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Man Accused of Killing Etan Patz Describes the Crime in a Video Confession

By Irene Plagianos | September 15, 2014 8:53pm
 The parents of the 6-year-old boy who vanished in 1979 appeared in court Monday to watch a video confession from their son's alleged killer.
Parents of Etan Patz Appear in Court To Watch Video Confession of Son's Alleged Killer
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MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT —  The man accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz nearly 35 years ago calmly told investigators how he strangled the child in the basement of a SoHo bodega, saying in a videotaped confession made public for the first time Monday that he couldn’t stop himself.

“I grabbed him by the neck and started choking him,” said Pedro Hernandez, 53, speaking softly and slowly in a three-hour video played during a pre-trial hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court. “I was nervous, my legs were jumping.”

“I wanted to let go, but I couldn’t,” he continued, seated at a large table across from a prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. “I felt like something just took over me.”

Since making his confession more than two years ago without a lawyer present, Hernandez has since pleaded not guilty to the murder of the boy who went missing on May 25, 1979, on his way to school — a case that gripped the city and the nation.

In the video, Hernandez, in a quiet, high-pitched voice, said matter-of-factly that he saw the boy standing on the street, asked him if he wanted a soda, then took the boy into the basement of the West Broadway bodega where he worked and immediately began strangling him with his hands.

He said that even though the little boy went limp after a few moments of choking, he was still breathing and moving when he was put into a large garbage bag. Hernandez then placed the bag into a box and dumped it into an open basement along an alley a couple of blocks away.

He told the prosecutor that he wanted to suffocate the boy because he was “afraid of what I did,” and said he didn’t want the boy to tell anyone he’d choked him.

But Hernandez, who stands at one point on the video, showing how he wrapped his hands around Patz’s neck — and imitated Etan’s gasping for breath — said he didn’t have a reason for strangling the boy.

“I don’t know why I did it,” he said. “I cannot explain, I tried to stop, but I couldn’t stop.”

An issue at Hernandez’s pre-trial hearing is whether the taped confession, made on May 23, 2012, will be admissible at his upcoming trial — something Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley will have to decide.

Hernandez’s lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, argued at the hearing Monday that the tapes should be thrown out since his client, who has a history of mental illness and an I.Q, in the "boderline retardation" range, did not fully understand his Miranda rights.

He also claims Hernandez, who he said suffers from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and hallucinations, made a false confession.

"There is no question that when the detectives were finished with my client on the morning of May 23rd my client believed what he was saying was true," Fishbein said. "The issue is, is it reliable?

"We will show [Hernandez is] wrong all the time. He's unreliable, he's a terrible historian, he's inconsistent — and he's the only evidence against himself."

Hernandez appeared at the Monday hearing, sitting quietly in his orange prison jumpsuit.

The parents of Etan Patz were also at the hearing. His mother, Julie Patz, however, left early in the morning, once the video of her son’s accused killer was turned onto the court’s flatscreen TV. His father, Stan Patz, sat stoically through the long confession, which  was at times incoherent or barely audible.

As Fishbein pointed out, the taped confession at the Manhattan DA’s office came after Hernandez was first interrogated at a police station in Camden, New Jersey, for more than seven hours without being recorded.

He was then taken to Manhattan, to the site of the alleged murder, for further questioning, all before heading to the DA’s office for the confession — which lasted through the night, into the early hours of May 24, 2012.

During the video, at the questioning of the prosecutor, Hernandez touched on his history of mental illness as well as his alcoholic and abusive father. Hernandez, who came to New Jersey from Puerto Rico with his family when he was 12, only broke down crying once in the video, when he spoke of his father beating his mother.

Hernandez's stories often provided little detail on the tape. He had trouble recalling certain events and there were inconsistencies in his description of why he killed Patz.

Police have reportedly found little to no physical evidence to corroborate Hernandez's story. He's been in jail since his arrest in May 2012.

Patz, whose family still lives on Prince Street, disappeared the first day he was allowed to walk to the school bus by himself. A lengthy police investigation proved inconclusive.

In 2001, the child was declared dead, even though his body was never found.

In May 2012, Hernandez, a husband and father of two from New Jersey with no criminal record, became the centerpiece of the reopened investigation when authorities received a tip from a family member.

The pre-trial hearings, which may last about a month, are scheduled to continue Tuesday.