Etan Patz Suspect Pedro Hernandez Charged with Murder

ABC News – The former store clerk who confessed to the 1979 killing of Etan Patz was formally charged today with second degree murder of the little boy exactly 33 years to the day after he disappeared while on his way to school.

Pedro Hernandez, who despite a more than three decades-long investigation was never the target of police until this week, was arrested Wednesday at his home in New Jersey and promptly confessed to kidnapping and killing Patz.

New York City police hailed his arrest Thursday night, closing a case that has haunted New York for three decades. At 5:30 a.m. this morning, Hernandez was taken under guard to Bellevue Hospital where he was placed on suicide watch.

Earlier reports indicated that Pedro Hernandez would be arraigned from his hospital room via closed circuit television linking him to a lower Manhattan courtroom. It was not immediately clear where Hernandez would be arraigned.

In a terse criminal complaint filed against Hernandez, prosecutors charge him with strangling Patz and placing him in a plastic bag, “thereby causing his death.”

Pedro Hernandez, 51, has been in police custody since Wednesday and may not have been taking his prescribed medication and appeared suicidal before he was taken to the hospital, criminal justice sources said.