Jurors See Video of Confession in Patz Case

Jurors on Tuesday heard for the first time the videotaped confession of Pedro Hernandez, who calmly described how “something took over” him as he strangled six-year-old Etan Patz in the basement of a bodega and then dumped his body in a cardboard box in an alleyway, back in 1979.

In the video, Hernandez said he came to New York City from Camden in 1978 when he was 15, and worked as a clerk in a bodega in SoHo. On May 25, 1979, he said he saw Patz walking by the store and asked the boy if he wanted a drink. He took Patz to the basement, grabbed him and strangled him, then disposed of the body.

“Even though he was still alive, I put him in a plastic bag, and then I put him in a cardboard box,” said Hernandez.

He said he then carried the box down Prince Street and left it in an alley. When he went back the next day, the box was gone. When asked if anyone noticed him carrying the box, he said, “New York City people don’t pay any mind.”

Hernandez also said that Patz was carrying a book bag, which he threw behind a big freezer, and that there were three other people working in the bodega at the time: a fellow worker, Juan Santana, and the bodega’s owner and his wife, whose full names he could not remember.

While a taped confession would normally lead to a conviction, there is much doubt surrounding Hernandez’s confession. Defense attorney Harvey Fishbein says that his client’s IQ of 67 makes him suggestible and gullible, and that the confession was a “fantasy” elicited from a 6 ½-hour interrogation that was not recorded.

Also, testimonies by Hernandez’ ex-wife Daisy Rivera and childhood friend Mark Pike reveal that Hernandez confessed to them different accounts of the incident. Rivera recounted how Hernandez told her during a prayer meeting before they were married that he killed a “muchacho,” meaning boy or young man, who “violated” him when he was working in New York City, which Rivera assumed meant had attempted to rob him.

Pike, on the other hand, said that Hernandez told him he was working at a supermarket when a “dark kid” threw a ball at his throat.

“He lost it and he retaliated and he strangled the kid,” said Pike. He said he did not believe Hernandez when he told him.