A Manhattan judge this afternoon has denied the defense's motion for mistrial after jurors passed a note saying they are unable to come to a decision in the trial of Pedro Hernandez, charged with killing Etan Patz. Stay with NY1.com or watch live as we wait for more information.
Etan Patz vanished on May 25, 1979, as he walked two blocks from his parents loft in SoHo to his school bus stop. His body has never been found.
Hernandez was arrested 33 years later, in 2012, after a family member told police Hernandez spoke of having killed a child in New York in the late 1970s.
Prosecutors argued that Hernandez lured Etan to the basement of a bodega, tried to sexually assault him, strangled him, put his body in a bag and a box and dumped it blocks away in an alley.
Their case was built around the defendant's own words - jurors heard four videotaped confessions he gave to authorities, and the testimony of five people who said he confessed to them that he killed someone. However, defense attorneys have noted inconsistencies in the details between confessions.
They said Hernandez suffers from serious mental illness, and made up his alleged attack.
The defense said convicted pedophile Jose Ramos might be the actual killer. In 1982, police investigators discovered he had dated a woman who frequently walked Etan home from school. Ramos had long been a suspect in the case, but was never charged due to a lack of evidence.
The disappearance of Etan Patz was one of the most infamous missing-child cases in New York history. It made parents across the city and country more aware of the potential dangers facing their children.
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