NEW YORK — The murder trial of a man accused in the 1979 disappearance of first-grader Etan Patz ended Friday with the jury hopelessly deadlocked after 18 days of deliberations, leaving one of the nation’s most wrenching missing-children cases still unresolved after nearly two generations.
Jurors said for a third time that they were hopelessly deadlocked in the case against Pedro Hernandez, and the judge declared a mistrial. The Maple Shade, New Jersey, man was a teenage stock boy at a Manhattan convenience store when 6-year-old Etan vanished May 25, 1979. He would become one of the first missing children ever pictured on milk cartons.
Prosecutors have asked to set a new trial date in the case, which frustrated authorities for decades before a tip led them to Hernandez — never before a suspect — and he confessed in 2012. His lawyers said the confession was false, a concoction spun by mental illness, and they said another longtime suspect was the more likely killer.
The mistrial left Etan’s parents, who became national advocates for the cause of missing children, to await another trial.
“We are frustrated and very disappointed. The jury has been unable to make a decision. The long ordeal is not over,” said his father, Stanley Patz. But, he added, “I think we have closure already.”