By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The man who confessed to the
1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz was indicted on Wednesday
for the child's kidnapping and murder in New York City,
prosecutors said.
A state grand jury in Manhattan indicted Pedro Hernandez,
51, on charges of two counts of second-degree murder and one
count of first-degree kidnapping, said Erin Duggan, spokeswoman
for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
Patz's disappearance on May 25, 1979, on his first walk
alone to the school bus stop, drew national attention. He was
one of the first missing children whose face appeared on a milk
carton as part of an appeal for information from the public.
Three decades later, Hernandez confessed in May to luring
the boy and strangling him. He had worked at a deli near the
Patz home in Soho in the late 1970s before moving to New Jersey.
"We believe the evidence that Mr. Hernandez killed Etan Patz
to be credible and persuasive, and that his statements are not
the product of any mental illness," Duggan said.
Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said his client suffers
from schizophrenia and his mental illness prompted his statement
to police. There is no other evidence against his client, he
said.
"The statements alleged by the People are not supported by
any evidence whatsoever despite extraordinary investigative
efforts by the police back then and now," Fishbein said in an
email statement to Reuters.
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