Etan Patz Case: NYPD detectives search New Jersey home of murder suspect Pedro Hernandez
(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - New York police detectives searched the New Jersey home of 51-year-old Pedro Hernandez on Wednesday, looking for evidence behind his confessed murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979.
Pictures: Man in custody in Etan Patz disappearance
More than a dozen officers and an NYPD Crime Scene Unit van arrived with a search warrant at Hernandez's home in Maple Shade, N.J. on Wednesday afternoon. Police said Hernandez confessed last month to killing Etan after they received a tip that he was involved in the boy's disappearance in 1979.
Chief NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the search was part of an ongoing investigation.
Etan went missing on May 25, 1979, when he was allowed to walk alone to a Manhattan bus stop on the way to school for the first time. Hernandez was reportedly working as a stock clerk at a convenience store nearby. He said he lured the boy to the basement with the promise of soda. This is where he suffocated him and put his body in a bag. He then put the bag in a box and left it in an alcove with trash across the street, according to police.
But no evidence and no body has been found to back up the claim. The convenience store has long been renovated into an eyeglasses shop and there are no sanitation records that could show where trash was dumped.
Although prosecutors don't necessarily need physical evidence to confirm Hernandez's story - the simple fact that he worked at the store at the time of Etan's disappearance could be enough, The Associated Press reports - investigators are working diligently and interviewing Hernandez's family and friends, including a church leader who claimed Hernandez once confessed to him.
Hernandez lived at the New Jersey home with his wife and daughter. Neighbors have expressed surprise at his arrest saying he was "not a problem" and "didn't bother anybody."
Robert Gottlieb, a lawyer for Hernandez's wife Rosemary Hernandez, said Wednesday that the Manhattan district attorney's office called to let her know about the search and allowed her to be there. Although Gottlieb said neither he nor her family knows what authorities are looking for, they are working together because Rosemary wants to "to make sure the DA's office understands the severity of the mental illness" that her husband has.
Gottlieb said Rosemary witnessed her husband having hallucinations and delusions over the years.
"She is firmly of the belief that the confession is unreliable," Gottlieb said.
Hernandez's attorney said his client was bipolar and schizophrenic and had visual and auditory hallucinations. Hernandez has not entered a plea in the case.