Deceased/Not Found NY - Etan Patz, 6, New York, 25 May 1979 #2 *P. Hernandez guilty*

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NY1 reporting PH was in a conference room at Bellevue and has been arraigned.

His attorney said during arraignment that:

-he wants psychiatric evaluation
-his client is bipolar; has schizophrenia and hallucinations

His lawyer needs to do a little research.
Hallucinations are part of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia so to list them is redundant.
 
His attorney is Harvey Fishbein.

Snipped

Recognized as a leader in criminal defense in New York City, Harvey served two terms as President of the New York Criminal Bar Association from 2003-2005, and is presently a member of the Executive Committee, Criminal Justice Section, New York State Bar Association. He has lectured, taught and mentored lawyers and law students on various aspects of criminal defense practice, including ethics and the psychiatric defense.

As part of his continuing commitment to pro bono activities that advocate quality representation for indigents, Harvey serves as Chair of the Central Screening Committee for the Assigned Counsel Plan.

Website link below:

http://www.harveyfishbein.com/cases

He has represented clients in a number of high-profile cases:

The People v Andrew Goldstein
People v. Reuben Harris

Good, this guy sounds like he's smart. If there's anything hinky about this confession then he should spot it. JMO

It PO's me that another offender is using the bi-polar defense.
 
His lawyer needs to do a little research.
Hallucinations are part of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia so to list them is redundant.

If he has hallucinations, how can we trust his confession? I'm hoping his confession is true, but I would need objective confirmation before I believed it. I don't blame his lawyer for making the technically redundant, but highly relevant, addition of hallucinations to his list of problems stated in court either. If he hallucinates his lawyer definitely does need to draw the judge's attention to that because this case so far hinges on his word alone.
 
If he has hallucinations, how can we trust his confession? I'm hoping his confession is true, but I would need objective confirmation before I believed it. I don't blame his lawyer for making the technically redundant, but highly relevant, addition of hallucinations to his list of problems stated in court either. If he hallucinates his lawyer definitely does need to draw the judge's attention to that because this case so far hinges on his word alone.

Technically speaking, you can have hallucinations without being delusional, ie you can have them and KNOW they are hallucinations. A schizophrenic could, for example, hear voices and know they are they coming from inside their head. Hallucinations are a sensory issue, delusions are a cognitive issue.
 
I don't know what will happen with the landfills or dumps; I read a Huffington Post article that said they're looking into searching possible sites used in the 70's for trash picked up along the route which included the abduction/murder site. I do hope they'll be excavating the bodega building's basement, though! I would imagine it's possible there could be forensic evidence down there even after all this time.
 
I don't know what will happen with the landfills or dumps; I read a Huffington Post article that said they're looking into searching possible sites used in the 70's for trash picked up along the route which included the abduction/murder site. I do hope they'll be excavating the bodega building's basement, though! I would imagine it's possible there could be forensic evidence down there even after all this time.

I hope you are right about excavating the basement. It would be nice just to have some kind of evidence beside him just saying he killed Etan.
Were the landfills ever checked when Etan was first missing??
 
What could they hope to find by excavating another basement? Even a shirt button torn loose couldn't be proven to have come from Etan's shirt. I don't think Hernandez - if his story is indeed true - buried Etan down there. It was a storage area for a bodega, a going concern, and not a relatively isolated workshop space for a handyman.
 
Were the landfills ever checked when Etan was first missing??
That's a good question. I was reading about the case in two NYC neighborhood papers at the time it happened, and I don't recall any large-scale landfill search (but that doesn't mean there wasn't one). There was never anything to prove he was dead, and especially not dead in a specific vicinity (though there was early conjecture about others known to us and their possible role - but nothing that would lead to a hugely work-intensive landfill search).

I'm googling around and seeing what I can find.
 
What could they hope to find by excavating another basement? Even a shirt button torn loose couldn't be proven to have come from Etan's shirt. I don't think Hernandez - if his story is indeed true - buried Etan down there. It was a storage area for a bodega, a going concern, and not a relatively isolated workshop space for a handyman.

