NEW YORK - A Manhattan jury has found a former bodega worker guilty of felony murder and kidnapping in the 1979 death of six-year-old Etan Patz, in a case that has cast a shadow over the city for nearly 40 years.

Pedro Hernandez, 56, was found guilty on felony murder and kidnapping counts, but not guilty on first count intentional murder.

This was Hernandez' second trial, after his first trial ended in a hung jury two years ago.

"The disappearance of Etan Patz haunted families in New York and across the country for nearly four decades." Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. said in a statement. "Bringing closure on Etan's disappearance to the Patz family has also been among my highest priorities since I took office as District Attorney."

Shortly after the jury was dismissed, Etan's father, Stan Patz, told reporters the closure provided by the verdict has been a long time coming.

"I am truly relieved and I tell you it’s about time, it really is. It’s about time," Patz said.

Prosecutors say Hernandez confessed several times to killing Patz and that he had told many people over the past few decades that he had killed someone.

However, his defense contended that Hernandez has a low I.Q. and suffers from a mental illness that leaves him susceptible to flights of fancy.  They also argued that his taped confessions were coerced.

Harvey Fishbein, Hernandez' attorney, said that he hoped for an appeal. 

"We do not believe this will resolve the story of what happened to Etan back in 1979," Fishbein said. "I know this is an emotionally driven case. Certainly, we feel for the parents. I think the emotions were hard to overcome for anyone who touched this case. We are just hopeful that an appellate court — coldly looking at the legal rulings and the testimony — will send this case back to be heard again."

Patz disappeared on the morning of May 25, 1979, while walking to his school bus stop in SoHo, in what became perhaps the most infamous missing-child case in New York City history.  The disappearance made parents across the nation more aware of the potential dangers facing their children, and is credited with launching the use of milk cartons to display information about missing kids.

Hernandez worked at a bodega located on Etan's route and has said that he lured the child into the store's basement with the promise of soda.  He was arrested in 2012, after a family member told police Hernandez spoke of having killed a child in New York in the late 1970s.

But Hernandez' first trial, in 2015, ended in a mistrial when the jury wasn't unanimously convinced of the veracity of Hernandez' confessions.

Previously investigators thought that convicted pedophile Jose Ramos might be Patz' killer after it was discovered in 1982 that Ramos had a relationship with a woman who frequently walked Etan home from school.  Ramos was found responsible for Patz' death in a 2004 civil trial, but that ruling was reversed by a Manhattan supreme court judge last year.

Patz' body has never been found.

A sentencing date for Hernandez has been set for February 28.