Hell and Gone Murder Line: Etan Patz

inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.

would be arriving soon. Shia didn't want to roll out of bed, but Aton, who his family described as a sweet, loving and friendly boy, was excited to start his school day. Six year old Aton asked his mom if he could walk the two short blocks to the school bus stop

alone for the very first time. He'd been asking his parents all year if he could take the bus to his school, PS three on Greenwich Street, and his mom and dad had always said no, But it was the last few weeks of the school year, and so his mom said okay. In her book After Aton, the Missing Childcase That Held America Captive, author Lisa Cohen detailed that morning for the Pates family. Julie got Shira and Aton dressed.

Aton was wearing blue pants with a blue corduroy jacket, a T shirt with his light blue sneakers with fluorescent green stripes on the side, and a future flight captain pilot's cap. Julie was also packing for a trip. Some friends had invited their family to come to their country house for the weekend. Aton ate his breakfast toast and chocolate milk and picked up his blue lunch bag with

white elephants. Julie later told the New York Times that she remembers him stuffing toy trucks into his school bag. Aton had a plan that day. He had a dollar in his pocket, which a neighborhood handyman had given him the day before when Aton helped him in his workshop. Aton was going to stop at the corner bodega at Prince and West Broadway and by a soda before getting on the bus. The kids left the house just before eight am. Julie followed Aton downstairs down the three floor walk.

At the time, Julie told police she could see other kids and parents walking toward the bus stop, and she kissed her son goodbye as she watched him walk down the street. Before going back upstairs, she told herself that it was only two blocks. This was the last time that Julie ever saw her son. This case became a huge story, not just in New York, but in the entire country. Aton Pates became the literal poster child for missing children, and Julie and her husbands stand were the

living embodiment of every parent's worst nightmare. What if your child disappeared one day and you never found out what really happened to them. I've wanted to talk about this case for a long time. I live in New York City, just a couple of blocks from Aton's house. This is a case that has, for lack of a better phrase, taken more tortuous twists and turns for these parents than

any other case I've ever in investigated or researched. There is so much information out there about this case, a lot of it has never been made public in news reports, and forty six years later, this case is still active. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.

I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. This is Helen

Gone Murder Line. When Aton didn't come back from school at around three point thirty pm. His mother, Julie, was worried. She called the school, She called friends, no one had seen it. Julie found out later that Aton hadn't made it at all to school that day. In fact, the bus driver hadn't seen him board the bus, and parents and kids who police interviewed later, ones who knew Aton said they hadn't seen him waiting for the bus. Julie was frantic. She called her husband, Stan, who was uptown

on a photoshoot. He immediately came home, and police quickly began searching for Aton. They canvassed the entire neighborhood. Two detectives, Detective Ianello and Detective Bill Butler, who both worked the case on the first day, told forty eight Hours that the case deeply affected them. They were both fathers, and when they looked at photos of Aton, they saw their own children. In nineteen eighty six, Bill Butler actually took

his own life. According to forty eight Hours, Some people believed that his frustration over the lack of progress in the Aton Pates case contributed to his decision. Police got a picture from Stan, which became the iconic photo that people later saw on posters all over New York City and later on milk cart all across the country. The picture showed Aton, six years old, blonde hair and blue eyes, weighing fifty pounds, last seen at eight a m. At

Prince and Wooster Street, headed for the bus stop. Soho in nineteen seventy nine was a very different place than it is today. It was much grittier, and New York City in general had a much higher crime rate back then. At the same time, Aton and his family lived in a close knit artistic community, and Julie and Stan had been a part of the artistic community that built the neighborhood. They renovated a twenty one hundred square foot loft, which was pretty raw when they moved in, since most of

the building was commercial space. The place had no water or electricity at first, so they built everything themselves. Stan put in the floors himself and did all the renovations. He built sleep lofts for the kids. Even though Soho had more crime back then, that area had tons of artists and everyone kind of knew everyone else. Famous artists like Philip Glass and Chuck Close were Julian Stan's neighbors, and everyone chipped in to help search for Aton. Volunteers

formed the Aton Pates Action Committee. Fliers of Aton's face were posted everywhere while Stan and Julie called friends and walked around the neighborhood looking for Aton. At some point, a woman named Susan, who sometimes walked Aton to school during the nineteen seventy nine school bus strike that it ended ten days earlier, showed up at Stan and Julie's loft.

