{"id":81223,"date":"2025-07-21T18:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/81223\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T18:00:10","slug":"nyc-bodega-clerk-convicted-in-infamous-1979-etan-patz-murder-should-get-new-trial-or-be-freed-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/81223\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC bodega clerk convicted in infamous 1979 Etan Patz murder should get new trial &#8212; or be freed: court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former bodega clerk convicted in the infamous 1979 disappearance and murder of little\u00a0Etan Patz should be given a new trial \u2014 or set free, a federal appeals court ordered Monday in a shocking ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Pedro Hernandez,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2017\/02\/14\/pedro-hernandez-convicted-of-murdering-etan-patz-in-1979\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">who was found guilty in 2017\u00a0<\/a>of the 6-year-old boy\u2019s slaying, had argued that jury instructions during his high-profile Manhattan trial were improper and prejudiced the outcome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe conclude that the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law and that this error was not harmless,\u201d the appeals panel wrote in its ruling, first reported by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/07\/21\/nyregion\/etan-patz-conviction-overturned.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ethan Patz went missing in 1979. Stanley Patz<\/p>\n<p>In this Nov. 15, 2012, file photo, Pedro Hernandez appears in Manhattan criminal court in New York. AP<\/p>\n<p>Etan\u2019s disappearance had baffled authorities for years after he vanished from a SoHo street the very first time his parents allowed him to walk alone to this school bus stop back on May 25, 1979.<\/p>\n<p>Hernandez didn\u2019t become a suspect until 2012 when cops received a tip that he\u2019d apparently confessed during a prayer group to killing a child in New York.<\/p>\n<p>During a videotaped interrogation, Hernandez later confessed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2015\/02\/10\/prosecutors-play-video-confession-of-accused-patz-killer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">to luring the boy into the basement<\/a>\u00a0of the bodega near his bus stop with the promise of a soda.<\/p>\n<p>He admitted to strangling Etan until he went limp.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething just took over me,\u201d Hernandez said in one of the recorded confessions, adding that he\u2019d wanted to tell someone, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t know how to do it. I felt so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hernandez\u2019s\u00a0first trial ended in 2015 with a hung jury.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017,\u00a0he was ultimately found guilty of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to the maximum of 25 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n<p>A New York Police Crime Scene Unit arrives as officials search for evidence Thursday, April 19, 2012 at the intersection of Prince and Wooster Streets in New York. Chad Rachman\/New York Post<\/p>\n<p>The little boy became one of the first missing kids ever pictured on milk cartons and the anniversary of his disappearance was designated National Missing Children\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n<p>The child\u2019s body was never recovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former bodega clerk convicted in the infamous 1979 disappearance and murder of little\u00a0Etan Patz should be given&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,55671,5248,27813,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-81223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-cold-cases","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-murders","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-us-news","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114892532817372970","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}