US appeals court orders new trial for man convicted in 1979 Etan Patz case

The man convicted in the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz was awarded a new trial today, as a federal appeals court overturned the guilty verdict in one of the US’s most notorious missing child cases.

Pedro Hernandez has been serving 25 years-to-life in prison since his 2017 conviction. He was arrested in 2012 after a decades-long, haunting search for answers in Etan’s disappearance, which happened on the first day he was allowed to walk alone to his school bus stop in New York City.

The appeals court says the trial judge gave a “clearly wrong” and “manifestly prejudicial” response to a jury note during Hernandez’s 2017 trial — his second. His first trial ended in a jury deadlock in 2015.

The court ordered Hernandez’s release unless the 64-year-old gets a new trial within “a reasonable period.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, said it was reviewing the decision. The trial predated current DA Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.

A message seeking comment was sent to Etan’s parents. They spent decades pursuing an arrest, and then a conviction, in their son’s case and pressing to improve the handling of missing-child cases nationwide.

Etan was among the first missing children pictured on milk cartons. His case contributed to an era of fear among American families, making anxious parents more protective of kids who were once allowed to roam and play unsupervised in their neighborhoods.