Pedro Hernandez. (Courtesy of Inside Edition
)
Etan Patz (Stanley Patz)
Cops busted a New Jersey man today for the 1979 disappearance and slaying of Etan Patz, the adorable SoHo tyke who became the face of missing children everywhere.
Pedro Hernandez, 51, admitted he did “something bad and killed a child in New York,” according to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. Little 6-year-old Etan seemingly vanished into thin air, 33 years ago tomorrow.
“We have a confession, a written confession, a signed confession,” Kelly said. “We believe that there is probable cause to go forward with this arrest.”
Hernandez was picked up yesterday at his home in Maple Shade, NJ, and taken to New York City for questioning.
Hernandez allegedly confessed during a videotaped 3 ½-hour chat. Cops said there’s no indication Etan was sexually abused.
The suspect took cops back to where a West Broadway bodega once stood and explained how he allegedly killed Etan, officials said.
In 1979, that neighborhood was one of Manhattan’s most seedy neighborhoods — a far cry from the tony, shopping and art district that has since emerged.
An optical shop now stands where the grisly crime allegedly took place.
“He brought them [detectives] to the scene of the crime,” Kelly said. “He described to the detectives how he lured Etan from the school bus stop with the promise of a soda.”
That’s where Hernandez, then a 19-year-old stock clerk, allegedly choked Etan to death and dumped his remains in the trash, Kelly said.
“Detectives believe in the credibility of the statement of Mr. Hernandez.”
Investigators have virtually no hope of ever recovering Etan’s remains.
“It unlikely, very unlikely,” Kelly said.
Lt. Christopher Zimmerman, head of the NYPD’s missing persons unit, said he thought long and hard about how he’d break this gruesome news to Etan’s parents.
“I don’t know if you would call this good news,” Zimmerman said. “I was glad to tell him [Etan’s dad].”
The suspect was charged with second-degree murder. Hernandez, a construction worker on disability, has no previous criminal record, according to Kelly.
“He was remorseful,” Kelly said. “The detectives thought it was a feeling of relief on his part.”
Cops identified Hernandez as an employee at that neighborhood bodega, 33 years ago, but he was never interviewed, Kelly admitted.
The suspect lived and worked on West Broadway, just a few blocks away from where Patz’s family still resides.
After Patz vanished, Hernandez moved to New Jersey and told family members that he had killed a child — but didn’t mention any names, law enforcement sources told The Post earlier today.
The man told a spiritual adviser in the 1980s about killing a child, but again, didn’t mention Patz, sources said.
It wasn’t until authorities ripped up the basement of a building near Patz’s family’s home on in April looking for remains that a person close to Hernandez called the NYPD’s missing persons squad, Kelly said.
Hernandez first let it slip that he was involved in a child’s death around 1981, according to the NYPD’s top cop.
“That [the April dig] raised this issue to the attention of people who had some knowledge … of things that he had said in the past,” Kelly said.
Hernandez’s neighbors were stunned by the arrest and described him as a low-key dad who went to church every Sunday.
“He’s a regular guy. If you saw him on the street, you wouldn’t think, ‘Hey, there goes a killer,’ ” said neighbor Dan Wollick, 71.
Mayor Bloomberg said he hopes this development can bring relief to Patz’s heartbroken parents.
“As a father, I can’t imagine what they’ve gone through,” Bloomberg said. “I certainly hope that we are one step closer to bringing them some measure of relief.”
As last month’s dig unfolded, a former neighborhood handyman, Othniel Miller, 75, surfaced as a possible suspect.
Miller’s lawyer Michael Farkas has said all along that his client had nothing to do with Etan’s disappearance.
“[Miller] has nothing to do with this latest suspect that I know of,” Farkas said today.
Patz was last seen on the morning of May 25, 1979. He went missing as he walked the two blocks from his home to a school bus stop — his first time making the trip alone.
Etan’s case sparked an international manhunt — and he became the first child whose photo appeared on the side of a milk carton. After his disappearance, May 25 was declared National Missing Children’s Day.
The boy was officially declared dead in 2001, and the case was reopened in 2010.
“We can only hope these developments bring some measure of peace to the family,” Kelly said.
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano, David Seifman, Chuck Bennett and David K. Li