Appellate Court Breathes New Life into Iconic Missing Child Case of 1979

The decades-old case of Eitan Patz has returned to the headlines after an appellate court overturned the 2017 conviction of Pedro Hernandez, the man found guilty of kidnapping and murdering the boy, citing improper jury communication. The court must now decide whether to order a retrial or release Hernandez, prolonging the saga that began over 40 years ago.

News watchers old enough to recall the 1970s will no doubt remember the agonizingly gripping search to identify and apprehend the killer(s) of Eitan Patz. The 6-year-old left his family’s apartment in the Soho district of Manhattan on a morning in May 1979 but never arrived at his school.

Over the next decade, the case of the missing child became a national cause célèbre. Many innovations that are now standard in missing child cases grew out of Eitan Patz’s disappearance: from the now-iconic milk carton photos to the annual National Missing Children’s Day, which President Reagan instituted on the anniversary of Eitan’s disappearance in 1983.

The boy’s body was never found, but Pedro Hernandez was arrested in 2012 following a jailhouse confession by the convicted pedophile. A 2015 trial ended in a mistrial, and Hernandez was finally convicted of kidnapping and murder in 2017. On Monday, the appellate court overturned the verdict due to evidence of improper jury communication. The court will now decide between a retrial or freedom, as the case that began in 1979 continues…