Etan Patz jurors ask for 1979 weather report
NEW YORK -- Jurors deliberating in the trial of Pedro Hernandez, accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, on Monday asked for a weather report from May 25, 1979 -- the day the child went missing, reports CBS New York.
Hernandez, 54, says he choked the 6-year-old in a New York City convenience store basement after luring him there with the promise of a soda. He was a teenage stock clerk when the boy disappeared. His lawyer says the 2012 confession was imaginary and his client is mentally ill. Prosecutors say the confession is sound.
Etan's body was never found.
Jurors received the case against Hernandez on Wednesday afternoon. Deliberations entered their fourth day on Monday.
The request for the weather is significant because Hernandez recalled that May 25, 1979, was a nice, sunny day, reports the station, but the weather was gray and gloomy.
In addition to the weather report, jurors also reportedly asked Monday for all phone records between Hernandez and his brother-in-law, Juan Santana, who turned him in to police; a blueprint of the location where Etan's body was allegedly dumped; and translated transcripts of jailhouse phone conversations between Hernandez and his current wife, Rosemary.
On Friday, jurors asked to see a missing-person's poster shown to Hernandez at the police station before he confessed. They also requested the videotaped confession and some witness statements.
"They seem to be focused on issues that we raised -- the weather, the fact that where he says he put the box was actually a bakery in 1979, the phone calls between him and Rosemary, which show a very strong, loving connection between the two," defense attorney Harvey Fishbein told reporters, including CBS New York's Irene Cornell.
The defense has suggested that another man, a convicted pedophile in jail in Pennsylvania, is the real killer.
Etan's photo was one of the first on milk cartons. The day he went missing, May 25, became National Missing Children's Day.