Flowers, dolls adorn site of NYC boy's '79 death

May 18, 2013

Posted: Sat 12:15 PM, May 26, 2012

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Flowers, dolls adorn site of NYC boy's '79 death

FILE - This undated file photo provided by Stanley K. Patz shows his son Etan who vanished on May 25, 1979, and has never been found, after leaving his family's SoHo home for a short walk to his school bus stop in New York. A team of police officers and FBI agents were digging up the basement of a building in Manhattan Thursday, April 19, 2012, about a block from where the family lived, as part of a decades-old investigation into the disappearance of the boy. Authorities didn't say what evidence led them to that location. (AP Photo/Stanley K. Patz)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Well-wishers are leaving flowers, candles and dolls outside the New York City building where police say 6-year-old Etan Patz was strangled in 1979.

The little boy's disappearance from his Manhattan neighborhood was a mystery for 33 years, until a surprise confession this week by a New Jersey man who claimed to have lured the boy into the basement of a convenience store as he waited for his school bus.

Pedro Hernandez was arraigned on a murder charge Friday.

His lawyer says Hernandez is schizophrenic and has a history of hallucinations.

Etan's parents still live two blocks from the spot where he vanished.

A note on their door Saturday said they weren't commenting about the case.

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