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| Etan |
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| Pedro Hernandz |
A federal appeals court on Monday overturned the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who was serving a 25-year-to-life sentence for the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz - one of the most high-profile missing child cases in US history.
According to The Associated Press, the court ruled that the trial judge gave a “clearly wrong” and “manifestly prejudicial” response to a jury inquiry during Hernandez’s second trial in 2017. The first trial ended in a deadlock in 2015.
Unless retried within a “reasonable period,” Hernandez, now 64, must be released, the court said.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the ruling.
Hernandez, then a teenager working in a local store, was arrested in 2012 following a tip that he had made past statements about killing a child. He later confessed to police, claiming he lured Etan into a basement with a soda and choked him. His attorneys argued the confession was coerced and influenced by mental illness and a low IQ.
The case became a national symbol of missing child tragedies. Etan was one of the first children featured on milk cartons, and his disappearance helped inspire the creation of a national hotline and National Missing Children’s Day, observed each year on May 25.
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