Day 13 Of Deliberations In Etan Patz Murder Trial
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Jurors in the murder trial stemming from the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz are deliberating for a 13th day.
The panel is listening again to the prosecution's closing remarks in the case against Pedro Hernandez after hearing the hourslong summations for the defense.
Jurors said Wednesday that they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict after 10 full days of deliberating, but a judge told them to keep trying.
Hernandez confessed to luring the boy into the basement of a SoHo bodega and strangling him in May 1979. The child's body was never found.
Defense lawyers maintain Hernandez made up the story due to mental illness and claim the real killer is convicted child molester Jose Ramos.
Prosecutors have dismissed the Ramos theory, calling him a despicable pedophile but saying the evidence against him was never enough.
The defense has pointed repeatedly to Ramos as the real suspect. Ramos denied involvement. However, former federal prosecutor Stuart GraBois and former FBI agent Mary Galligan testified that Ramos told investigators he was "90 percent" sure a boy he took from a park was Etan, and Hernandez's former prison cellmate testified that Ramos admitted molesting the boy.
Ramos never took the witness stand in this trial.
Jurors are deciding whether Hernandez is guilty or not on three separate charges: second-degree murder, felony murder and kidnapping.
The two different murder charges result from different theories under the law. If the jury finds that Hernandez deliberately killed Etan, they will convict him on second-degree murder charges.
If the panel decides Etan's death resulted from actions during the course of a kidnapping, they will find him guilty on the felony murder charge.
Each of the three charges is punishable by 25 years to life in prison.