She was planning to get their keys, since she was supposed to be house sitting that weekend while the family went to the country, but of course that trip was now canceled. In New York City and eventually all across the country, this story became big news, and unfortunately, not all of the people who contacted the family and police with tips were genuine or had good intentions. Julie and

Stan set up a call center in their home. They talked to multiple people who demanded thousands of dollars for information. A few weeks after Aton disappeared, there was a news story about Aton potentially being alive in Massachusetts. Later, it came out the tipster wanted one thousand dollars in reward money for giving this information. To journalists. The information turned out to be bogus, and the tipster had called more than one publication to try to get money out of them.

There were also rumors that Stan and Julie had somehow been involved, or that they did the whole thing as some kind of publicity stunt. Now there was zero evidence for that, but that didn't stop some people from gossiping and from ripping down missing posters. Even some police officers were suspicious of Aton's parents. One of the officers made the comment to investigators in twenty twelve that he had been a little bit suspicious of Stan because, in his opinion,

Stan hadn't immediately started helping in the search. Instead, he was working on his computer. As I read about this case, I just could not imagine what Stan and Julie must have been going through. Not only were they dealing with reporters basically stalking them, hanging out outside their doors, but they had to deal with all these people making comments, especially to Julie, statements implying that it was basically her fault. The NYPD's first Precinct, which covers all of Lower Manhattan

south of Houston Street, continued to work the case. We were able to access a lot of information about their investigation through FOYA, but most of what I saw focused on the police's later investigation starting in twenty twelve. From those files we were able to see police went back and talked to a lot of the officers who worked the initial scene. Police canvass the entire area. They had officers crawling into drain pipes, climbing into freezers, into basement

and crawl spaces. Eventually, they went down to city Hall to get the plans for every single building in the area, including a lot of empty commercial properties, so that they could search everywhere. Everyone had a theory. Some people wondered if it was possible that Aton missed the bus and walked back home. Since he was too short to reach the buzzer, maybe he went somewhere else. Police brought in bloodhounds, who alerted near the Patess loft. The dog stopped at

Jim Lumber, three blocks away on Spring Street. This was a place that Aton had stopped by on several occasions, but the dogs got no further. The owner of the store told The New York Times that he had seen Aton and another boy in the dumpster pulling out scraps of Wood. He thought that he saw them that day after school May twenty fifth, at around four thirty or five pm, but later admitted he had probably been wrong about the day. Weeks and months passed, there was no

ransom note or any sign of Aton. According to Lisa Cohen's book, police even used hypnosis on Julie to help her recall every single detail of what happened the morning her son vanished. Aton's father, Stan started to consider one of two scenarios. A very sad woman desperate for a child of her own had kidnapped Aton to raise him. In that theory, the kidnapper would raise Aton and keep him safe. Stan's other theory was that a stranger had

taken Aton and killed him. Police followed up on leeds all over the world, even decades later, when they interviewed and ultimately discounted someone in Europe who claimed to be Aton. Several other people called and claimed to be Stan and Julie's son as an adult as the years passed, but none of the leads or sightings ever checked out. Time went by, as the neighbor he had gentrified, and an upscale eyeglass store moved to the spot where the Bodega

used to be. Stan and Julie stayed put. They wanted to be in the same place in case, by some miracle, Aton came home, though they did tell reporters over the years they'd accepted this would probably never happen. According to forty eight Hours, Over the years, there were a lot of tips submitted to police claiming that Aton had been stolen by a Colton Westchester, or had been trafficked, or

was living under another name in Europe. In nineteen eighty three, President Ronald Reagan designated May twenty fifth, the day that Aton went missing, as National Missing Children's Day. In nineteen eighty five, the case was passed to assistant US Attorney Stuart Grebois, and soon he publicly identified as suspect a

convicted child molester named Jose Antonio Ramos. Assisting US attorney Stuart Grabois identified Jose Ramos as a suspect in Aton Pates's case in nineteen eighty five, nearly six years after Aton went missing, Jose was being held in Pennsylvania on suspicion of child molestation. Stuart Grabois learned that multiple boys in nineteen eighty two had accused Jose of trying to get them to come into a drain pipe with him.

Stuart Grabois told forty eight Hours that he and the FBI had learned that Jose Ramos traveled the country in a converted school bus and lured children in using matchbox cars and other toys and then molested them. Not only that, but Jose had a connection to the Pates family. At the time of Aton's disappearance. Jose had been dating their sometimes house sitter, Susan, the woman who had walked Aton

to school during that bus strike. It turned out that people in Aton's building knew Jose, but they knew him by another name, Michael, and Michael had also spent time with Susan's son, Barrett in nineteen seventy nine. Barrett was four years old at the time when Aton went missing. This seemed like a promising lead. Stuart Grabois arranged to be deputized in Pennsylvania so that he could work on prosecuting Jose Ramos for the charges there and to interview

