Suspect confesses to 1979 child murder on National Missing Children's Day

A former convenience store worker confessed to luring 6-year-old Etan Patz from his school bus stop in 1979 and choking him to death in a basement, police said, ending a three-decades long investigation into one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases.              

Pedro Hernandez, 51, of New Jersey, was arrested Thursday on a murder charge after he told police he promised the boy a soda, took him to his store just blocks from Etan's lower Manhattan home  and killed him there, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.                  

Hernandez told police he put Etan's body in some trash about a block from the store, Kelly said, where it's possible it was picked up by sanitation crews.                        

The arrest is the first ever in the decades-old case that ushered in an era of anxiety about leaving children unsupervised. Etan's photo was one of the first of a missing child to appear on a milk carton. The anniversary of Etan's disappearance, which is Friday, was named National Missing Children's Day by presidential proclamation in 1983. 

AP