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Nancy Grace
Unsolved Mystery of Etan Patz Disappearance 30 Years Later
Aired February 16, 2011 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Vanished into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to find her.
GRACE: So many cases.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re still looking.
GRACE: So few leads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing.
GRACE: Missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness seen the suspect on the NANCY GRACE show.
GRACE: There is a God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: NANCY GRACE show was out there for us.
GRACE: Found alive, 50 people, 50 days, 50 nights. Let`s don`t give up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I recall years ago, when parents would leave baby carriages outside a bakery or a candy store just to run in for a moment to get something. You don`t see that today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 1979, the last day of school before the Memorial Day weekend, and a 6-year-old gets his wish, a wish that will result in his disappearance. The 1st grader wants to walk to the bus stop alone. It`s just a few blocks away, and all the other kids get to do it. Mom reluctantly agrees, kissing her son good-bye. The little boy`s name is Etan Patz, and that was the last time anyone saw him. That afternoon, when the school bus arrives without Etan, his mother learns her son never made it to class. Police are called, and a nationwide search begins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Patz case represented the end of innocence. Up until that time, all of us felt that our children had free rein of the streets. From that time on, we guarded our children so there would not be another Etan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police knock on doors, check rooftops and basements. The 6-year-old`s smiling face is everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This particular case brought to light the evil that lurks in society, unfortunately, and it woke everybody up. There are people like that out there that are bent on hurting our children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thirty-one years later, still unsolved, the case is now reopened. The Patzes rarely speak about that day in 1979. And despite knowing their son may never return home, they live in the same apartment and have the same phone number, just in case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is very difficult. We never had any -- we never had (INAUDIBLE) there is no justice for our child.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Every day, 2,300 people go missing in America, disappear, their families left waiting, wondering, hoping, but never forgetting. Neither have we -- 50 people, 50 days, 50 nights we go live, spotlighting America`s missing children, mothers, fathers, sisters, grandparents gone. But where?
Tonight, a 6-year-old begs Mommy to let him walk alone just two blocks to the school bus. That was the last time anyone saw Etan Patz. Etan`s little face, the first ever on a milk carton, launches the movement to find missing children. But even with national publicity, Etan never found.
Now, three decades later, are police finally closer to finding 6-year- old Etan? Tonight, the case just reopened. Jean Casarez, why has the district attorney now reopened the case?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": Cyrus Vance, when he was actually campaigning to be the new district attorney of New York City, said that he would give a fresh set of eyes to this case. And now it is confirmed, this case has been reopened. Will there be answers? Will there be a prosecution?
I want to go out to Rupa Mikkilineni, "NANCY GRACE" producer, joining us from New York. Rupa, take us back to May 25th, 1979, New York City.
RUPA MIKKILINENI, "NANCY GRACE" PRODUCER: Jean, it`s a beautiful morning. Little Etan Patz, only 6-and-a-half years old, in his Soho home, lives with his parents and his two siblings, and he begs his mom and dad, Please let me walk to school, to the school bus by myself for the first time. Now, this had been an issue for a few months, maybe even the last year, when he`d been begging and begging. And this was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.
And finally, his mother relented and said yes. So she watched her son walk out the front door, watched him walk about a block up the street. It was about a 2-and-a-half-block walk to the bus stop. And he disappeared around the corner, and she never saw him again, Jean.
CASAREZ: Now, this is the Soho district of New York, now a very ritzy area in New York City. What happened? Because the hours passed. His mother, his father, they thought he was in school. Then it comes the end of the day, he doesn`t come home.
MIKKILINENI: Well, that`s right. Back then, a school didn`t inform parents if a child didn`t show up for school. So in fact, his mother did not realize he hadn`t gone to school that day until 3:30, when he didn`t come home. She called friends, and they said, no, Etan wasn`t in school and then they learned later that he never even made it on the bus that day.
CASAREZ: I want to introduce a very special guest tonight. It`s Lisa Cohen. She is the author of the book on this case "After Etan." She`s a former CBS and ABC News producer. So glad to have you. You are such an authority on this case. We have so many questions. By I first want to ask you, just describe for us the magnitude of this case and what it did for missing children all across this country.
LISA COHEN, AUTHOR, "AFTER ETAN": Well, I certainly think that there were missing children before Etan Patz and certainly missing children after Etan Patz, and one of the other really big ones, John Walsh, who disappeared -- John Walsh`s son, Adam, who disappeared a few years later. And the two cases together galvanized really a movement.
