Etan Patz Suspect’s Sister Reportedly Told Police He Confessed to Murder
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Joseph Devenney/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The sister of Pedro Hernandez, the New Jersey man arrested on suspicion of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz 33 years ago, has reportedly said that she alerted police in the early 1980s that her brother had confessed to the crime to a church group.
Norma Hernandez, 53, said that she was informed by family members that her brother had confessed to abducting and killing Patz to a prayer group at St. Anthony of Padua, a Roman Catholic Church in Camden, N.J., according to The Wall Street Journal. The suspect’s sister said that other family members were present at the time of his alleged confession and that she informed Camden police after they told her about it.
It is still unclear what the Camden police did with the information that she said she gave them. The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office told the Wall Street Journal Monday that the office wouldn’t discuss the case.
“I just feel angry that people who heard the confession didn’t do anything,” Norma Hernandez told the newspaper.
She added that her brother had returned from New York City after the killing, and would frequently look out the window.
“He was afraid or something,” she said.
Pedro Hernandez was arrested Thursday after telling authorities that he’d lured Patz to his death with the promise of soda in lower Manhattan on May 25, 1979. He reportedly said that he’d strangled Patz and then stuffed the boy’s body into a plastic garbage bag, carried it to another location and then dumped it in the trash.
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