him about any possible involvement in Aton's case. Jose Ramos admitted that he took a boy back up to his apartment to rape him on the day that Aton disappeared. At the time, Jose Ramos was staying in an apartment in the East Village on East thirteenth Street. He said that on the day Aton disappeared, he was milling around Washington Square Park. He said that he saw a boy playing handball. Jose said he was ninety percent sure that this was the boy he saw on TV, though he

never mentioned by his real name. Jose said the boy told him his name was Jimmy and that he had an aunt living in Washington Heights. Jose said he lured the boy up to his apartment, gave him apple juice, and started to feel around his legs. He said at some point the boy got uncomfortable. Then Jose claimed that he lifted the boy up and tried to have sex with him, but that the boy kept saying no, he

didn't want to do that. Jose claimed that the boys said he needed to go to school, and then Jose said he stopped assaulting him and walked out of the apartment with him. He said they got into a taxi to go back to Soho, but that at some point the boy changed his mind and said he wanted to go uptown to Washington Heights to visit that aunt. Jose claimed that he bought the boy a subway token and left him to get on the train at the sixth

Avenue train station, waving goodbye as he left. Investigators were not buying this story. They suspense that Jose was lying. Logistically, in my opinion, the Washington Square Park meeting does not seem to make a lot of sense. Aton was very clearly headed to school when he left home. Washington Square Park is several blocks north of there. But I also think that it could be more plausible Jose could have encountered Aton back near his parents' apartment. He did hang

out at the Pate's apartment building with Susan. She was due to come to the Pates loft that day to get the keys to their apartment. Even though Jose had sketchy details and didn't use Aton's name, Stuart Grabois was convinced that this was the guy who took Aton, and he was convinced of that for decades. Stuart Grabois had an informant from inside the prison. Much later, this jail house informant testified in court that while he and Jose Ramos were cellmates, that Jose confessed to him that he

had molested and murdered Aton. The informant, Jeffrey Rothschild, said Jose told Aton that what they were doing was good. Jeffrey claimed that he asked Jose if Aton was dead. He said Jose responded, quote, what do you think. Of course he's dead, but they'll never find a body. There's no proof. End quote. In nineteen eighty two, Jose Ramos

was living on the streets in a drain pipe. Inside that drain pipe, according to The New York Post, he had religious items, a mattress, and a bunch of children's toys. That year, Jose was arrested and charged in connection with trying to lure two young boys into his makeshift home.

During the course of that investigation, police found several photos of young boys, some in front of X rated theaters in Times Square, others in the drain pipe, including one young boy with blonde hair that police said resembled Aton. In nineteen eighty eight, awfording to the book, Stuart Grabois told Stan Pates about his theory that Jose Ramos had

molested and killed Aton. Stan had to absorb the horrific reality that a man charged with luring young boys into a drain pipe might have taken his son and to consider the implications of what he might have done with him. Stuart Grabois and his team questioned Stan, Julie, and a lot of their neighbors about their recollections of Jose and Susan and susan son. Stuart Grabois actually interviewed Susan's son, who again was four years old at the time of

Aton's disappearance. The son told Stuart Grabois that Jose had touched him inappropriately. Back then, though the statute of limitations on child molestation was only nine years so a lot of the allegations against Jose Ramos could not be prosecuted. Despite Stuart Graboa's suspicions and the FBI helping with the investigation,

investigators had no physical evidence and no witnesses. Jose's confession did have details about Aton having fluorescent stripes on his tennis shoes, but those details were public at that point. They were all over missing posters, and other details didn't seem to match. For example, Jose said the boy he assaulted was wearing a Western belt and he never mentioned

Aton by name. Jose Ramos did get a prison sentence in Pennsylvania, after being convicted of sexually assaulting an eight year old boy there, but in the end, Jose was never charged in connection with Aton's abduction. Stan and Julie were understandably devastated at this turn of events. The district attorney at the time, Robert Morgenthal, just never felt that there was enough evidence to prosecute. In two thousand, Stan and Julie started to explore the idea of launching a

civil wrongful death lawsuit against Jose Ramos. In two thousand and four, they filed that suit. Julie went through the very painful emotional process of having Aton legally declared dead in two thousand and one so that they would be able to file the lawsuit. They won a two million dollar judgment in that case, but they were never paid. Jose Ramos ended up serving twenty seven years in prison in total for the assault on the eight year old and a second offense with a child. He was released

on November seventh, twenty twelve. For years this case went quiet, Stan, Julie and their children tried to move on with their lives. Aton's case struck fears into the heart of families in the city and around the country, and made families much more aware of stranger danger. Over the years, Stan and Julie became advocates for missing children. They campaigned for laws that would make it easier and faster for law enforcement agencies to share information about missing children, and they never

