Lawyer: Patz Suspect Mentally Ill

The lawyer for Pedro Hernandez, the man who has been charged with the 1979 murder of Etan Patz, said his client has a “long history” of “hallucinations, both visual and auditory.” Hernandez, a married father, has been placed on suicide watch at Bellevue Hospital since he confessed to killing the 6-year-old in a bodega basement in 1979. His sister told the New York Post that Hernandez had told them for years that he had “done a bad thing and killed a child in New York City,” and the family would be “haunted” by the story whenever it was revisited by the media. Meanwhile, many worry that 33 years of ice-cold leads on the case—one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in history—will make it hard to convict Hernandez.