NY NY - Etan Patz, 6, New York, 25 May 1979 - #2

[NocturnalLady]

Originally Posted by Wondergirl

Some words from the former owner of the bodega, and a possible motive for why PH killed Etan:

That's chilling! If I was that nephew I'd be really freaked out right now! I wonder if he has anything to say about his relationship with PH over the years.

[NocturnalLady]

Originally Posted by Wondergirl

We will have to agree to disagree, WF.

While I agree with you that Etan's body would have "fit" in a garbage sack, a "regular" garbage bag would hold a maximum of 25-35 lbs, max, and there is no way he could have walked that distance without it breaking, IMO, with 50 lbs of weight. I wouldn't bet on that. JMO

I read that PH put the body into a bag and then put the bag into a box. That might explain why some places have been reporting bag and some reporting box. I wish I had the link to that article but I have read so many over the past few days I don't know which was which anymore!

[NocturnalLady]

Originally Posted by wfgodot

I wonder how soon they brought the scent dogs in. If they did do that.

Also, I doubt NYPD has told us all of what it knows about Hernandez and what he has told them. I don't think they're suckers.

They didn't start a search for Etan until the next day. By that time according to PH the box with the body was already gone. He said he went back to look at it a few hours later and it was gone. I think the trash picked it up that very same day shortly after the crime was committed. There was never any chance of the police finding him under those circumstances.

[Zoe Zo]

Originally Posted by Wondergirl

If PH did not put Etan in a box, and he carried him that one block in a bag, what kind of bag? Where did the bag come from? He would have been lugging that bag.

The practicality of carrying the bag with that kind of weight in it required some thought.

Even a box. What sort of box would hold 50 lbs of weight, without breaking through the bottom? It is more weight than one might think.

A body could not be carried in garbage bags that distance, IMO.

I thought I read some where he put him in a bag and then put the bag into a box

[wfgodot]

Originally Posted by Zoe Zo

You're more likely right, we know no body to be found and I would think after all these years not even a hair could be found so I'm seeing this as a waste of money and time unless there is more they can find that I don't know of. I'm new at this so my thinking might be very wrong.

Don't worry, I've done 12,015 posts but my thinking might be very wrong too!

[wfgodot]

Originally Posted by NocturnalLady

They didn't start a search for Etan until the next day. By that time according to PH the box with the body was already gone. He said he went back to look at it a few hours later and it was gone. I think the trash picked it up that very same day shortly after the crime was committed. There was never any chance of the police finding him under those circumstances.

Do you have a link for that info? If not, cool, I believe you, no doubts, but it helps to keep track of where the information comes from, MSM-wise.

[Zoe Zo]

Originally Posted by NocturnalLady

They didn't start a search for Etan until the next day. By that time according to PH the box with the body was already gone. He said he went back to look at it a few hours later and it was gone. I think the trash picked it up that very same day shortly after the crime was committed. There was never any chance of the police finding him under those circumstances.

This is what I heard also on my local news. He put him into a bag and then into a box and he left the store - a few hours later when he came back to the store the box was missing.

[Zoe Zo]

Originally Posted by Thinkzerz

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...?ncid=webmail1

Stabbing and dismembering and placed in bags in a box.
If this is all true maybe he will confess to where the boys remains are.

I'm so confused
Did he strangle him or stab and dismembering him???

If he did stab and dismembering him, could they still find blood in the basement after all these years??

[wfgodot]

Confusion of detail is pretty par for the course in a new case development as big as this one, particularly in a famous case. NYC is the media nerve center, and a huge amount of reporters are vying for info all at once. They'll all have their sources - at least the ones who regularly cover crime, or who have worked the Patz case, will - and bits and pieces of the story, the flotam and jetsom of the confession, will bob on the waters for some time. Not sure when this picture will come into focus and we will know the real specifics. Takes time, lots depends on when the head honchos of NYPD want the info released.

[osadelnorte]

CNN is still saying Hernandez "choked" Etan and "placed his body in the trash about a block and a half away." It doesn't say anything about bags, boxes or other receptacles, but I would guess that in order to transport the body "a block and a half," it would have to be concealed in something first. Even if SoHo was the sleepy neighborhood in the 70's they keep saying it was, nobody was going to carry an unconcealed dead child for "a block and a half" without someone noticing. I hope...

