Jury Selection Begins In Etan Patz Case
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Thirty-five years after Etan Patz's disappearance, scores of prospective jurors filed into court Monday for a murder trial that eluded authorities for decades.
About 100 people began filling out lengthy jury questionnaires for the trial of Pedro Hernandez, who became a suspect less than three years ago in the 1979 case.
Hernandez admitted killing 6-year-old Etan, but his defense says his confession is false and he wasn't involved in the boy's disappearance. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty.
Hernandez, 53, faced potential jurors impassively when asked to do so as a judge introduced a case he acknowledged might already be familiar.
"The publicity surrounding this case is, I would say, unprecedented,'' Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley said. But he noted that being aware of the case won't necessarily disqualify potential jurors if they vouch that they can decide the case impartially and based on court evidence alone.
The jury questionnaire, as yet unreleased, asks prospective jurors about their knowledge of the case and over 130 people who might testify or be mentioned, Wiley said.
Etan disappeared while walking to his school bus stop May 25, 1979. He was never found, but was legally declared dead as the investigation spanned decades.
Hernandez emerged as a suspect in 2012. Police got a tip that Hernandez, who had worked at a bodega in SoHo where Etan disappeared, had told relatives and acquaintances years before that he'd hurt an unnamed child in New York City.
Hernandez then told police and prosecutors he had choked Etan and put the still-living boy into a plastic bag. He said he stuffed the bag in a box and dumped it on a street.
Jury Selection Begins In Etan Patz Case
Defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein has said Hernandez is mentally ill and his admissions were imaginary. The Manhattan district attorney's office said the confession was real and legally obtained.
Hernandez has taken anti-psychotic medication for years, was diagnosed after his arrest with a personality disorder that involves odd perceptions and has an IQ in the bottom 2 percent of the population, according to defense filings.
Jury selection will likely take days. The trial could last three months.
Etan's disappearance helped bring national urgency to finding missing children.
He was one of the first missing children ever pictured on a milk carton and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children's Day.
Check Out These Other Stories From CBSNewYork.com:
(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
