Competency Of Psychiatrist Called Into Question In Etan Patz Trial
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - It was over the most vehement objections by the defense attorney that Judge Maxwell Wiley allowed the testimony of a psychiatrist who interviewed Pedro Hernandez just once, when he was moved from Bellevue to Rikers Island, regarding the disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979.
The defense attorney, Harvey Fishbein, argued that Dr. Flavia Robatti is not a competent psychiatrist. His investigation, he said, found not one positive reaction to her, WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported.
Competency Of Psychiatrist In Question In Etan Patz Trial
The judge allowed her testimony only because she says Hernandez confessed to her, telling her, "I did something terrible, I hurt a child, I carried this weight all these years."
As the judge put it, "she could be the world's worst psychiatrist, but that's not the issue. She's not being asked to make a diagnosis."
In cross examination, the defense brought out the fact that she did not make one note of this admission that she found so moving in her report on Hernandez.
Etan vanished on his way to school on May 25, 1979; his disappearance helped galvanize the modern-day missing children's movement. Over the years, the case bounced around between detectives and units and from local police to federal agents and back. Most of the historical documents in the file are not specific to Hernandez, because no one was focused on him.
There's been no physical evidence. During his confession, Hernandez told detectives that he tossed the boy's bag up onto a freezer in the basement of the convenience store.
"If the freezer is still there, the book bag should be there," Hernandez told detectives. But the shop was closed and cleared out in the early 1980s, its contents tossed, and it's not clear whether police were present at the time. The owners have died, and the bag never made it into evidence. No body was ever found."