But this little boy was so beautiful. His father was a professional photographer, still is a professional photographer, took hundreds of photographs of him. So this was not a -- this was not a photo booth, grainy picture of a kid you wouldn`t even recognize if you saw him on the street. This was a beautiful child, expertly lit. His expressions jumped off the photos that were on the "Missing" posters. The family was articulate. It just stirred something in people.
And the way the neighborhood -- this was a very insular community. People knew each other. They cared about each other. The way they reacted and responded and searched for days and weeks -- people left their jobs to search for him -- it just struck a chord in people. And I think the fact that he was never found struck a chord in people. And so this case has endured. And his family went on to work tirelessly to raise the issue of missing children so it stayed in the public eye. And everybody has always wondered what happened to him.
CASAREZ: Lisa, back to May 25th of 1979. It was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. The family was planning a trip to the country that weekend. The parents must have been chaotic at that point. Just give us that feel of that afternoon, when they realized that he wasn`t with another little friend at his mother`s house, that he hadn`t gone to school. What did they do at that point?
COHEN: Well, typically, when Etan got off the bus, he would go home with -- often with a little girl who lived across the street, a very good friend of his. And so his mother, when it got later and later and didn`t see him -- she could actually stick her head out the window of their apartment and see him coming down the street -- called across the street to the Altmans (ph) and said, Where is Etan? Is he over there with you?
And they said -- and the mom looked at her daughter and said, you know, Where was Etan today? And Chelsea (ph) said, He never got on the bus. He wasn`t in school today. At which point, that was really the first moment that anyone had a clue that there was something wrong. And that was already six, eight hours after he potentially had disappeared. So she immediately hung up the phone and called her husband, who got on the subway, came right home from his work, and called the police.
CASAREZ: And their apartment became the command center right there in Soho that launched an all-out effort to find this little boy. Enter the picture -- I think it wasn`t until a couple years later -- but a man by the name of Jose Antonio Ramos. Lisa Cohen, author of "After Etan," when did the family first learn about this man? And this is the only suspect in the disappearance of Etan. He has never been charged, but he is the suspect. When did the family first learn of him, and how?
COHEN: Well, they learned about him the way everybody else in New York learned about him. When he was arrested in 1982, in the spring of 1982, he was living in a drainage tunnel in the Bronx, and he was arrested because he was accused of trying to steal some school children`s books and then entice them into the drainage tunnel to get them back.
And when they questioned him, when they took him into custody, he had -- living in this drainage tunnel filled with junk, and he had photographs with him of little blond-haired, blue-eyed boys. And the police at first - - the case had been starting to wane a little bit. There was less attention being paid to it, no solid leads. But the police saw these pictures and thought one of them may be Etan.
So there was this initial burst of excitement, and they went to the Patzes and they showed them a picture of this boy. It was not Etan. And that had happened a lot. So that it wasn`t as if the parents got very excited and thought, Well, maybe this is the case. They were often being shown those kinds of pictures. But the man was questioned, Ramos was questioned, and in the course of the questioning revealed that -- he said he didn`t know Etan, he didn`t know anything about the case, but that he was friends with, it turned out to be dating, a woman who had been working for the Patz family at the time that he disappeared.
She had been walking Etan and a couple of his friends home from school during a school bus strike. And suddenly, there was a connection for the very first that to man who had photographs of little boys, was alleged to have been trying to lure boys into a drainage tunnel. It just set off some alarms. But unfortunately, not enough because...
CASAREZ: But here`s a question I have because, all of a sudden, there`s a link between this man Ramos, even back in 1982, that he`s dating the woman that walked little Etan home. Here`s what I want to know. Through all of your research, did you find that there was a point where Etan was with this woman and Ramos, who she was dating, would be there, too, so he had gotten to see him, at least, as well as know him possibly?
COHEN: Well, there`s a lot of speculation about that and there`s nothing that`s known for sure. There have been reports that Ramos himself has said to people that he was in prison with -- these were informants that were planted in a cell with him. He told one of them that he walked up to Etan that morning and said, Hi. Remember me? I`m So-and-So`s friend." I call her Sandy in the book. And that would have been clear -- clearly, he would have known Etan, if that were the case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This was one of the very first highly publicized missing children`s case in the entire country. How do you think that has affected all the other cases?
