Etan Patz
Six-year-old Etan Patz vanished while walking to his school bus stop in SoHo, Manhattan. His case helped launch the missing children movement. Pedro Hernandez was convicted in 2017.
On May 25, 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz left his SoHo apartment in Lower Manhattan to walk two blocks to his school bus stop—the first time he was allowed to walk alone. He never arrived at the bus stop and was never seen again.
The case became one of the most famous missing child cases in American history. Etan was one of the first missing children to appear on milk cartons. The date of his disappearance, May 25, was designated National Missing Children's Day by President Reagan in 1983.
For decades, the case remained unsolved. Prime suspect Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted pedophile linked to Etan's babysitter, was arrested for other crimes but never charged in Etan's case.
In 2012, Pedro Hernandez, a former bodega worker who had operated a store near the bus stop, confessed to luring Etan into the store with the promise of a soda and then strangling him. His first trial ended in a hung jury in 2015. He was convicted of murder in a second trial in 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life.
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