After writing about Tyler Celementi and Dahrun Ravi, girls, I had to clear my head, before Iwrote about another tragic victimized child, who, in posterity, has gone on to Fame--Etan Patz!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about poetic justice!!!!! On what is today, the 33rd anniversary of this child's disappearance/death, an arrest has actually been made.
Pedro Hernandez, 51, a disabled construction worker, had confessed over the years to having murdered a child when he was young and working in New York. And when police began digging around Prince Street, and the Patz case surfaced again, awareness on the part of Hernandez and others who knew his secret, came to light.
Which led police to an otherwise obscure home in Maple Shade, New Jersey, not far from Camden!!!! Police questioned, and Hernandez implicated himself, in the disappearance and death of then 6- year- old Etan Patz.
Like Matthew Shepard, Megan Kanka and Tyler Clementi, the case galvanized a nation. A New York writer named Beth Gutcheon wrote a novel, "Still Missing," which was filmed as "Without A Trace," starring a then up-and-comer named Kate Nelligan. Names and situations had changed, but the timing of the book/film's appearance, and that Gutcheon had, at tragedy's time, lived near the Patzes, made this too close for coincidence. And, as the years went on, Etan's name became code for every parent's worst nightmare.
It was also the opening sentence of Lisa R. Cohen's 2009 book, "After Etan," which was published around the 30th Anniversary of the disappearance/death. And herein lie questions. For three years now, this book has become an acceptance of what happened to Etan. Cohen singles out Jose Ramos, convicted child molester and former boyfriend of the Patzes then babysitter, as Etan's killer. She has him saying so to cell mates, stating the body will never be found.
Which of course, what I, then much younger, wanted to know at the time--how could the body not be found, so that at least a decent burial might be given???? The book answered this, stating Ramos was the superintendent of an apartment building on East 10th Street, and that, after making sexual advances to Etan, and the child rejecting them, the man killed him, took the body to the apartment basement, and cremated it in the incinerator.
For three years, I thought the Etan Patz case was done with. And for years after, on both this day, and Etan's birthday (April 9) Stan Patz would, bi-annually, send to Ramos the now iconic photo (which Stan Patz, a commercial photographer, himself took!!!) of Etan, inscribed with the words, "What did you do to my little boy?"
It was said when Hernandez was arrested, Stan Patz was overwhelmed. I don't blame him. Not only might a mystery be solved, but had he been sending the pictures to the wrong man all along????
Which is why, if I were Stan Patz, and certainly speaking for myself, who has been accepting Cohen's book as the gospel truth, I want irrevocable proof about Hernandez.
Back in 1979, Hernandez was 18, and lived at 438 West Broadway, where his sister is said to still reside. He worked at a bodega at 448 West Broadway, which, with changing times, is now a chi-chi eye wear design shop. Members of his family have stated he had mental problems, and may have been bi-polar. Again, there are plenty of bi-polars out there, but they do not become the center of one of the most famous mysteries of the last century.
There is another factor. Hernandez is said to be suffering from some form of cancer. How long he has is not known. But this may have led him to confess the alleged (I will still use this word until I receive incontrovertible proof!!!!) murder of Etan to what he calls a "spiritual adviser." Uh, huh!!!!!
Clear your conscience, before you leave this world, scumbag!!!! Because, if you do turn out to be the sleaze that did in Etan in this world, I hope Etan kicks your ass to Kingdom Come, in the next!!!!!!
So, what did happen????? Hernandez, then an 18-year-old stock boy at the bodega, says he had never seen Etan, until that day. Which I instantly question; Etan was a cute kid, with a lot of presence, they lived in the same nabe; come on, now!
Nevertheless, he says on that day, when he saw Etan, the urge to kill came over
him. As though it were the first and only time, which I don't for a second believe. It may very well have been the first (but was it the only time, which is what I want to know!!!!) time he acted upon it, and how was he to know he was perpetrating one of the Crimes Of The Century????????
He lured Etan into the bodega, with the promise of a soda, then somehow lured the child into the basement, where he strangled him. He claims Etan was not sexually assaulted.
Now, I fully remember that, in 1979, DNA and the Internet were not around, but, since the boy's body was not, as Cohen would have us believe, cremated, but, as Hernandez would, wrapped and dumped in a trash dumpster nearby, you are telling me the cops couldn't find it????? They found Leiby Kletzky's pretty much the same night he vanished--and he had been dismembered!!!! Honestly, I bet in 1979, if you sent out the current 'SVU' cast (and Stephanie March, too) THEY would have found the body, for God's sake!!!!!!
If proof is established Hernandez was the murderer, if I were the Patzes, I would feel both relief--and anger at the NYPD!!!!! Like the cops at the end of Roald Dahl's "Lamb To The Slaughter," the answer was right under their noses, and they could not find it????????
Let us hope this offers closure for all. And if it does, then let it send out a message to current and future child abductors. That even if it took 33 years to solve the most famous child abduction case in history, then none of you slime buckets will EVER be safe!!!!
Sooner or later, you will be found out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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