gave up. Stan gods involved in Manhattan's District attorney races, and in twenty ten he persuaded the new district Attorney, Cyrus Vance Junior, to take another look at the case, which investigators did, and then suddenly, in twenty twelve, there was a massive break in the case and once again Aton Pates made headlines. News broke that FBI investigators were raiding a soho basement at one twenty seven B Prince Street, where Aton's sister had once attended daycare. They were looking

for blood and human remains. In twenty twelve, thirty three years after Aton Pates disappeared during a short two block walk to the school bus stop, the FBI started searching the basement of a building near where he lived, the same building that once housed his sister's daycare. The New York Post interviewed some of the parents who had taken their children there. There were around thirteen kids who played

there regularly, including Aton and his sister Shira. It turned out they suspected the handyman who had done work at the daycare. His name was othaneil Miller, and he was actually the same handyman who had also done work for Stan and Julie, according to forty eight Hours, and Othan neil Miller was the person who paid Aton a dollar the day before for helping him with a task in his workshop, the same dollar that Aton so proudly carried to the bus stop on the day he went missing.

Authorities obtained a search warrant after Othniel's ex wife told law enforcement that he raped his ten year old niece. A few years after Aton's disappearance, Othnil's attorneys and family said he had cooperated with police since the very beginning and that he had nothing to do with aton subduction.

The New York Post reported that back in nineteen seventy nine, investigators had noticed freshly poured concrete in Othneil's workshop, but apparently police decided not to dig up the concrete because they were told they would have to pay for repairs. A local artist, Steve Cosma, told the Post that the workshop in the building looked like kind of a labyrinth, saying, quote, every time I went down there, there was a different wall. It was a maze. Othaniil probably put in some of

those walls end quote. During the search in twenty twelve, a cadaver dog alerted to possible human remains, and police did dig up the concrete. Also, according to WNBCTV News, police were examining what they called a stain of interest on a piece of drywall. Later it was reported the stain tested negative for blood. The NYPD and FBI stayed down there a long time. They sprayed lumino, they did

other testing. They kept digging, and they found bones. But the bones found under the concrete of the old daycare that was just one block away from where Aton Pates had lived with his family, turned out to be animal bones, which sources told NBC News actually came from Chinese takeout containers, another dead end. NBC also reported that investigators questioned a man who once worked with Othanil Miller named Jesse Snell. He was reportedly seen at the SOHO building the day

that Aton vanished. But in the end, investigators found nothing of evidentiary value, and neither Othnil nor anyone else they questioned in connection with that basement where Aton had played were ever charged, but the headlines about the case brought forward more tips, including one that would massively change the direction of the case and focus police on yet another suspect. The brother in law of a man named Pedro Hernandez contacted police. Pedro was eighteen years old at the time

when Aton disappeared. He had been working at that corner bodega at Prince in West Broadway, right by the bus stop where Aton planned to stop, and by soda. Shortly after Aton disappeared, Pedro had left the area and moved back home to New Jersey. Over the years, he had gotten married and had children. The brother in law told police that back in the early eighties, Pedro made remarks in a church group about having killed a child in

New York City. Pedro's sister and another church member confirmed that Pedro had commented in this group retreat in the early eighties that he possibly killed a child, but stated no one in that group ever called the police. Police had actually interviewed Pedro during their initial canvas, but he was never really on their radar. Pedro never mentioned Aton's name or anything specific about the crime to that church group, But in twenty twelve police started to take a closer

look at him. Pedro was living in Maple Shade, New Jersey. Police went to his home to talk to him. Pedro agreed to come to the Prosecutor's office in New Jersey to talk to investigators. In a first interview, which happened off camera, he initially denied any involvement in Aton's abduction and murder, but then he confessed. Pedro said he lured Aton into the bodega's basement by offering him a soda. Then he said he strangled him and threw his body

into a produce box. Pedro said that Ayton was still breathing when he put him in that box, carried the box out and put it out with the trash. Pedro was arrested and charged with Aton's murder two days before the thirty third anniversary of Aton's disappearance. But it turned out there was some very serious problems with Pedro's confession.