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Nancy, the Etan Patz case is really probably the first high-profile case since the Lindbergh case. And what it did is it drew the public`s attention to America`s dirty little secret.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: May 25th, 1979. Etan Patz.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Etan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Etan`s mother let the 6-year-old walk two blocks to catch the school bus on his own.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I recall years ago, when parents would leave baby carriages outside a bakery or a candy store just to run in for a moment to get something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She watched from the fire escape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Patz case represented the end of innocence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Etan vanished in those two blocks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You`ve got to be very careful around this neighborhood after that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody. No admissions. No witnesses.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really not possible (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A judge declared Etan dead, as his parents had requested.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mrs. Patz did not sign the papers, but obviously, she did not oppose the petition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) a body (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It represents to the family very incomplete justice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no justice for our child.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez. Etan Patz, 6-and-a-half years old. It was the Friday morning before Memorial Day weekend in 1979. He had begged his parents, Let me just walk the two blocks to the bus stop. That morning, they decided to let him do it, and that was the last time they ever saw him.
Jose Antonio Ramos, the suspect in this case, is currently behind bars in Pennsylvania. For what? Molestation of two young boys. But guess what? He`s getting out. 2012 is when he`s getting out to walk the streets. And the family is saying that can`t be. There has to be a prosecution of this man in regard to Etan`s case. And the district attorney`s office has said, We are looking at this case. It is an active case that we are focusing in on.
I want to talk to Paul Penzone, former sergeant of the Phoenix Police Department, child advocate, joining us out of Phoenix. You know, all eyes are focused -- and there`s much more we`ve got to tell everybody about Jose Antonio Ramos. But is there any chance that there are blinders on and that somebody else could be responsible, but all eyes, all ears are totally focused on Ramos?
PAUL PENZONE, FMR. SERGEANT, PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT: It`s entirely possible. And you need to be really cautious with that because the last thing you want to do is overlook who`s responsible and point your finger at the wrong person. In this case, even though there`s very little strong evidence, the evidence does point to a person who`s a predator.
And I`ve personally interviewed many predators, sexual predators, on parole, and they are creatures of habit and they are dangerous. And this case here epitomizes how one person can remove our most precious asset, a beautiful child, from the planet. And you just don`t know why, how, or how no one saw what occurred. And it`s just heart-wrenching for the family, for any of the families that have suffered like this.
But you need to have eyes open, but they need to -- it`s been a long time for this case. They really need to just go back and dig in deep.
CASAREZ: That is true. OK, 1982, He was not charged with anything, even though investigators say he tried to lure young boys into this drainage pipe and a lot of pictures of young boys were found with him when he was arrested. Let`s take it to 1986, Pennsylvania. Rupa Mikkilineni, talk about what happened in `86 with Ramos.
MIKKILINENI: Ramos was actually part of some type of a Rainbow Family organization. This is a sort of hippiesque organization. He actually had a painted bus, Jean, with flowers and colorful. And he was caught with two children in his bus, and he had molested them allegedly. So he was then arrested, convicted for this, and he now sits in prison in Pennsylvania for this.
And this is when the U.S. attorney, Stuart GraBois, gets a hold of the Etan Patz case and begins to investigate. And he starts to narrow in once again on this individual, Ramos. And so he actually has Ramos transferred to New York to question him in the Etan Patz case.
And in this moment -- this is a very crucial moment, Jean -- he says to him suddenly in this questioning -- and of course, Ramos thinks he`s being questioned on tax evasion. So he`s absolutely clueless as to why he`s being brought to New York and questioned for what. And GraBois says, How many times did you have sex with Etan Patz, shocking him into admitting, breaking down and admitting that he, in fact, did take Etan that fateful day to his apartment and confessed to trying to get him to have sex with him. And then he claimed he released him.
CASAREZ: And they call that the 90 percent confession, right, Rupa?
MIKKILINENI: That`s correct. That`s right, Jean.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: It`s been 30 years since Etan`s disappearance. Can we solve the case now?
