NEW YORK — Six-year-old Etan Patz was supposed to be right outside riding his Big Wheel, but his mom, Julie, didn’t see him on the street. She raced down the block, frantic, panic rising. Then he rounded the corner, and relief flooded over her. She scolded him for giving her a fright.
It was the next day, May 25, 1979, that Etan would vanish.
He was on his way to school, a dollar in hand, headed first to the corner store before the bus stop. It was the first time the sandy-haired boy was allowed to walk the short trip alone.
Julie Patz testified Monday at the murder trial of former store clerk Pedro Hernandez, accused of killing her son. She said she walked Etan down the stairs of their Manhattan loft that day and told him not to dally after school.
“That was the last time I saw him. I watched him walk one block away,” 72-year-old Patz said. “I turned around and went back upstairs, and that was the last time.”