Excerpt
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): For three decades, the question hung over the New York City Police Department: What happened to Etan Patz? The 6-year-old boy disappeared as he walked two blocks to his school bus stop in Manhattan 33 years ago today.
The case set in motion a massive search effort and galvanized a movement. Etan Patz became one of the first missing children featured on milk cartons and billboards.
ERNIE ALLEN, CEO, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: Etan's case was a case that changed America. Millions of parents sat at home and thought, there but for the grace of God goes my child.
RAY SUAREZ: His parents, Stan and Julie Patz, endured years of false leads, but clung to hope that Etan might still be alive.
STAN PATZ, father of Etan Patz: The thought in the backs of our minds was always that we should be here for him.
RAY SUAREZ: The couple never moved from their SoHo apartment or changed their phone number, in case their son ever tried to contact them.
Etan was finally declared legally dead in 2001. Then, in 2010, police reopened the case. Last month, pursuing a possible lead, they dug up the basement in an apartment building near the Patzes' address. They found nothing, but the publicity prompted a new tip.
And last night, police arrested Pedro Hernandez, seen in these photos from "Inside Edition."
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Hernandez was clerking in a convenience store, a bodega, in the Patzes' neighborhood in 1979.
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