Etan Patz: Search Ends with No Evidence of 6-Year-Old Boy
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The latest chapter in the 33-year search for Etan Patz — the digging up of a basement in New York City’s SoHo District — has ended with no human remains found and only a few reeds of possible evidence collected from the hundreds of pounds of debris now packed into dumpsters.
The bits of material — some human hair, but not blonde hair like that of the young boy, and a possible blood stained bit of cinder block — are being sent to the FBI forensic lab in Quantico, Va.
And Monday, according to authorities, will be a day for winding down the operation on Prince Street.
After Sunday’s digging was suspended at around 3 p.m., authorities met with the Patz family to inform them of the outcome of the search. They were told what had been found, and what, significantly, had not been found: human remains or other clear evidence that their son had been inside that basement prior to his disappearance.
Patz was six when he disappeared on the morning of May 25, 1979, soon after leaving his parents’ apartment at 113 Prince St., the first time he was to walk to the school bus stop by himself. The boy’s 1979 disappearance sparked a citywide search that decades later led authorities back to handyman Othniel Miller’s small basement workshop, this time to excavate it after cadaver dogs detected the smell of human remains.
The possible evidence was discovered in the basement that was once used as a kids’ play area, which doubled as the workspace of Miller, now 75. He was seen with Patz the night before he disappeared, according to authorities.
Miller has not been named a suspect in the Patz disappearance, but he has been questioned.
Since the boy’s disappearance, a man named Jose Ramos, who is a convicted child molester, has been considered the prime suspect, although he has denied any connection.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio