Chris's Crime Forum

From Wiki

Etan Kalil Patz (October 9, 1972 – unknown; legally dead 2001) was a six-year-old child who disappeared in lower Manhattan on May 25, 1979. At the time, news coverage of Patz's disappearance was made into a media circus in the New York area. He is arguably the most famous missing child of New York City.

On the morning of Friday, May 25, 1979, six-year-old Etan put on his prized blue captain's hat and left his SoHo apartment by himself—for the very first time—to walk the two blocks to catch the school bus. He did not reach the bus stop.

When he did not return home from school at 3:15 that afternoon, his mother reported him missing. An intense search, utilizing nearly 100 police officers and a team of bloodhounds, began that evening and would continue for weeks. Various circumstances surrounding this case, such as it being Etan's first time outside alone, made it into a greatly media-driven incident.

In 1991, jailhouse informants claimed that Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child sexual abuser imprisoned in Pennsylvania, admitted to his murder. Ramos had been a friend of Etan's one-time babysitter. He promised that no body would be found, saying "It's too horrible. No one would ever represent me". In a special feature on missing children, the New York Post, reported on October 23, 1999, that Ramos was the prime suspect in Etan's disappearance.

Etan was declared legally dead in 2001. His parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, pursued a civil case against Ramos, who was found liable for Patz's wrongful death in May 2004. They were awarded a sum of $2 million, which they have never collected, as Ramos is serving a prison term for molesting boys in Pennsylvania. He will have served his full sentence in 2014. Without evidence, a body or a crime scene, some New York investigators do not believe they will ever be able to convict Ramos for Patz's death.

Each year, on the anniversary of Etan's birthday and his disappearance, Stan Patz sends Ramos a copy of his son's MISSING poster. On the back he types the same message: "What did you do to my little boy?". The day of Etan Patz's disappearance, May 25, is now designated National Missing Children's Day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etan_Patz

A newspaper story I found from 1989

New Lead Is Reported In Etan Patz Mystery

Published: November 4, 1989


LEAD: The unsolved case of Etan Patz, who disappeared at the age of 6 from a street in Manhattan's SoHo section a decade ago, has developed a new lead focusing suspicion on a convicted child molester now in custody, WNBC-TV reported yesterday.

The unsolved case of Etan Patz, who disappeared at the age of 6 from a street in Manhattan's SoHo section a decade ago, has developed a new lead focusing suspicion on a convicted child molester now in custody, WNBC-TV reported yesterday.

Quoting investigators, the report identified the suspect as Jose Antonio Ramos and said he was a friend of a woman who worked as a baby sitter for Stanley and Julie Patz on May 25, 1979, when Etan left home at 113 Prince Street to catch a school bus and vanished.

The report said Mr. Ramos told investigators he picked up a boy that day in Washington Square Park, five blocks north of the Patz home, and took him to his apartment. After the boy resisted his sexual advances, he said, he put him on a subway train because the boy wanted to visit an aunt in Washington Heights.

The investigators, who described Mr. Ramos as mentally unbalanced, noted that the boy had no aunt in Washington Heights and said it was unlikely Etan would have been in Washington Square on the day he vanished. But Mr. Ramos's friendship with a woman who worked for the family gave his account some credibility, the report said.

Stewart Grabois, an Assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan who has followed the case closely, declined to comment on the report last night. So did Joseph Valiquette, an F.B.I. spokesman, and investigators of the Police Department's missing persons squad.

link

ETAN CASE SUSPECT IS REFUSED PAROLE

Friday, June 30th 2000, 2:13AM

The prime suspect in the 1979 disappearance of SoHo boy Etan Patz has been denied parole in two Pennsylvania child-molestation cases, the Daily News has learned.

Jose Ramos was informed in a June 27 letter from the Pennsylvania Parole Board that he is still considered dangerous and will not be eligible for early release again until June 2003.

"I don't know if [Ramos] is ever going to be indicted and prosecuted for what he did to Etan, but I'm really glad he's going to be off the streets at least another three years," said Stanley Patz, Etan's father.

Ramos is serving a 10-to-20-year sentence for molesting one boy in Warren, Pa., and another in Erie, Pa.

In the letter to Ramos, parole officials said that after interviewing him this month, they had "determined that the mandates to protect the safety of the public cannot be achieved through your release on parole."

