Landmark child murder trial

Etan Patz disappeared in Manhattan on May 25, 1979, while walking to school. Nearly 36 years later, the trial of the man suspected of his abduction and killing has begun.

53-year-old Pedro Hernandez is accused of luring Etan into the basement of the grocery store where he worked as a teenager, before killing him and throwing his body out with rubbish. Etan was declared legally dead in 2001; his body has never been found.

Hernandez first emerged as a suspect in 2012, when he was arrested after a tip-off. Police had originally jotted his name down among those of the many people they met during their search in 1979.

Hernandez made a videotaped confession to killing the boy, but has since recanted his confession. He has pleaded not guilty.

"Something just took over me, and I was just choking him," Hernandez said in the withdrawn confession. "He just kind of stood there, and I just felt bad, what I did."

His defense lawyer says the confession was coerced and that Hernandez suffers from mental illness and has "borderline-to-mild mental retardation." Hernandez sat quietly in the packed New York State Supreme Court on Friday as proceedings got underway.

The trial is expected to last for three months, in front of a seven-man, five-woman jury. The court will hear from witnesses including Etan's mother, psychologists, an inmate informant who knows Hernandez and possibly other informants testifying against an earlier prime suspect - a convicted Pennsylvania child molester.

Hernandez's defense hinges on convincing jurors that his confession, which will be presented as evidence, was false, as well as suggesting the real killer was the Pennsylvania suspect. Legal experts have said the prosecutors will have a hard time proving their case. Police are understood to have struggled to find supporting evidence against Hernandez.

"It will be, I think, an extremely interesting case," state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley told the prospective jurors earlier this month.

Milk carton awareness

Etan's parents only realized their son was missing when he failed to come home at the end of the day. He had been walking to school alone for the first time.

In opening statements on Friday, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon described Etan as a "tiny man with a big heart" who couldn't wait to walk to the school bus stop by himself.

Illuzzi-Orbon described Hernandez as a loner, saying he "feels tremendous guilt ... but doesn't want to get caught."

Etan's disappearance sent shockwaves through the United States, shaping the country's approach to missing children and hyper-vigilance among millions of American parents to the dangers of child abduction.

He was the first missing child to be featured on milk cartons, as part of a nation-wide search. His parents advocated legislation that created a nationwide law-enforcement framework to deal with such cases.

The anniversary of Etan's disapperance was declared National Missing Children Day in 1983, by then President Ronald Reagan.

jr/mg (AP, AFP)