You're probably right, but maybe blood, hair or other tissue evidence could somehow survive? I'm not terribly knowledgeable about that kind of forensic investigation, of course. Just a hopeful thought, really. :waitasec:
 
Almost identical statement attributed to Ramos by Assistant US Attorney GraBois.



Etan Patz Declaration of Death was issued based on GraBois statements:


Etan was declared legally dead - and Ramos was found liable in State Supreme Court due to GraBois statements. No public record though - no transcripts. Only a statement issued by the Judge. There was no Civil Trial. Ramos failed to appear - or failed to answer the deposition - and was found to be liable of the unlawful death of Etan - and ordered to pay 2 million$.

I find it frightening that LE pursued Ramos for all of these years - Ramos has been found liable for the death of Etan - for statements he may or may not have made to jailhouse informants. And hearings that he did not attend - he was in prison. Poor Miller must have had the scare of his life as well. If the new suspect did commit this crime - the fact that Etan has not been found will make no difference at all. That is not the reason Ramos was never charged. Even if Etan was found - Ramos would still not have been charged - unless Etan was found on his property - and Ramos property has been searched and cleared.

I am a huge civil libertarian, devilsplaything, but I am not frightened at all by LE's pursuit of Ramos. I read After Etan last summer and I highly recommend it.

Ramos did not fail to appear for the civil trial because he was in prison. He was able to respond as long as it was under oath. He had more than a year, and he refused to participate.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Stuart GraBois for his diligence in this case. GraBois uncovered evidence that Ramos is a serial child predator. Several times Ramos had come to the attention of LE for child sex crimes but had never been prosecuted.

Ramos had been arrested in NYC but the 3 victims were at-risk boys who were willing to do what Ramos wanted for money and either did not show up for interviews or to testify (I can't remember which).

Another time, Ramos was living in a drain pipe and took a boy's backpack to try to lure him in. But Ramos was gone when police went to investigate. In the belongings left behind were pictures of boys similar to Etan and, I believe, newspaper clippings about Etan.

The woman who was hired to walk Etan to school during the schoolbus strike was Ramos's girlfriend. Her son was about Etan's age. At the time, she said that her son was not molested by Ramos. More recently, she has admitted that he was.

Years after Etan disappeared, Ramos had showed up at the yearly gathering of a group called the Rainbows, or something like that. Some adults found him suspicious because of his interest in luring young boys to his bus. The next year at the gathering, he and a teenage boy traveling with him were reported to local LE for sexual contact with a young boy. The child was itinerant, however, and the case did not go forward. GraBois even tracked the teenage boy to Ohio to determine that the boy was not Etan.

IIRC, the case Ramos is in prison for on Pennsylvania happened right after the second Rainbow gathering. Ramos thought he was more intelligent than everyone else and he would never be convicted. GraBois jumped through hoops to be able to be the prosecutor in that case. He won the case.

At one point, GraBois had Ramos brought to NYC to be interviewed about Etan's disappearance. Ramos confessed to meeting a boy who looked like Etan on May 25, 1979, and bringing him to his apartment for sex. The boy said no, so Ramos said he put him on the subway to go visit his aunt. He said he was 90% sure it was Etan, IIRC. There was a break in the interview, and when it continued Ramos regained control of himself and never said it was Etan. I think that interview is referred to as "the 90% confession."

Ramos is a serial child predator. GraBois did go to great lengths to have him prosecuted and to ensure he did not get out of jail early. But he never did anything illegal or immoral. The prior contacts Ramos had with LE were not pursued successfully and were each viewed in isolation because they were in different jurisdictions. GraBois put it all together and a child predator is now behind bars.

So I salute Mr. GraBois, and I feel no sympathy for Jose Ramos. IMO, Ramos loved the noteriety of being the chief suspect and feeling he had GraBois stymied. Hernandez's confession leaves him as just another child predator, not the one who got away with it.
 
You're probably right, but maybe blood, hair or other tissue evidence could somehow survive? I'm not terribly knowledgeable about that kind of forensic investigation, of course. Just a hopeful thought, really. :waitasec:
I wonder if it was, back then, a floored basement, or just had a dirt floor. SoHo wasn't ritzy back then. If it was the latter, it might make sense to get out the jackhammers again and see what they might find beneath the cement which I suppose the basement has by now.
 
