Child’s Lunch Box the Only Trace

By MICHAEL HEUSNER & ALVARO BLANCO

On the morning of Friday, May 25th, 1979 Karen Jensons was walking her five-year-old daughter to the school bus stop in SoHo when something caught her eye.

On the stoop of the two-story building where the school bus stopped was the lunchbox of a six-year-old boy named Etan Patz, a schoolmate of her daughter. Jensons, who knew Etan, boarded the bus to see if he was aboard. He wasn’t. She queried the driver but he was new and did not know the children.

So she left the lunchbox at the corner bodega, hoping someone would pick it up later. (The corner bodega was often the place parents told their children to go in case of emergency.)

The owner of the lunchbox never was seen again.

This homely vignette was related by Jensons Thursday from the witness stand at the trial of Pedro Hernandez, 53, who stands accused of killing Etan Patz some 35 years ago, sparking a futile and wide-ranging hunt for the boy and a national campaign to search for missing children.

Jensons added that she did not learn of Etan’s disappearance, until Sunday as she was in Pennsylvania for the weekend.

The neighbor’s testimony follows the emotional account the victim’s mother Julie Patz gave Monday, describing the last time she saw her son after she gave in to his entreaties that he be allowed to the short distance to the bus stop by himself.

Jensons added her daughter once asked her “why can’t I walk alone but he [Etan] can?” Jensons response was “maybe he shouldn’t be walking alone, he’s too small.”

Mrs. Patz remembered the last time she saw Etan, a dollar in his left hand for a quick soda at the corner bodega before school, a navy blue tote bag full of matchbox cars, pencils and lunch.

Hernandez was arrested in New Jersey in 2012 after his brother-in-law called the police with family stories of Hernando’s admission that he killed a child in New York City many years earlier. After hours of questioning Hernandez finally gave three videotaped statements describing how he murdered the boy.

In the taped confession Hernandez stated that he lured Etan into the basement of the bodega he worked at, with the promise of soda, choked him and threw his remains in the trash.

Defense attorneys for Hernandez argue that he suffers from hallucinations and personality disorder as well as a low I.Q. of 70, which borders on mental retardation. They call his confession inconsistent and unreliable.

The prosecution faces a hard case, as the numerous confessions Hernandez made to church members and friends, tend to change from story to story and no physical evidence, including the remains of Etan Patz has been found.

The defense has even suggested that it was another man, Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child molester, who was responsible for his murder.

The trial was expected to last several weeks.