International
Missing Children's Day is celebrated on May 25, the same day as the
United States' National Missing Children's Day designated by Ronald Reagan in
1983. We, the comrades of Unit 1012: The Victim’ Families For The Death
Penalty, endorses this yearly event, we will post different information about
the event from Wikipedia.
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NATIONAL MISSING CHILDREN’S DAY [PHOTO
SOURCE: http://www.ultimateecards.com/images/image-eb4c27311f50022230ae2003c5dac8d3-may-25-missing-childrens-day.jpg]
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INTERNET
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Missing_Children%27s_Day
National Missing Children's Day has been commemorated in
the United States on May 25, since 1983, when it was first proclaimed by
President Ronald Reagan. It falls on the same day as the International Missing Children's
Day.
In the several years preceding the
establishment of National Missing Children's day a series of high-profile
missing-children cases made national headlines.
On May 25, 1979, Etan Patz was only
six years old when he disappeared from his New York City home on his way from
bus to school. The date of Etan's disappearance was designated as National
Missing Children's Day. At the time, cases of missing children rarely garnered
national media attention, but Etan’s case quickly received a lot of coverage.
His father, a professional photographer, distributed black-and-white
photographs of Etan in an effort to find him. The resulting massive search and
media attention that followed focused the public's attention on the problem of
child abduction and the lack of plans to address it.
For almost three years media attention
was focused on Atlanta, Georgia, where the bodies of young children were
discovered in lakes, marshes, and ponds along roadside trails. Twenty-nine
bodies were recovered before a suspect was arrested and identified in 1981.
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etan_Patz
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This is a photograph of Etan Patz taken by
his father, Stanley K. Patz, on September 16th, 1978
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Born
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Etan
Kalil Patz
October 9, 1972 Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
Disappeared
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May 25,
1979 (aged 6)
SoHo, Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
Status
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Died
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SoHo,
Manhattan, New York
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Cause of
death
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Murdered
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Nationality
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American
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Ethnicity
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Jewish
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Known for
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Missing
child
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Home town
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Manhattan,
New York, U.S.
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Parents
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Stanley
Patz
Julie Patz |
Etan Kalil Patz (October 9, 1972 - declared legally dead in 2001) was an
American child who was six years old when he disappeared in Lower Manhattan,
New York City, on May 25, 1979. He is the most famous missing child of New York
City. His disappearance helped spark the missing children's movement, including
new legislation and various methods for tracking down missing children, such as
the milk-carton campaigns of the mid-1980s. Etan was the first ever missing
child to be pictured on the side of a milk carton.
In 2010, the New York County District
Attorney's office reopened the case into Patz's disappearance. In April 2012,
the FBI excavated a basement near the Patz residence, which revealed no new
evidence.
On May 24, 2012, Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly announced that a man was in custody who had implicated himself in
the Patz disappearance. According to The New York Times, a law
enforcement official identified the man as Pedro Hernandez, of Maple Shade, New
Jersey, and said that he had confessed to strangling Etan Patz. Hernandez, aged
51, was an 18-year-old convenience store worker at the time of Patz's
disappearance. On November 14, 2012, a New York grand jury indicted Hernandez
on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. His lawyer has
stated that Hernandez was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder,
which includes hallucinations. According to a New York Times report from
May 25, 2012, the police had at that time no physical evidence to corroborate
Hernandez's confession.
In November 2012, Hernandez was
formally charged with Patz's murder and kidnapping.
In April 2013, Harvey Fishbein, a
defense lawyer for Pedro Hernandez, filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing
that Hernandez' "confession in one of the nation's most notorious child
disappearances was false, peppered with questionable claims and made after
almost seven hours of police questioning".
In May 2013, Manhattan state Supreme
Court Justice Maxwell Wiley ruled that the case could move forward, and ordered
a hearing to determine whether the defendant's statements could be used.
Disappearance
On the morning of Friday, May 25,
1979, six-year-old Etan Patz left his SoHo apartment in New York City for the
first time by himself to walk two blocks to catch the school bus. He wore a
blue captain hat, a blue shirt, blue jeans and blue sneakers. He never reached
the bus stop. When he did not come home at 15:30, his mom called the police. An
intense search began that evening, using nearly 100 police officers and a team
of bloodhounds. The search continued for weeks. At first, detectives considered
the Patzs as possible suspects, but they quickly determined the parents had no
involvement. A massive search involving neighbors and police covered the city
with missing child posters featuring Patz's face, but resulted in few leads.
Patz's father, Stan Patz, a professional photographer, used a collection of
photographs he had taken of his son in the effort to find the missing boy. His
photos of Etan were printed on countless missing child posters and milk
cartons, and they were projected on screens in Times Square.