Ramos, 56, who is incarcerated in the Smithfield Correctional Institution in Huntingdon, could not be reached for comment. His sentence runs until March 13, 2014.

link

No Evidence Is Found in Basement Search in Etan Patz Case

Published: October 11, 2000

In June, police officers and detectives scoured the basement of a Lower East Side tenement hoping to find evidence that might lead to a breakthrough in the case of Etan Patz, whose disappearance as a 6-year-old in 1979 has haunted New York City for two decades.

Yesterday, investigators acknowledged that their mid-June excavation had proved fruitless, and that the case of the child's disappearance remained unsolved. DNA and other forensic tests on material taken from the tenement found no evidence that Etan's body had been there, investigators said.

''All the bone fragments that were recovered turned out to be those of domestic animals,'' said Sgt. Brian Burke, a police spokesman.

In the years since Etan Patz left his family's loft at 113 Prince Street in SoHo on May 25, 1979, to walk to his school bus alone for the first time, never to be seen again, his case has stumped investigators, who have searched in vain for the blond, blue-eyed child's body.

Investigators say the prime suspect in Etan's disappearance is Jose A. Ramos, a friend of a baby sitter who worked for the Patz family, and they believe he abducted and murdered the child. While Mr. Ramos is said to have made admissions about Etan, no proof has ever been found.

In June, a dozen police officers and detectives spent eight hours in the basement of 234 East Fourth Street, where Mr. Ramos lived when Etan disappeared. Mr. Ramos, 57, is a former mental patient now imprisoned for molesting a boy in Pennsylvania.

link

DAD FILING DEATH DECREE IN PATZ CASE

Wednesday, November 15th 2000, 2:15AM

The father of Etan Patz, the SoHo boy who disappeared more than 21 years ago, will sign legal papers today declaring that his son is dead - and that he knows who is responsible for his murder.

Stanley Patz will make the declaration as the first step in the family's wrongful-death lawsuit against convicted child molester Jose Antonio Ramos.

"I don't know if this is a turning point," Patz said. "I'll have to sort this out. It may be the best way to remind Ramos no one has forgotten what he did 21 years ago."

Patz said that twice a year, he sends Ramos - serving 10 to 20 years in a Pennsylvania jail for sexually abusing two boys - a Police Department missing persons poster bearing Etan's picture.

He sends the poster on Oct. 9 - Etan's birthday - and May 25, the day the 6-year-old disappeared.

On the back, Patz writes to Ramos, "What did you do to my little boy?"

link

Judge Rules That a Convicted Molester, Now in Prison, Is Responsible for Etan Patz's Death

Published: May 5, 2004

A judge in Manhattan has ruled that a convicted pedophile serving time in a Pennsylvania prison is responsible for the death of Etan Patz, the 6-year-old SoHo schoolboy whose disappearance in 1979 haunted New York City, drew national attention and helped galvanize the missing-children's movement.

In a one-paragraph decision dated April 19, Justice Barbara R. Kapnick of State Supreme Court granted a judgment in the wrongful death lawsuit by the Patz family against the defendant, Jose A. Ramos, because he did not comply with an order she made more than a year ago to answer questions under oath about Etan's disappearance. The decision became public yesterday.

Mr. Ramos, 59, has been the lead suspect in the case for years, but scant evidence has ever been discovered to link him to the disappearance of Etan, who was on his way to school on May 25, 1979, when he was last seen. Etan's case was among the first involving missing children to attract national -- even international -- attention. Etan vanished in a time before pictures of missing children regularly appeared on milk cartons and billboards, and his case helped build a movement. In recognition of the Patz case, President Ronald Reagan declared May 25 National Missing Children's Day.

link

So now we know the child who started Missing Children's Day.
To think that I used to walk to school alone at that age. Most kids walked to school where I grew up in Wasington, DC. (just a few blocks from home)
Sadly, this child probably never knew what he had started.
The good news is that we have a suspect who is already in prison. I'd say the possibility is likely the suspect is telling the truth.
The bad news, besides that an innocent child has been murdered, is that the body has never been found. After decades of searching, it seems the killer must have hidden him well.
So we have a man in prison who was 59 in 2004, and his sentence is until 2014, meaning he will be 69 if he lives to serve out his sentence. (A lot of convicted child molesters get killed by fellow inmates, so I hear.)
It seems to me he may have confessed (or is it bragging?) because he feels he has nothing to lose, serving what is almost a life sentence. If that is the case, I wonder what's keeping him from telling where he hid the body? I get the impression this man is beyond caring about anything.
I hope Etan's parents have some kind of gratification in knowing this case has started a movement, as this may be all they can ever salvage from it.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- His was one of the first photos of a missing child to appear on a milk carton. Almost 30 years later, Etan Patz is still missing.

