Six months after New Jersey mental patient Pedro Hernandez dramatically confessed to murdering Etan Patz — and despite a largely fruitless search for bolstering evidence — Manhattan prosecutors have convened a grand jury in the case, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Grand jurors have been asked to indict Hernandez for murder based on little more than the Hernandez’s four statements of confession, plus police testimony establishing that the six-year-old Patz disappeared in May 1979 while walking alone to his school bus stop a block from his SoHo apartment and has not been heard from since, according to sources.
The grand jury’s decision will not be announced by prosecutors until Thursday, Hernandez’s next Manhattan Criminal Court appearance.
But sources have called it highly likely that Hernandez’s videotaped inculpatory statements plus police testimony establishing that a murder had been committed would be more than sufficient to meet the low standard of proof required for an indictment.
The Post reported Monday that investigators have interviewed more than 300 relatives, neighbors, fellow church members and schoolmates of Hernandez – who suffers auditory and visual hallucinations – since Hernandez’s shocking confession but none of the interviews has put them any closer to pinning the crime on him.
Detectives have scoured three computers and combed at least six sites for evidence, including a SoHo basement, two landfills and a public storage facility.
Investigators have also analyzed eight cellphones tied to the investigation.