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/25/ju...html?hpt=hp_t3

ETA the link to the CNN article.

[Satch]

Hi Everyone,

I am not too familiar with this case, but the question that I have, is what evidence has been collected that points to Mr. Hernandez as Etan's suspected killer and NOT Jose Ramos? I always thought over the years based on circumstantial evidence that Mr. Ramos was the perpetrator. But is it true that Mr. Ramos always maintained his innocence?

Satch

[osadelnorte]

Originally Posted by Satch

Hi Everyone,

I am not too familiar with this case, but the question that I have, is what evidence has been collected that points to Mr. Hernandez as Etan's suspected killer and NOT Jose Ramos? I always thought over the years based on circumstantial evidence that Mr. Ramos was the perpetrator. But is it true that Mr. Ramos always maintained his innocence?

Satch

No, Ramos has actually confessed to the crime at one point, maybe more than once. I don't think there's any real evidence linking either man to the crime, other than the fact that Ramos was dating Etan's babysitter at one time. As for Hernandez, there doesn't seem to be evidence at all. He did live in the neighborhood and did work in the bodega, but everything else hinges on his confession, I think?

It's very mysterious to me. I'm assuming there is information not yet made public by the NYPD, and I do hope we hear more about it soon. I think it was wfgodot who said something earlier about being 65-35 in terms of believing in Hernandez's guilt, and I'm feeling about that way myself right now...

[wfgodot]

Originally Posted by Satch

Hi Everyone,

I am not too familiar with this case, but the question that I have, is what evidence has been collected that points to Mr. Hernandez as Etan's suspected killer and NOT Jose Ramos? I always thought over the years based on circumstantial evidence that Mr. Ramos was the perpetrator. But is it true that Mr. Ramos always maintained his innocence?

Satch

Ramos was alleged to have "been on the verge" of confessing to LE. He toyed with them. Since he's been incarcerated - other than LE alluding to his having confessed certain "details" to cons planted in his cell in order to get information - he has maintained his innocence. He is a convicted child predator and his knowledge of the area - a former girlfriend worked for the Patzes; he evidently knew Etan's bus route; he allegedly worked with Othneil Miller in the basement workshop on Prince Street - made (or makes) him a likely suspect.

But none of it added up to Ramos's ever having been a child killer. He lost the civil case filed against him in the matter, but the burden of proof in those cases is quite lower than that of a criminal felony trial. In all the 33 years since Etan disappeared, the state has never filed criminal charges against Ramos, in spite of the millions spent on solving the Patz case, much of it directed toward investigating Jose Ramos.

[Bodhi]

Originally Posted by Flossie JMO

Not sure if this has been posted, it's an informative and very very sad older article:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle...e&type=article

Thanks for the link to that, Flossie. The author of the article is Lisa Cohen. She also wrote the book I read last summer about the case called [i]After Etan.[i] She's spoken to the Patzes in the last few days and then talked to the media.

The article you linked is a good synopsis of the case as it developed. I'd posted earlier in the thread about what I remembered from the book, but I wasn't clear on some of the details. This was a good refresher!

[wfgodot]

WSJ article on trash pickup in 1979 and other issues involving Hernandez's statement regarding where he disposed of Etan's body:

Missing Body Is Big Mystery In Patz Case

---
New York City Sanitation Department spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins declined to answer questions about SoHo's trash pickup schedule in 1979 and wouldn't say whether records still exist on specific garbage routes and the material that was picked up.

"The Sanitation Department is fully cooperating with the police in their investigation," she said.

Etan went missing on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. Ms. Dawkins wouldn't say what day pickup was scheduled.

"New Yorkers throw out heavy stuff all the time," said a sanitation-industry expert who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the case. In 1979, before the adoption of recycling programs, "it was all big black bags—heavy black bags. It's not at all a stretch for a container to have 50, 75 pounds of material in it. You've got a worker who's picking up hundreds of stops in a night."
---

much more, interesting stuff, at link above

[Bodhi]

Originally Posted by wfgodot

Do you have a link for that info? If not, cool, I believe you, no doubts, but it helps to keep track of where the information comes from, MSM-wise.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-evidence.html

In the Daily Beast today, a reporter details sanitation workers picking up trash outside the former bodega yesterday morning, at the very hour Etan disappeared 33 years ago. He does not state definitively that trash was picked up on Fridays back then, but it is a very interesting article nonetheless.

