"Confession can be used in missing boy trial" Associated Press November 25, 2014
NEW YORK — A suspect with a low IQ understood his rights when he told investigators two years ago that he choked a 6-year-old boy to death in 1979, a judge ruled Monday, allowing prosecutors to use the confession that appears to be their key evidence in a missing children’s case.
Pedro Hernandez, 53, has pleaded not guilty to killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, one of the first missing children pictured on a milk carton. The defense has said he falsely confessed.
Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley wasn’t tasked with determining whether the admission was true — just whether it was obtained legally and whether Hernandez comprehended what he was doing when he waived his right to stay silent.
Hernandez’s decision to speak was ‘‘knowing and intelligent,’’ Wiley wrote. While Hernandez has a very low IQ, his overall performance on tests of how well he understood the rights, his actual decision to waive them, and ‘‘his basic ability to make his way in the world over a period of almost 40 years compel this conclusion,’’ the judge wrote.
Hernandez was a stock clerk at a store in Etan’s neighborhood when the boy disappeared while walking to his school bus stop. His body was never found.
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Related: Hernandez Picked to Be Patzy
Just thought I'd flash it back to you:
"His lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said Pedro Hernandez, the former bodega worker arrested Thursday and accused of killing Etan Patz in 1979, had a “long psychiatric history’’ that included diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar disease, with visual and auditory hallucination....
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Then how can you believe a confession?
"Police: Suspect in 1979 killing has confessed; Latest chapter in mysterious case of Etan Patz, 6" by Joseph Goldstein and William K. Rashbaum | NEW YORK TIMES, May 25, 2012
NEW YORK - Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly announced Thursday the arrest of a man in the killing of Etan Patz, marking an extraordinary moment in a case that has gripped New York City’s psyche ever since the 6-year-old boy vanished on his way to school in 1979.
Related(?): Jewish Child
The man, Pedro Hernandez, told investigators that he lured Etan to the basement of a bodega where Hernandez worked at the time with the promise of a soda, Kelly said. Once inside he choked the boy, stuffed the body into a bag, and took the bag about a block and a half away where he left it out in the open amid other trash, Kelly said....
Is that the only thing to which he confessed?
The break in the case came a month after investigators spent five days excavating a Manhattan basement near where Etan disappeared. The search for his remains was fruitless.
The news of the arrest was the latest chapter in a wrenching story that has tormented the city since Etan’s disappearance 33 years ago in a far grittier neighborhood than today’s SoHo, with its tourist-clogged streets lined with upscale boutiques and trendy restaurants.
It is unclear whether investigators have been able to corroborate the account Hernandez has provided. Without any trace of human remains or other forensic evidence, any possible prosecution of Hernandez would face significant evidentiary hurdles....
All they have is a confession from a crazy man.
The investigation into the boy’s disappearance and presumed death has seen a parade of suspects and a range of theories. Last month, the FBI and the New York Police Department tore apart the basement of a building in Manhattan, just doors away from the longtime Patz family home, along the route the boy took on the day he disappeared.
He was on his way to a school bus stop, and it was the first time that his parents had allowed him to go to the stop by himself. Friday is the 33d anniversary of the day he disappeared.
Look, Jewish or not this is a tragedy. Children should never disappear.
That unavailing search was based on a belief among investigators that a local handyman who kept a workshop in the basement in 1979 had abducted and murdered the boy and possibly buried his body there beneath a concrete floor.
??????
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Related:
"In New York, investigators are digging up the basement of a building in the SoHo neighborhood in connection to the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. That search was halted for the day Sunday, partly because of heavy rain, but is expected to resume Monday morning.
Patz was on his way to his school bus stop when he disappeared. He would have passed the stairwell leading to the basement during his walk, and authorities launched the search after an FBI dog detected the scent of human remains in the room....
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Related: Jackhammers used in search for long-missing NYC child
If a jackhammer is what it takes to impose AmeriKan JU$tu$, so be it.
