The defense rested Monday in the Etan Patz murder case after calling another jailhouse informant to the witness stand, testimony that the defense hopes suggests that someone else might have killed the young boy. NY1's Michael Herzenberg filed the following report.

Pedro Hernandez stands accused of kidnapping and murdering Etan Patz, but you might not know it sitting in court over the last 10 days, as his name has hardly been mentioned.

The defense's case has focused on convicted pedophile Jose Ramos, his picture often up on a screen in the courtroom.  

On Monday, a jailhouse informant claimed Ramos said he knew where Etan Patz waited for the school bus every morning, and even once asked whether there was a statute of limitations on kidnapping and murder.  

The ex-con claimed Ramos "kept on ranting and raving about there being no body," but under cross-examination Monday, the witness admitted that Ramos also denied several times having anything to do with Etan's disappearance.

Last week, another shady witness, a long-time con man, claimed that Ramos even made a map of the abduction.

"All informants are questionable because they have criminal histories, but these were vetted by the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI," said Harvey Fishbein, Hernandez's defense attorney.

The defense tried to bolster the testimony of the informants by calling a former top FBI agent who led the Patz investigation 20 years ago. The former agent said the testimony of the informants was "truthful enough" to get permission to secretly record conversations in Ramos' prison cell.

Another defense witness, a retired federal prosector, testified that Ramos told him he was 90 percent sure he picked up Etan and tried to molest him the day the boy vanished in 1979. 

Prosecutors, however, tried to paint him as a sloppy investigator with an agenda to lock up Ramos. They argue that it was Pedro Hernandez who strangled Etan in the basement of the SoHo bodega where he worked.

Hernandez confessed to at least five people over the years and to authorities on tape. The defense claims those confessions were the product of mental illness.

Next, the government will present several days of rebuttal witnesses, including Etan's mother, who may testify as soon as Tuesday.