After Announcing Deadlock, Jurors Press On In Etan Patz Case
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Jurors in the murder trial stemming from the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz reheard hours of closing arguments Thursday before resuming deliberations.
A stenographer read the hourslong defense closing argument Thursday in the case against Pedro Hernandez. Jurors were then to break to discuss it before rehearing the prosecution's closing remarks.
The jury wrapped for the day late Thursday afternoon without coming to a decision.
Jurors said Wednesday that they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict after 10 full days of deliberating. A judge told them to keep trying.
"Given the nature of this case, I don't think you've been considering this case long enough to conclude that you cannot reach a verdict," state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley told the weary-looking jurors.
"It's not uncommon for a jury to have difficulty reaching a unanimous verdict in any case," he noted, praising the jurors' work so far.
The judge told jurors that no other jury will ever be better equipped than they are right now to resolve this now 36-year-old case, WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported.
Etan vanished while walking to his Manhattan school bus stop. He was among the first missing children pictured on milk cartons.
The case baffled authorities for decades — and then Hernandez made a surprise confession in 2012. He told authorities he choked Etan in the basement of the SoHo convenience store where he worked and dumped the body a few blocks away.
Acquaintances and relatives testified that Hernandez had told them in the 1980s he'd killed an unnamed child in New York. But prosecutors had no physical evidence linking Hernandez to the crime. Etan's body was never found.
Defense attorneys suggested convicted child molester Jose Ramos had committed the crime and said Hernandez was mentally ill.
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