The disappearance of Etan Patz, the milk cardboard child

It was 1979, and his case shocked all American public opinion. During the 80s, the face of a small smiling, with bright eyes and surrounded by a blonde and smooth hair obsessed the Americans. Etan had disappeared with only 6 years.

At that time, it was one of the first missing children whose photo appeared in the milk cards. It was a novel way of making known at the national level cases of this type and thus being able to make a broad call to citizens. But what happened to Etan?

Content

• He never got into the school bus
• A long expected end
• The National Day of Missing Children
  • Resources

He never got into the school bus

Etan Patz grew in the neighborhood of the New York neighborhood of Soho, an area at that time was inhabited by middle-low-class people.

It was May 25, 1979, when Etan Patz's parents, For the first time, they allowed the six -year -old boy to go alone to the stop to be collected by the school bus. But Etan never got into the yellow bus.

Nobody saw it. He never returned home and his trail vanished for years, too many years of waiting.

When Julie Patz He fired his 6 -year -old son that neblinous morning, He could never have imagined that his son's face would be printed on all the milk cartons in his country, In the midst of a national shock and a frantic search that would last, nothing less, than 38 years.

Etan wore a dollar to buy a drink on the road. Thus prepared, his mother accompanied him to the door. I would only have to travel 200 meters to the school bus stop.

The first steps made them under the watchful eye of his mother who, from the entrance door, stretched his neck to see him distance ... until he lost sight of him. The hours passed, and finally Julie only began to worry when, Eight hours later, his son had not come home.

From Etan's disappearance, American schools call parents when a boy or girl does not go to school.

The anguish was such that A photograph of the little one of the milk cards was placed. In this way, the smooth hair and the smile of little Etan Patz became one of the first images that the Americans saw when awakening.

His parents never moved from the apartment where they lived in case their son returned. His case shuddered millions of Americans for such disconcerting circumstances in which the events occurred.

A long expected end

After almost four decades of the disappearance and an endless wait, their parents, Julie and Stanley Patz, lived the end of the most terrible chapter of their lives.

One day, at the beginning of 2012, a call would change the case. The man who contacted the authorities was called José López, and denounced having heard his brother -in -law, Pedro Hernández, 56, a New Jersey resident, who once had killed a child in Manhattan. In addition, he assured that his brother -in -law had told more people.

When Hernández was arrested, he confessed everything. According to his testimony, he cheated the child by offering him a drink to later strangle him until death in the basement of a winery where he worked, located a few meters from the bus stop where Etan Patz's track was lost. As he said, he introduced his body into a bag and left him lying in a street full of waste.

In 2012, the first trial was held, but having no witnesses of the kidnapping, The jury could only deliberate according to what has confessed by Hernández, whose defense always argued mental problems of his client. There were 11 days of deliberations and the desperate result for Etan Patz's parents: mistrial Given the impossibility of the jury agreeing.

The second trial closed the history of the disappearance: eight men and four women concluded after nine days of deliberation, which Pedro Hernández was guilty of kidnapping and murder.

On the present day, Etan's body has never been recovered.

The National Day of Missing Children

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan decided to declare on May 25 the National Day of Missing Children In honor of etan Patz.

His parents became activists of the cause and many laws for the protection of children have been approved nationally and locally as a result of that activism. For example, The automatic call that schools make to homes when a child does not arrive at the classroom has been one of the many measures that have been taken to react in time to a case of these.

Resources

• Resolved the murder of a child in New York 38 years later.
• Justice 38 years later: they condemn the person responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Etan Patz.