This is a rotten story told from any angle whatsoever. We happened to tell it recently, in the Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader, when we told the story of “The Missing Children Milk Carton Program”: Etan Patz was one of the very first kids pictured on milk cartons in the program that spread around the country in the 1980s. He had been abducted at the age of just six less than two blocks from his home in Manhattan on May 25, 1979. (A lot of stories say that Etan was the first missing child to appear on milk cartons. That’s actually not the case. The very first kids to appear on cartons were Des Moines, Iowa, 12-year-olds Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin, in 1984. Etan appeared on cartons some months later. Those very first cartons were produced by Des Moines’ Anderson-Erickson Diary. Owner Jim Erickson was the one who came up with the idea.)
Let’s hope they can finally solve this case:
Authorities on Thursday arrested a man they said had confessed to the murder of six-year-old Etan Patz, a 1979 case that drew national attention to the issue of missing children and led parents to regard strangers with heightened suspicion.
Pedro Hernandez, a 51-year-old New Jersey resident, was being interrogated at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Detectives said he admitted Wednesday to luring Etan into the Manhattan convenience store where he worked, killing him and hiding the body, according to a law-enforcement official.
