Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said Monday he plans to re-try Pedro Hernandez for the murder of Etan Patz. Patz was 6 when he disappeared from a SoHo street, and Hernandez, now 54, previously confessed that he choked the child, stuffed his body in a box and left him in an alley.
Jurors deliberated for 18 days before telling Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley for the third time that they could not reach a verdict. Of the 12 jurors, 11 said they were willing to convict Hernandez, but a lone holdout wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Vance said he intended to re-try the case while speaking on MSNBC’s “The Cycle” on Monday, and that he will make the formal announcement in court in June. “It’s a challenging case, I’ve never said otherwise, but it’s a case we believe should be prosecuted. That’s why we did, and in our system it happens from time to time that jurors cannot be unanimous and this was one of those cases,” Vance said.
Pedro Hernandez will be re-tried for Etan Patz’s murder
Reuters