The article discusses what may have prompted Hernandez to kill Etan, such as PH's statement that Etan reminded him of his least favorite nephew. One poignant passage reads:

Like the nephew, Etan at 6 was still in those earliest bright-eyed years when everything seems possible. Etan could stride up to the bodega wearing his junior-flight-captain hat and believe he could grow up to become a real flight captain or anything else he wanted.

But Etan also was alone and vulnerable and helpless. Perhaps so much so that he aroused whatever cruelty and anger and lunacy that Hernandez may have had pent up. Hernandez would have needed only a moment to exercise the greatest power anyone can wield, the power to take a life.

[wfgodot]

Originally Posted by Bodhi

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-evidence.html

In the Daily Beast today, a reporter details sanitation workers picking up trash outside the former bodega yesterday morning, at the very hour Etan disappeared 33 years ago. He does not state definitively that trash was picked up on Fridays back then, but it is a very interesting article nonetheless.

The article discusses what may have prompted Hernandez to kill Etan, such as PH's statement that Etan reminded him of his least favorite nephew. One poignant passage reads:

Like the nephew, Etan at 6 was still in those earliest bright-eyed years when everything seems possible. Etan could stride up to the bodega wearing his junior-flight-captain hat and believe he could grow up to become a real flight captain or anything else he wanted.

But Etan also was alone and vulnerable and helpless. Perhaps so much so that he aroused whatever cruelty and anger and lunacy that Hernandez may have had pent up. Hernandez would have needed only a moment to exercise the greatest power anyone can wield, the power to take a life.

Thanks. There have been a couple of very good DB articles I've seen lately about the case.

[Bodhi]

Originally Posted by Satch

Hi Everyone,

I am not too familiar with this case, but the question that I have, is what evidence has been collected that points to Mr. Hernandez as Etan's suspected killer and NOT Jose Ramos? I always thought over the years based on circumstantial evidence that Mr. Ramos was the perpetrator. But is it true that Mr. Ramos always maintained his innocence?

Satch

Hi Satch,

The article that Flossie JMO linked to is a fantastic short history of the case.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle...e&type=article

Ramos has never said he murdered Etan but he has not professed innocence either. Besides confessing to GraBois that he lured Etan to his apartment for sex on the day Etan went missing, Ramos gave details to two separate cellmates.

Each man came back to GraBois with details they could not possibly have known without Ramos telling them, including the names of his other child victims, and the cities where he recruited them. "They'll never be able to convict me because they'll never have a body," one inmate reported Ramos crowing. The other man told of Ramos's confession to sexually abusing Etan, stopping short of an explicit admission of murder. "GraBois knows I did it," the informant quoted Ramos as saying. "And it's killing him because he can't get it out of me."

But there has never been evidence other than his words to connect him to Etan's disappearance and thus he was never prosecuted.

As with Hernandez, in New York there must be evidence beyond someone's confession. That's why LE is looking to corroborate or disprove what Hernandez has told me them.

[Zoe Zo]

Originally Posted by Bodhi

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-evidence.html

In the Daily Beast today, a reporter details sanitation workers picking up trash outside the former bodega yesterday morning, at the very hour Etan disappeared 33 years ago. He does not state definitively that trash was picked up on Fridays back then, but it is a very interesting article nonetheless.

The article discusses what may have prompted Hernandez to kill Etan, such as PH's statement that Etan reminded him of his least favorite nephew. One poignant passage reads:

Like the nephew, Etan at 6 was still in those earliest bright-eyed years when everything seems possible. Etan could stride up to the bodega wearing his junior-flight-captain hat and believe he could grow up to become a real flight captain or anything else he wanted.

But Etan also was alone and vulnerable and helpless. Perhaps so much so that he aroused whatever cruelty and anger and lunacy that Hernandez may have had pent up. Hernandez would have needed only a moment to exercise the greatest power anyone can wield, the power to take a life.