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST: There`s a possibility, Nancy. There`s always hope. Look at the Martha Moxley case. Everybody wrote that case off, too. It can be solved. I wouldn`t rule out a deathbed confession. I wouldn`t rule out, you know, that somebody`s going to come forward. But again, every day that goes by, it`s less and less likely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Etan Patz was 6 years old when he vanished on May 25th, 1979. This was just outside of his home, and this was the first day that he was allowed to walk to the school bus by himself after arguing with his mom and dad. He didn`t come home from school. His mom figured out at 3:30, when he didn`t return, something was wrong, and she phoned the school to find out he had never made it to classes that day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Before this event, people just -- you were just not conscious of people being -- children being kidnapped or molested. It was just not part of your life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Etan Patz`s family believes that he is deceased. They don`t believe he is with us anymore, but they want justice. They want whoever is responsible to be prosecuted.
I want to go to John Manuelian, defense attorney joining us out of Los Angeles. You know, John Manuelian, I think the family did a brilliant move. They actually went to court and found -- and had their son declared to be dead, deceased. Why? Because they brought a civil action of wrongful death against Jose Antonio Ramos to find him liable for the death, and a judge found him to be responsible for the death of their son.
So they`ve got a civil judgment right now. They didn`t want any money. They wanted it based in principle. Here`s my question to you. If a grand jury is convened in New York City for this missing little boy`s case, can the grand jury learn about that civil judgment?
JOHN MANUELIAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It depends on what he said. If he made a confession, confessions are absolutely admissible. But my understanding is that he`s made no confessions other than the ones that you discussed before. So it would be limited. But absolutely, former testimony in a civil case is absolutely admissible in a federal case. It would have to be determined at a hearing, and there would be some motions regarding what was said, the admissibility and so forth. But it can be used in a federal case, if one is filed against him.
CASAREZ: All right, let`s go to the callers. Jamie in Ohio. Hi, Jamie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I actually have two questions. My first is, I just find it really strange that, like, at this time of morning, when he did leave for the bus stop, why -- how it could be possible that nobody could have saw him. I mean, kids are walking together. Parents are looking out of their windows, watching kids walk. I just -- I don`t understand how nobody could have saw him. I`m just wondering, have the parents ever been considered suspects? Because it kind of seems to me like it could be a cover-up for something else that had happened.
And then my second question is, usually nowadays, when you -- when kids that young don`t go to school, parents call in, report them sick or absent. And I don`t understand why they wouldn`t have called the mother and told her that the kid didn`t show up to school.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Vanished into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to find her.
GRACE: So many cases.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re still looking.
GRACE: So few leads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing.
GRACE: Missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness seen the suspect on Nancy Grace.
GRACE: There is a God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy Grace show was out there for us.
GRACE: Found. Alive. 50 people, 50 days, 50 nights. Let`s don`t give up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I recall years ago when parents would leave baby carriages outside a bakery or candy store just to run in for a moment to get something, you don`t see that today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 1979. The last day of school before the Memorial Day weekend, and a 6-year-old gets his wish, a wish that will result in his disappearance. The first-grader wants to walk to the bus stop alone. It`s just a few blocks away, and all the other kids get to do it. Mom reluctantly agrees, kissing her son goodbye. The little boy`s name is Etan Patz, and that was the last time anyone saw him.
That afternoon when the school bus arrives without Etan, his mother learns her son never made it to class. Police are called, and a nationwide search begins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Patz case represented the end of innocence. Up until that time, all of us felt that our children had free reign of the streets. From that time on, we guarded our children so there would not be another Etan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police knock on doors, check rooftops and basements. The six-year-old smiling face is everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This particular case brought to light the evil that lurks in society, unfortunately, and it woke everybody up. There are people like that out there that bent on hurting our children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thirty-one years later, still unsolved, the case is now re-opened. The Patzes rarely speak about that day in 1979. And despite knowing their son may never return home, they live in the same apartment and have the same phone number just in case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is very difficult.
We never had -- we never had --
There is no justice for our child.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Every day, 2,300 people go missing in America, disappear. Their families left waiting, wondering, hoping, but never forgetting, neither have we. Fifty people, 50 days, 50 nights, we go live, spotlighting America`s missing children, mothers, fathers, sisters, grandparents, gone, but where?
Tonight, a six-year-old begs mommy to let him walk alone just two blocks to the school bus. That was the last time anyone saw Etan Patz. Etan`s little face, the first ever on a milk carton, launches the movement to find missing children, but even with national publicity, Etan never found. Now, three decades later, are police finally closer to finding six- year-old Etan? Tonight, the case just re-opened. Jean Casarez, why has the district attorney now re-opened the case?
