Etan Patz Jury Asks For Printer On 14th Day Of Deliberations
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Jurors in the murder trial involving the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz have asked for dozens of exhibits, hours of read-back testimony and a spreadsheet to organize their thoughts. Now they're getting a new tool -- a printer.
A 14th day deliberations was held Monday in the case against Pedro Hernandez. Jurors requested a printer to make hard copies of their spreadsheet for discussion.
A judge nixed an earlier request for a printer. But he approved it this time, saying some technical problems had been solved.
Etan Patz Jury Enters 14th Day Of Deliberations
Jurors wrapped for the day with no decision late Monday afternoon.
Jurors are considering the case against Pedro Hernandez in the killing of Etan, who disappeared while walking to his SoHo bus stop.
The jury said Wednesday that it could not reach a unanimous verdict after 10 full days of deliberating, but the judge told them to keep trying.
Hernandez was arrested in 2012 after his brother-in-law told police Hernandez had said years earlier that he killed a child.
Hernandez, now 54, confessed to police that he offered Etan a soda to entice him into the basement of the SoHo bodega where he worked. Then, Hernandez said, he choked the boy and dumped him in a box with some curbside trash. Etan's body has never been found.
"Something just took over me, and I was just choking him," the Maple Shade, New Jersey, man confessed to police. "He just kind of stood there, and I just felt bad, what I did."
Defense lawyers say Hernandez's confession is fiction, dreamed up by a mentally ill man with a low IQ and a history of hallucinations and fueled by several hours of police questioning before Hernandez was read his rights.
Etan Patz Jury Enters 14th Day Of Deliberations
The defense also has pointed repeatedly to convicted child molester Jose Ramos as the real suspect.
Ramos denied involvement, but a former federal prosecutor and FBI agent 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 dated a woman who was hired to walk Etan home from school during a bus strike.
But prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments that while Ramos may be a convicted pedophile, investigators never found enough evidence to charge him in Etan's disappearance.
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.
Etan's photo was one of the first to be featured on milk cartons and the day he went missing became National Missing Children's Day.
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