Brutal new details about the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. A witness for the prosecution tells jurors Pedro Hernandez confessed: he murdered the boy with a broomstick. NY1’s Michael Herzenberg filed the following report.
Ramon Rodriguez testified Thursday that the accused confessed to him, that he clasped a broom stick with both hands and stabbed a boy repeatedly with it.
He said Pedro Hernandez told him this during a Charismatic Catholic retreat in New Jersey in the summer of 1979.
That Hernandez said he was working with his relative in a grocery store and took one of the kids to the basement and gave him a soda before killing him.
Etan Patz vanished May 25th 1979 walking to his SoHo bus stop alone for the first time, the 6-year-old planned to buy a soda at the bodega on the bus stop corner.
But the defense attorney challenged the prosecution's witness by questioning his religion.
Charismatic Catholics believe they speak in tongues with God, so the defense asked in what language the confession was heard: Spanish was the answer. The defense believes the testimony was inconsistent.
"He said two different stories and said that what he had said to the police the first time was not accurate when he spoke to the district attorney's office the second time and now on the witness stand he confused it again and gave two different versions so it's up to the jury to determine his credibility,” said Hernandez’s attorney, Harvey Fishbein.
Hernandez was working the grocery store the day the first grader disappeared, a fact prosecutors established by calling his brother-in-law, the cashier who got him the job.
That man, though, testified earlier in the day that Hernandez did not have access to the bodega basement. However, prosecutors called that testimony into question as jurors heard him tell several different versions of details surrounding the case.
The prosecution will continue to put on its case Friday afternoon with several witnesses including a relative of the accused.