Etan was 6 when he disappeared on May 25, 1979, the Friday before Memorial Day. He was on his way to school in what is now the upscale Soho neighborhood of New York.

It was the first time he'd walked to the bus stop by himself. It was just a few blocks away. Etan, like any 6-year-old, argued that all of his friends walked to the bus stop alone, and his parents relented.

His mother, Julie Patz, learned that Etan hadn't been in classes when he failed to return home. She called the school at 3:30 p.m., then called the homes of all his friends. When no one had seen Etan, she called police and filed a missing person's report.

By evening more than 100 police officers and searchers had gathered with bloodhounds. The search continued for weeks, but no clues to Etan's whereabouts were found.

The boy's disappearance was one of the key events that inspired the missing children's movement, which raised awareness of child abductions and led to new ways to search for missing children. Etan's case was the first of the milk carton campaigns of the mid-1980s.

"In our minds there were only two possibilities," said Stan Patz, the boy's father. "Either Etan was taken by a stranger and killed or he was taken by a very sad woman desperate for a child of her own, and we hoped that such a woman would at least take care of him and keep him safe."

Patz lived with this hope until 1982, when he learned of Jose Antonio Ramos' arrest and the surprising connection between him and a former babysitter of Etan's.

Ramos was a drifter who in 1979 lived in Alphabet City, a neighborhood not far from Soho. In 1982 he was arrested after boys in a neighborhood in the Bronx complained that he had stolen their book bags while trying to coax them into a drainpipe under a bridge, where he lived, said the Patzes and federal prosecutor Stuart GraBois, who spent years investigating the case.

When police found Ramos in his drainpipe home, they found he had many photographs of small blond boys. They noticed that they looked a lot like Etan Patz, according to author Lisa R Cohen's book about the case, "After Etan: The Missing Child Case that Held America Captive."

Bronx police questioned Ramos, and he denied having anything to do with Etan's disappearance. But he did tell police that his girlfriend used to baby-sit for the boy, GraBois said.

Prosecutors in the Bronx and Manhattan pursued this lead, but concluded they did not have enough evidence to connect Ramos to Etan's disappearance, GraBois and a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said.

Ramos was released when the parents of the Bronx boys chose not to press charges against him, according to published reports. He left town and disappeared for six years -- until GraBois reviewed Etan's case. GraBois said he focused on Ramos as the prime suspect.

GraBois said he learned in 1988 that Ramos had been arrested and convicted of child molestation and was serving time in a Pennsylvania prison.

GraBois said he brought Ramos to New York for questioning and surprised him with the question: "How many times did you have sex with Etan Patz?"

Ramos told GraBois that he'd taken a little boy to an apartment he had on the lower East Side on the same day that Etan went missing. "He was 90 percent sure it was the same he'd seen in the news that was missing," GraBois said.

According to GraBois, Ramos claimed he released the boy and brought him to a subway station so the boy could go visit his aunt in Washington Heights.

"Etan did not have an aunt in Washington Heights," GraBois said. When questioned further, Ramos refused to say anything more and asked for a lawyer, according to GraBois.

Ramos is serving a 10- to 20-year prison sentence in Pennsylvania. He is scheduled to be released in November 2012, GraBois said.

GraBois said he had Ramos transferred to a federal prison, and planted informants as his cell mates. He wouldn't go into detail about what Ramos might have told them, but said he's convinced he's eyeing the right suspect.

GraBois turned over his evidence to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, but prosecutors have not brought charges. They say that without a body, they don't have enough evidence.

Watch The Updated Video At CNN

The following is a link to a well done story on Etan.It also has links to a video with Etan's Mother & father,as well as a news video done on the suspect in this case.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=7698696&page=1