I had tears when I read this "Back on Prince Street, the missing boy's parents had returned from Boston, where they had attended their daughter’s graduation with a master’s degree from Harvard." Poor little Etan never had a chance to grow up

[DevilsPlayThing]

A large trash bin can be seen in background here while Detective Butler traces the route Etan went missing. I do know if such bins were on Thompson Street - where Pedro claims to have placed Etan.



Detective Butler enters Bodega.



Detective Butler : 'Hi Juan'. 'Have you heard anything?'
Juan : 'No'.
Detective Butler : 'Anybody talking? Anybody saying anything ?'
Juan : 'No - Nothing new.'
Detective Butler : 'Ok thanks a lot - you keep your ears open.'

“My father Juan has been cooperating with investigators every single year for the last 30 years,” said the suspect’s nephew, Danny Santana, 22.

Above quote from this article since arrest of Pedro. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.1083765

Bodega in background 1979.


So if the suspects nephew is the son of Juan - Juan was Bodega owner. That makes the suspect a relative of Juan. - Maybe there is a better way of wording that. So Juan is the Uncle of Pedro ? Or do I have that wrong...It doesn't matter much. I just confused myself. Or are Pedro and Juan brothers...

[Bodhi]

Originally Posted by wfgodot

WSJ article on trash pickup in 1979 and other issues involving Hernandez's statement regarding where he disposed of Etan's body:

Missing Body Is Big Mystery In Patz Case

much more, interesting stuff, at link above

Thanks, wfgodot! Very interesting!

The article also says that bloodhounds traced Etan's scent to a store 3 blocks away from his home and then the trail went cold.

A retired deputy police chief, who headed the investigation at the time, is quoted saying that the garbage along the route between Etan's home and the bus stop would have been searched. But garbage a block or two further away from the bodega likely would not have been because it was too remote.

[Bodhi]

Originally Posted by Zoe Zo

I had tears when I read this "Back on Prince Street, the missing boy's parents had returned from Boston, where they had attended their daughter’s graduation with a master’s degree from Harvard." Poor little Etan never had a chance to grow up

And his poor siblings! Siblings are very often the overlooked victims in this type of tragedy. Their lives have been profoundly affected. And now, for Hernandez's arrest to come when Etan's sister was receiving a master's degree from Harvard, a time for the family to celebrate her accomplishment....Unreal! I cannot imagine the agony these parents, this sister, and this brother have lived with.

[Bodhi]

Originally Posted by DevilsPlayThing

A large trash bin can be seen in background here while Detective Butler traces the route Etan went missing. I do know if such bins were on Thompson Street - where Pedro claims to have placed Etan.



Detective Butler enters Bodega.



Detective Butler : 'Hi Juan'. 'Have you heard anything?'
Juan : 'No'.
Detective Butler : 'Anybody talking? Anybody saying anything ?'
Juan : 'No - Nothing new.'
Detective Butler : 'Ok thanks a lot - you keep your ears open.'





Above quote from this article since arrest of Pedro. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.1083765

Bodega in background 1979.


So if the suspects nephew is the son of Juan - Juan was Bodega owner. That makes the suspect a relative of Juan. - Maybe there is a better way of wording that. So Juan is the Uncle of Pedro ? Or do I have that wrong...It doesn't matter much. I just confused myself. Or are Pedro and Juan brothers...

As I understand it, Juan is married to Pedro's sister Luz. They're brothers-in-law. I posted links earlier today to articles saying that Pedro worked with Juan in May 1979 and that PH had called Luz out of the blue at the time of the recent basement search to discuss it. I don't have the links handy at the moment.

Thanks for posting the screenshots of the video! I was not able to do that.
And thanks also, Devilspllaything, for transcribing it. I didn't think of that!

[NocturnalLady]

Originally Posted by DevilsPlayThing

A large trash bin can be seen in background here while Detective Butler traces the route Etan went missing. I do know if such bins were on Thompson Street - where Pedro claims to have placed Etan.



Detective Butler enters Bodega.



Detective Butler : 'Hi Juan'. 'Have you heard anything?'
Juan : 'No'.
Detective Butler : 'Anybody talking? Anybody saying anything ?'
Juan : 'No - Nothing new.'
Detective Butler : 'Ok thanks a lot - you keep your ears open.'





