Etan Patz’s father said he would “never forgive” the former bodega clerk convicted of murdering his 6-year-old nearly three decades ago, as the killer was sentenced to the maximum of 25 years to life in prison Tuesday.
“After all these years, we finally know what dark secret you kept locked in your heart,” Stanley Patz raged at Pedro Hernandez. “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. You are the monster in your nightmares and will join your father in hell.”
Family members wept as Patz spoke.
Hernandez, 56, was found guilty of kidnapping and murder last February, finally bringing to a close the iconic missing child case that baffled authorities for years.
Also in the courtroom was Etan’s mother, Julie Patz. She and her husband were seated near five jurors from the 2015 trial, which ended in a hung jury.
Prosecutors had to overcome significant hurdles in trying the 38-year-old case. The child’s body was never recovered, there are no eyewitnesses and police were unable to gather any useful forensic evidence.
Etan vanished from a Soho street the first time he walked alone to the school bus stop on May 25, 1979. Police canvassed the neighborhood for days but turned up nothing.
It wasn’t until 2012 that authorities got a tip that led them to Hernandez of Maple Shade, NJ.