Once kids’ safe zone, shop gets new focus in Patz case trial

FILE - In this April 19, 2012 file photo, FBI and NYPD law enforcement officials search a SoHo basement at the corner of Wooster and Prince streets, center, for the possible remains of the child, Etan Patz, who was last seen near the search location on his way to school in 1979. With a cherished dollar in hand and a soda in mind, Patz headed toward the corner store that the neighborhood kids knew as a safe haven, a place their parents told them go in case of emergency. But that comfort zone became the scene of one of the nation’s most notorious crimes against children, prosecutors say, when a stock clerk choked Etan in the store basement (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

By Associated Press February 8, 2015 1 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – The New York City convenience store where prosecutors say 6-year-old Etan Patz was killed is coming into sharp focus at the suspect’s murder trial. That’s after decades of the shop being just another one of hundreds of locations tied to the lengthy, fruitless search for the boy.

The suspect, Pedro Hernandez, worked at the store in 1979 as a stock clerk. But he wasn’t a suspect until 2012, when he gave a confession his defense says was false.

Prosecutors say he lured the boy to the basement with the promise of a soda and choked him, then left his body with some trash.

Former neighborhood residents testified that the store was the place where kids would go in case of an emergency.