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": The suspect, the only suspect, Jose Antonio Ramos, sits behind bars in Pennsylvania, 20-year sentence for molesting two boys, but guess what? That sentence is up in 2012. He will be a free man walking the streets. So, unless, there is a prosecution of this case, this man will be a free man. The sentence will be over.
I want to go to Lisa Cohen, who is the foremost expert on this case. She is the author of "After Etan." She`s a former ABC and CBS news producer, joining us from New York. You know, Jamie had so many questions from Ohio, and I want to go through them because they are important. Her first question was, that morning of may 25th, 1979, when Etan walked those two blocks to the bus stop, didn`t anybody see what happened to him?
LISA COHEN, AUTHOR OF "AFTER ETAN: THE MISSING CHILD CASE THAT HELD AMERICA CAPTIVE": Well, I would like to just first address something that was said by the police detective in your earlier segment about how people might have blinders on and need to look at every option. This is a case that`s been going on for over 32 years. No one has been paying solo attention to Jose Antonio Ramos without looking elsewhere. There have been searches around the world.
There have been suspects questioned and released. There have been thousands of avenues traced to dead ends and backtracked. It is not the case that this is the only person that`s ever been considered. He is the prime suspect for many, many good reasons. But to answer the other question, yes, you know, this case has been investigated by fresh sets of eyes every few years throughout the history of case, and every single time it happens, the Patzes are the first suspects.
They had absolutely been scrutinized. They had, from very early on, asked to be looked at, asked to be sort of eliminated from suspicion so that the real perpetrator could be focused on. They`ve had lie detector tests. They`ve had hypnosis. They`ve had, you know -- and every few years, when the case comes back to life again, they go through the same hoops every single time. So, they have been considered. They have been eliminated.
There was -- and one of the main reason that`s Julie Patz was not under suspicion was that someone did see Etan on his way to the bus stop that morning, a mailman who recognized the boy as he passed on his way to doing his mail duties. And so, clearly, he was out of his parents` hands and on the way to the bus when -- before he disappeared.
CASAREZ: The other question that Jamie had was why didn`t the school call the parents? My guess is it`s 1979, and the school thought that he just wasn`t there because he was sick, and the parents thought he was there.
COHEN: Well, this is one of the really interesting things that came about as a result of missing children`s movements that started with the Patz case is that, in those days, people weren`t notified, you know, if their children didn`t show up at school, and that has changed. That has changed. Now, when a child in the New York public school system doesn`t show up at school, and they don`t call in to say he`s sick, parents get a call, how is he doing, you know? Or an automated message that says your child didn`t show up at school today.
CASAREZ: This case has changed so much in this country. Lisa, I want to go on to ask you about the civil wrongful death action that the family brought. What was the evidence that the judge heard that made her decide to enter a judgment of finding Jose Antonio Ramos liable, responsible for the wrongful death of the little boy?
COHEN: Well, they heard all of the testimony of Stan, of some of the investigators. There were depositions taken. I know that one of the informants who had been planted in Ramos` cell, his testimony was heard. And on the other side, Jose Ramos spent his entire time dissembling, made things up, wouldn`t answer questions, made a mockery of the whole situation, and I think that that had a lot to do with the summary judgment that the judge made against him.
CASAREZ: Very interesting. To Dr. Srini Pillay, who is a Harvard psychiatrist and author of "Life Unlocked," joining us from Boston. I mean, how difficult have these years been for this family? But I think the one thing that strikes me, and it`s similar in so many missing persons cases, but there was one parent at that moment, that would be the mother, Julie, that decided to allow Etan to walk the two blocks to school.
What does that one parent that makes the decision to let them walk? What did they go through? And is it different from the other parent? Stan, the father, who told me over the weekend he was probably in shaving that morning when it all began.
DR. SRINI PILLAY, M.D., HARVARD PSYCHIATRIST: Jean, I imagine that the emotional consequences of that event have actually been changing over time. I think, on that particular day, there must have been an incredible amount of guilt in the mother for having made that decision and also a sense of anxiety and sadness that she might have been responsible for initiating this series of events.
I think one of the things that often happen in situations like that is that there sometimes is the conflict between both parents because one parent will say, you know, why did you do that, why did you let him go, and there can be a certain amount of anger and hostility that can exist between both people. But eventually, usually, what happens is both people end up realizing they`re on the same team, and they have the same interests.