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Etan Patz [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSsr=41&GSmpid=45426922&GRid=7281029&]
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Investigation
Assistant United States Attorney
Stuart R. GraBois identified Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child sexual
abuser who had been a friend of Etan Patz's one-time babysitter, as the primary
suspect in his disappearance after receiving the case in 1985. Some boys had
accused Ramos of trying to lure them inside a drainpipe, where he lived in 1982
in the Bronx. When police searched the drainpipe, they found photographs of
Ramos and young boys who resembled Patz. GraBois eventually found out that
Ramos was in custody in Pennsylvania in connection with an unrelated child
molestation case. In 1990, GraBois became deputized as a deputy state attorney
general in Pennsylvania to help prosecute a case against Ramos for sexually
abusing other children to also obtain further information on Patz's case. When
initially questioned by GraBois, Ramos stated that he took a young boy back to
his apartment to rape him, on the day Patz disappeared, and that he was
"90 percent sure" it was the boy he later saw on TV. Ramos did not
use Patz's name, however, and claimed he had "put the boy on a
subway." While Ramos was incarcerated, a fellow convict of his who became
a jailhouse informant told GraBois and FBI agent Mary Galligan in 1991 that
Ramos told him he knew what happened to Patz, and even drew a map of Patz's
school bus route, indicating that he knew that Patz's bus stop was the third
one on the route.
In a special feature on missing
children, the New York Post reported on October 21, 1999, that Ramos was
the prime suspect in Etan Patz's disappearance. Ramos was known to the Patz
family and was the prime suspect all along, but in the early 1980s they still
could not prosecute Ramos. Patz was declared legally dead in 2001. Ramos was
declared responsible for Patz's death in 2004 in a New York civil case but
remains unprosecuted. Ramos denied responsibility for Patz's death.
Etan Patz's parents, Stanley and Julie
Patz, pursued a civil case against Ramos. They were awarded a 'symbolic' sum of
$2 million, which they have never collected. Ramos served a 20-year prison term
in the State Correctional Institution – Dallas in Pennsylvania for child
molestation.
Every year, on the anniversaries of
Etan's birthday and disappearance, Stan Patz has sent Ramos a copy of his son's
missing child poster. On the back, he types the same message: "What did
you do to my little boy?"
Jose Ramos was released from prison on
November 7, 2012, and then promptly arrested on a Megan's Law violation.
Case reopened
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus
Vance, Jr., officially reopened the Etan Patz case on May 25, 2010. On
April 19, 2012, FBI
and NYPD investigators
began excavating the SoHo
basement of 127B Prince Street, near the Patz' home, which case files revealed
had been newly refurbished shortly after the boy's disappearance in 1979. The
basement had been the workshop and storage space of a carpenter who had
previous contact with Etan as well as many others in the neighborhood at the
time. After a four-day search, investigators announced there was "nothing
conclusive found", including any skeletal or human remains.
On May 24, 2012, New York Police
Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced that a man was in custody who had
implicated himself in the Patz disappearance. According to The New York
Times, a law enforcement official identified the man as Pedro Hernandez,
and said that he had confessed to strangling Etan Patz. CNN reported that Patz
had a dollar and had told his parents he planned to buy a soda to drink with
his lunch. Hernandez worked at a neighborhood bodega that Patz may have
entered; Hernandez said he later threw Patz's remains into the garbage.
Hernandez has been charged with second-degree murder. His lawyer has stated
that Hernandez has a history of mental illness that includes hallucinations.
According to a New York Times report from May 25, 2012, the police had
at that time no physical evidence to corroborate Hernandez's confession.
Subsequent statements by Hernandez's
sister, Nina Hernandez, and Tomas Rivera, leader of a Charismatic Christianity
group at St. Anthony of Padua, a Roman Catholic church in Camden, indicated
that Hernandez may have publicly confessed to murdering Patz in the presence of
fellow parishioners in the early 1980s. According to Hernandez' sister, it was
an "open family secret that he had confessed in the church".
On November 14, 2012, a New York grand
jury indicted Hernandez on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree
kidnapping.
On December 12, 2012, Hernandez
pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one count of kidnapping in a New
York court. On May 15, 2013, a judge said the case against Hernandez may
continue towards trial.
Legacy
The day of Etan Patz's disappearance,
May 25, 1979, has been designated National Missing Children's Day since its
declaration by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
The extensive media attention to
Patz's disappearance has been credited as the catalyst for greater attention to
missing children, including a reduced willingness to allow children to walk to
school, photos of missing children being printed on milk cartons, and promotion
of the concept of "stranger danger" (the idea that all adults unknown
to the child must be shunned as potential kidnappers and child rapists).
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