First of all, the police did not read him his rights until several hours into questioning, and he wasn't videotaped for the first six hours that he was in with police. They then asked Pedro to confess again on videotape, which he did, and he signed a missing poster of Aton, saying I'm sorry I choke him, but then later he took back those confessions. Also, Pedro had a low IQ and,

according to his attorney, a history of mental illness. At times, the attorney claimed Pedro had delusions, very vivid hallucinations that seemed real. Police questioned Pedro for seven hours. His council claimed that by the end of all this, because Pedro was susceptible to this type of manipulation, the police probably had him convinced that he did kill Aton. At the time of the confession. Pedro was also on medication, including fentanyl,

to deal with his mental health conditions. His lawyers stated in court had a schizotypal personality disorder, which included, according to the New York Times quote, symptoms such as severe social anxiety, paranoia, and odd beliefs end quote. The defense psychiatrists said Pedro heard voices, had visions, and was unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. His attorney also told forty eight Hours there were parts of Pedro's story that didn't make any sense, including the fact Pedro said he saw

Aton at the bus stop that morning. There were a lot of children and parents who were congregated. There some people who knew Aton. None of them said they saw Pedro or Aton that morning. The evidence points to Aton never making it to that bus stop. Pedro was charged with second degree murder and he pleaded not guilty. In twenty fifteen, he went on trial for the murder of Aton Pates in Manhattan State Supreme Court, but the jurors

failed to reach a verdict. One juror refused to convict because of several factors like the lack of physical evidence and the problems with the confession. The judge was forced to declare a mistrial. Another problem with that trial, by the way, was the fact that police had for years very publicly focused on Jose Ramos, and Pedro's attorneys presented a lot of evidence that they claim show that Jose Ramos could have killed Aton. In twenty seventeen, Pedro Hernandez

went on trial again. This time he was found guilty and convicted of murder. He was sentenced to twenty five years to life in prison. His lawyers continued to deny that he had any involvement in Aton's murder. They insisted the only reason he confessed was due to his mental illness, the one that caused him to hallucinate. And again there was no physical evidence and no witness. According to WNYC.

At the sentencing hearing, Stan and Julie said they would never forgive Pedro Hernandez for what he had done to their son. Stan said, quote, Pedro Hernandez, after all these years, we finally know what dark secret you had locked in your heart. You took our precious child and threw him in the garbage. I will never forgive you. The god you pray to will never forgive you. End quote. Stan and Julie's decades long nightmare seemed to finally be coming to an end until earlier this year, when there was

another bombshell development in this case. In late June of twenty twenty five, an appeals court throughout Pedro Hernandez's murder conviction. Their reasoning was that they found the judge had given the jury incorrect instructions. According to a legal expert who spoke to CBS, jurors sent a note that asked the judge a question. The issue was whether or not Pedro's first confession, the one that was made before police started videotaping,

was voluntary or not. They asked the judge if the confession wasn't voluntary, would that effect the rest of the case, and the judge said no, that it would not. The appeals court found that that answer by the judge was wrong. One of Pedro's lawyer's, Harvey Fischbein, told The New York Times, that the ruling proved that Pedro was innocent. He suggested that DA should set Pedro free and focus on finding

the real killer. New York City prosecutors announced in September they planned to petition the U. S. Supreme Court to restore Pedro's murder conviction. They argued that the decision by the appeals court raised substantial legal questions, but a judge recently ruled Pedro must be freed unless he is retried within a reasonable period, So right now this case is

in limbo. On September sixteenth, twenty twenty five, the New York Post report of the Manhattan District Attorney's office has asked the Second U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals to wait to enforce their decision. According to The New York Post, but Pedro's lawyers are opposing this request for more time. So Pedro Hernandez's conviction has been overthrown, but for now he's still behind bars. Where does that lead the case?

The evidence against Pedro Hernandez, in my opinion, is weak, especially considering how much more that jury's and the general public now know about false confessions now versus back then. Could detectives go back and try to build a case again against Jose Ramos. That's a weird situation as well, because while it seems as though he's a viable enough suspect to raise reasonable doubt in court, to my knowledge, there's not enough evidence, at least not anything that's been

revealed publicly to bring him in and charge him. Either. Could it have been Jose Ramos, is there some piece of evidence against him that slipped through the cracks, or could one of the other suspects who aton encountered that morning in nineteen seventy nine, or someone else who has

never been mentioned be responsible for his disappearance. One other thing that this case highlights is how many potential predators that that six year old boy passed in the two short blocks to his bus stop on that Friday morning. Maybe someone out there knows some of these people, and maybe that person will come forward. Aton's parents have had

to relive that day again and again. But there's no statute of limitations on murder, So if you are out there, it is never too late to come forward and to help Aton's parents find answers. Eventually, after more than forty years in the Prince Street loft, Stan and Julie sold that apartment and moved to Hawaii to focus on spending time with their family, including their grandchildren. To this day, Aton pates his body has never been found. I'm Catherine Ta.

This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camera mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C. Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the

iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from the case. You can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.