Man convicted in infamous 1979 Etan Patz murder could get new trial

A federal appeals court determined the man convicted in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz should get a new trial or be released from custody in the interim.

Pedro Hernandez was sentenced in 2017 to 25 years in prison after confessing to kidnapping and killing Patz in New York City, in what is one of the nation's most notorious child disappearance cases.

The decision comes in response to Hernandez's appeal, in which he alleges a jury note was improperly handled during his trial and "prejudiced the verdict." In the July 21 decision from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judge said the state trial court contradicted federal law and ordered Hernandez be released, unless the state goes forward with a retrial in what they determine to be a "reasonable period" of time.

Patz went missing on his way to a school bus stop in his Soho neighborhood in May 1979. The widely publicized case was a lightning rod for law enforcement practices nationwide, and he was one of the first missing children ever to appear on a milk carton.

Hernandez was a clerk at a store in Patz's neighborhood, and became a suspect decades after the first-grader disappeared, in 2012. Renewed interest in what had become a cold case prompted a relative to tell police Hernandez told a prayer group decades earlier that he'd killed a child.

Hernandez's first trial in 2015 ended in a hung jury, while his second trial in 2017 ended with a conviction on charges of murder and kidnapping.

The case helped establish National Missing Children's Day on May 25th, and for the creation of a national hotline for missing children. Patz's body has never been recovered, and was legally declared dead in 2001.

Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for Paste BN. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.