I wonder if it was, back then, a floored basement, or just had a dirt floor. SoHo wasn't ritzy back then. If it was the latter, it might make sense to get out the jackhammers again and see what they might find beneath the cement which I suppose the basement has by now.

Good point. And not just that it wasn't ritzy, but it's all OLD. Those buildings are all from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I'm willing to bet that many of them still have dirt floors in the underground level.
 
Good point. And not just that it wasn't ritzy, but it's all OLD. Those buildings are all from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I'm willing to bet that many of them still have dirt floors in the underground level.
Yes, 127 Prince Street - where they did dig up the basement - I googled, and eventually found it was built in 1900. (Another poster thought by the style of the building it might be even older, early '90s or even 1880s.)
 
Unfortunately, if his body ended up in the trash, there's no hope of finding him. Fresh Kills on Staten Island was the primary landfill for NYC for 50 years. When it closed in 2001, it was 2200 acres and 25 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty. And that was before it was reopened temporarily to accommodate the WTC debris. I shudder to think how many missing persons may actually be in Fresh Kills.

Had to add this reply, to your whole post, actually:

Wow, just, wow. :eek:
 
Here is my list of possible scenarios:

1. Pedro Rodriguez was teased by kids while he worked on the store, spotted one of them on the way to school, lured the kid into the basement, killed him, disposed of him.

2. Pedro Rodriguez randomly decided one morning to kill a kid walking past him while he was on the job. Then he dumped the body.

3. Pedro Rodriguez is a pedophile, saw a cute kid and was compelled to molest and kill the child.

4. Pedro Rodriguez decided to make up a story to ease the troubled hearts of someone he didn't know. Perhaps because he has psychological problems.

5. Pedro Rodriguez has cancer, wants to leave his wife and adult daughter with some money. So he made up a story hoping they can make a buck or two selling their story to the book publishers and talk shows.

These theories are as good as any, I agree.
 
I think excavating another basement floor is overkill and will only serve to line the coffers of the cement contractors. Until or unless there is some evidence that this Hernandez was into digging up floors and burying stuff, I imagine in the short time he worked there, someone would have noticed a lump in the floor.

By the way, I haven't seen it pointed out, nor is it fully included in any of the photos that I have seen but I think the Hernandez family lived in the corner building on the opposite or what I think would be the NW corner of West Broadway. "Kitty Corner" from the school bus stop, and exactly across from the bodega. 138 W. Broadway is the address I think they lived at.
 
I think excavating another basement floor is overkill and will only serve to line the coffers of the cement contractors. Until or unless there is some evidence that this Hernandez was into digging up floors and burying stuff, I imagine in the short time he worked there, someone would have noticed a lump in the floor.

I agree, but I wasn't actually thinking in terms of having buried Etan (or anything else), I was thinking more in terms of any forensic evidence being left behind after he killed Etan and carried his body up to the street.
 
I hope we will soon get to see any proof there may be of Hernandez having a pre-existing mental illness. One that is properly diagnosed and documented. Even if we do see that I don't think it rules out his confession. He can be mentally ill and still kill someone. I think after the impetus to confess wears off many criminals go into "save their butts" mode and claim mental illness.
 
Regarding whether PH had ever been on LE's radar in 1979:

RAY SUAREZ: Had Hernandez ever been a suspect previously?

LISA COHEN: I believe that in the very first days of the investigation, when they were canvassing everyone in the neighborhood, he was -- his name appeared on what they called a DD-5 -- it's a detective note-- and along with two or three other people, in the sense that they were questioned, do -- you see the boy, do you have anything to do with it, and the very cursory sort of, no, didn't know anything about him.

And that, is all that I know about any kind of contact that he has ever had with authorities. I had never heard of him before Thursday

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june12/etanpatz_05-25.html
 
His lawyer needs to do a little research.
Hallucinations are part of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia so to list them is redundant.

Completely false. Hallucinations are not a requirement of schizophrenia by any means whatsoever. Schizophrenia without hallucinations is quite possible and quite common in fact.
 
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