001 so he could sue Ramos, who has never been criminally charged with the boy's death and denies harming the boy. A civil judge in 2004 found Ramos to be responsible for the child's death.
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