Above quote from this article since arrest of Pedro. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.1083765

Bodega in background 1979.


So if the suspects nephew is the son of Juan - Juan was Bodega owner. That makes the suspect a relative of Juan. - Maybe there is a better way of wording that. So Juan is the Uncle of Pedro ? Or do I have that wrong...It doesn't matter much. I just confused myself. Or are Pedro and Juan brothers...

Ok - so now this makes me wonder if Danny is the nephew that PH disliked. If so - did something happen that day or close in time to that day that solidified PH's dislike (anger?) towards this nephew? A nephew that PH would associate with the bodega, a nephew that possibly hung around the bodega maybe getting on PH's nerves? So then he takes it all out on Etan. Killing Etan at the bodega would be a perfect way for PH to secretly get his revenge on that nephew, Juan & the bodega in general. I would really like to know from the family if this Danny is the disliked nephew. That would really go towards motive imho.

ETA: I see that the nephew is aged 22. Is that present day? What year was he that age?

[Stargaze]

Originally Posted by Bodhi

I found an interesting video that may be the bodega and possibly Hernandez's brother-in-law from the early days.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-n...06472#47106472


When the news broke on Thursday, I went looking for a video I'd seen during the search of the basement last month. It's of William Butler, the detective who retraced Etan's steps daily and later committed suicide. Butler goes into a bodega and asks the man behind the counter if anyone was talking about the Patz case. I was checking if the man's name was Pedro. It wasn't. It's Juan.

According to this article, Hernandez was working at the bodega with sister Luz's husband, Juan Santana at the time Etan disappeared.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/m...tq7in0NcN3gO/1

Other sources said that Juan owned the bodega.

Hernandez contacted his sister Luz last month to discuss the search of Miller's basement. He has had very little contact with Luz in years and he wasn't calling to make chit-chat, she said.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice...-Patz-cold-cas

Is the bodega in the Butler video the right bodega? I've read there was only one in the area at the time. I wonder if this is Pedro's brother-in-law in the Butler video?

Hello. First time post, long time reader. My heart just breaks for the Patz family. On hearing the recent news about Hernandez, I also recalled the video with Detective Butler that Bodhi pointed out in her post. Immediately wondered if it was the same bodega where Hernandez had worked, and then today read the same article (linked above) that mentioned PH worked for his brother in law, named Juan, at a bodega -- was it the very ame one that Butler so frequently visited?

If Hernandez's confession is true, there are so many unanswered questions. How could the police dogs not have picked up a scent at the bodega or in the street? Granted, news reports in '79 stated the dogs were not immediately on scene, (arrived later that night or next day?) and it had rained. Still, the dogs tracked Etan's scent to a lumber store a block or so further south on Spring St. The manager there said he was quite sure he spotted Etan at his store around 4:30-5:00 p.m. on the day he disappeared, based on a photo police had shown him. The next day, the NY Times stated that police thought it "probably was not Etan" that the lumber store manager saw. (Yet the dogs apparently tracked Etan's scent there?!)

In one of the news reports yesterday, unnamed law enforcement personnel commented that they believed a search of trash in '79 likely would not have been conducted beyond Etan's known path to the bus stop. This boggles my mind if his his scent was picked up further beyond that. (And Thompson Street is just a block from W. B'way!) Could that massive search truly have been so narrow in scope? Perhaps they were just very focused on finding him alive.

Also - it's baffling that Etan was seen by no one. PH told investigators he lured Etan from the bus stop. Reports stated no one ever saw him get on the bus, but did anyone see Etan AT the bus stop? Hard to believe he was so early to the stop that he may have been alone long enough for PH to get to him. W. B'way is not a sleepy little street. The bodega was on the corner. I'm guessing it opened for business well before 8:00 in the morning - the height of the morning breakfast rush. Who opened the store? The stockboy? The manager? Who else was there in the store while this horrible act was happening alongide in the basement? 8:00 on a Friday morning, there had to have been plenty of delivery traffic and foot traffic going by. So sad.

Many prayers and thoughts to the Patz family, who have handled this unimaginable hearbreak with incredible courage, dignity and strength.