The jury heard opening arguments Wednesday in the second trial of Pedro Hernandez, the man charged with killing Etan Patz in SoHo in 1979. NY1's Roger Clark filed the following report.
Taking jurors back in time to May 1979, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzi said the Etan Patz story symbolized a loss of innocence, that his death gave parents a new awareness about the potential dangers to their children.
She was taking a second crack at convicting 55-year-old Pedro Hernandez in the kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Etan 37 years ago.
Adam Sirois was responsible for the hung jury in last year's trial. He was the only one of the original jurors who refused believe that Hernandez was responsible for Patz's disappearance and death.
"I voted not guilty because I had doubt," Sirois said.
Sirois joined seven of those jurors and alternates in court Wednesday as spectators.
"We all care. We are all committed. Everyone. All the other jurors, myself included, are committed to justice. We all want that. I just think we have a very different interpretation of reasonable doubt is," Sirois said.
They heard Illuzi repeat the outlines of her case, that Hernandez confessed four times, to police, members of his church group and friends, that he lured Etan from a bus stop into the basement of a bodega and then strangled him to death, discarding his body in a garbage bag and box in an alley. He was arrested in 2012 after his brother-in law turned him in.
The defense continued their assertion that Hernandez's confessions were not reliable because of a lengthy police interrogation combined with mental illness and low intelligence.
"They will hear all of the evidence, and once they hear it, they consider what to do with that so-called confession," said Harvey Fishbein, Pedro Hernandez's defense attorney.
Fishbein also blamed the crime on Jose Ramos, a convicted child molester currently in prison who dated the Patz's babysitter.
Etan's father Stan Patz was in the courtroom, as were Hernandez's wife and daughter.
The jury will have a chance to absorb everything they heard from the prosecution and defense when they have the day off. They will be back in court on Friday at 10 o'clock.