WITHOUT A TRACE

No Evidence Against Patz’s Confessed Killer

Prosecutors will have a hard time convicting him.

Four months ago, Pedro Hernandez claimed that he was the one who strangled and killed 6-year-old Etan Patz in an old SoHo bodega in 1979. Yet there is absolutely no evidence that the bipolar schizophrenic’s story is true. Police reopened the decades-old case this summer, finally receiving a confession from Hernandez. Yet after months of examining the bodega that is believed to have been the scene of the murder, interviewing anyone who ever knew Hernandez, and examining his home and all of the computers he could have had access to, cops aren’t convinced he did it. The only found item that raises questions is a box of boys’ white Fruit of the Loom underwear, a pair of blue children’s shorts, and a Matchbox-style car—yet none of these items contain Patz’s DNA or any other link to him.