Jury Deliberations Begin In Etan Patz Murder Trial
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Jurors began deliberations Wednesday afternoon in the trial of Pedro Hernandez – the man accused of luring and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in SoHo nearly 36 years ago.
As CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, Wednesday marked the moment Etan's father, Stanley Patz, has waited for since 1979. Five women and seven men will decide 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.
Jury Deliberations Begin In Etan Patz Murder Trial
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.
Hernandez, 54, was a clerk at a corner bodega in SoHo that Etan visited often. He is accused of luring the little boy into the bodega basement with promises of a soda, and then strangling him.
"Day after day, he saw this beautiful little boy," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said in closing arguments. "One day, he acted on an impulse and did something terrible to this little boy."
She said the motive was sexual, and Etan likely fought back. "The quickest and easiest way to shut him up and shut him up permanently was to choke him to death," she said.
As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, the boy's mother, Julie, had testified describing the last time she saw her son walking alone to the bus stop for the first time. She said he was proudly clutching a dollar, intent on buying a soda at the bodega where Hernandez worked.
Etan's body was never found, but his parents declared him legally dead in 2001. Hernandez had never been considered a suspect -- his name appears only once in law enforcement paperwork at the time Etan disappeared.
But prosecutors presented evidence that Hernandez confessed several times – to church group members in the years following the crime, and then to police in 2012.
"I grabbed him by the neck and started choking him," Hernandez said in 2012. "I was nervous. My legs were jumping. I wanted to let go, but I just couldn't let go. I felt like something just took over me."
His attorneys said he is a man with mental illness and a low IQ that makes him incapable of distinguishing fantasy from reality.
Defense attorneys also said prosecutors have the wrong man on trial. The defense has pointed repeatedly to convicted child molester Jose Ramos as the real suspect.
But prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments that while Ramos may be a convicted pedophile, he is not guilty in this case.
Etan's photo was one of the first on milk cartons. The day he went missing, May 25, became National Missing Children's Day.
Jurors went home for the day just before 5 p.m., after deliberating for 90 minutes Deliberations were to resume Thursday morning.
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