3 evidence boxes found in NYC boy's 1979 disappearance

NEW YORK - Three boxes of evidence from the investigation into the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz have turned up while a suspect is on trial for the killing, and his attorney said Monday that she may have to seek a mistrial or at least recall witnesses who have already testified.

The boy's disappearance in New York City on May 25, 1979 helped catalyze a national missing-children's movement. Etan, whose body was never found, was one of the first vanished children whose case was publicized in what became a high-profile way: on milk cartons.

Alice Fontier, one of the attorneys representing suspect Pedro Hernandez, said there were more than 1,400 pages of relevant information in one box alone.

"Given this massive disclosure at this point, in the middle of the trial, there may be issues," she said. "We may need to recall some of their witnesses, we may need to move for a mistrial," she said.

Hernandez confessed in 2012 to choking Etan in the basement of the convenience store where he worked as a stock clerk. He told police he put the boy's body in a bag, stuck the bag in a box and walked it down the street where he dumped it with some curbside trash. His defense says the admissions were the fictional ravings of a mentally ill man with a low IQ who didn't understand his right to silence.

The boxes of evidence were found recently at a Harlem police station that covers public housing complexes in the neighborhood, prosecutors said late last week. The location is miles from the precinct near where Etan went missing as he walked to school.

They contain police records from the investigation, notes from assistant district attorneys who worked on the case and handwritten memos from a detective who investigated Jose Ramos, a longtime suspect in the case who was never charged. Some of the information involves two informants who were working with prosecutors to try to link Ramos to Etan's death. Other boxes contain missing-person posters, records of people arrested and catalogs of files made by the original detective on the case.

Hernandez's defense plans to call some people involved with the investigation into Ramos, a convicted child molester who remains jailed.