CASAREZ: And Julie and Stan have remained married until this day.
Tonight, please help us find Leeanna Warner. She is 5 years old. She vanishes June 14th 2003 from Chisholm, Minnesota. She is a white female, 3`2", 48 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. If you have any information, please call 218-749-6010.
If your loved one is missing and if you need help, go to CNN.com/nancygrace and send us your story. We want to help you find your loved ones.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s hard to fathom that such a joyful face could have inspired such a sad movement, but the disappearance of Etan Patz is credited with starting the National Missing Children`s Movement in this country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Patz case represented the end of innocence. Up until that time, all of u felt that our children had free reign of the streets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That time was May 25th, 1979, the day Etan`s mother let the six-year-old walk two blocks to catch the school bus on his own as she watched from the fire escape.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think a lot of the people knew each other really well because there weren`t that many of them, and I think a lot of them felt apart from any other issues of crime so that a mother might feel, especially, down there at that time, that it was OK to let your six-year- old walk the two blocks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Etan vanished in those two blocks, and an intense search began.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember the -- you know, it`s happening, and the signs were up all over the neighborhood.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone who lived in the neighborhood still remembers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had to be very careful around this neighborhood then after that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things became etched in parents` minds after Etan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez. This is the case that was instrumental in launching across the country the plight of families who had missed children. This case was front and center, and everyone else then followed suit. This is the case that has never been forgotten and has never been solved, but can it still be solved? Etan Patz, 6 1/2 years old, New York City, walking to the bus stop.
I want to go to Rupa Mikkilineni, NANCY GRACE producer, joining us from New York. When I think about forensics in this case, I think, were pretty slim, but it was -- was it 10 years later, 20 years later they went back to where he used to live?
RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right, Jean. He went missing in 1979. I believe that Jose Ramos` apartment in the East Village on East 4th Street was searched in 1991. So, it`s quite a number of years afterwards, and here`s the problem. They say that they brought dogs out there, forensic team, and they didn`t find anything there.
And they searched the basement area and the boiler-room area. And of course, they did this based on information that they gained from Ramos who had discussed certain specifics with informants while he was in prison.
CASAREZ: To Lisa Cohen, author of "After Etan," are there any forensics in this case that modern technology can help give answers to?
COHEN: Well, I guess it depends on what your definition of forensics is. I know that there are -- that there is a lot of information that they got from Ramos when he was -- when these informants were planted with him. He drew a map. That he told one of the informants he knew the neighborhood very well, that he knew Ramos` bus route, and he marked with a spot where he picked Ramos up -- where he picked Etan up there that morning.
It`s definitely, you know, his handwriting. It`s his map. So, there`s that kind of physical evidence, but it was a 32-year-old case. It`s before they had a lot of this kind of evidence. It took three years before they found they even knew about the existence of Jose Ramos as a potential suspect.
CASAREZ: Right. As far as the informants, was all of that recorded?
COHEN: No, it wasn`t.
CASAREZ: It was not recorded.
COHEN: It was not recorded. But I will say that I spent a lot of time speaking to both of the informants, and this wasn`t just a situation where they walked up to GraBois and said we want to tell you what we`ve learned. It was a very carefully orchestrated, intricate operation, very dangerous. GraBois was in control of them, was inserting one after the other into Ramos` cell, was -- they were reporting back to him.
They were interviewed by FBI agents afterwards and before him. They took lie detector tests, and they knew information that they got separately. They`ve never spoken to each other. Separately, from Ramos, that they could not possibly have known unless he had told them. The names of other of his victims, and he had many other victims. Cities where he lived at certain times, facts about his past, all kinds of things which spoke to their credibility.
CASAREZ: So, this man is really getting out in 2012? He will walk out the door of a Pennsylvania prison?
COHEN: Yes. He`s not getting out on parole in 2012. This is -- he will have served the full extent of his sentence, and I think that one thing that people need to remember is that I don`t think anyone expects that they`re going to find Etan after these many years, but what they can do is make sure that this man who not just Etan but so many other children have been damaged, hurt, and he has the propensity to do it again.
He`s never -- he`s never completed a sex offender course while in prison. He remains, you know, staunch about his -- he says he`s the new Ramos, that that was -- the old Ramos was the one who abused children, has showed no remorse whatsoever to authorities over the years.
CASAREZ: Right, but he doesn`t do this thing anymore. He`s a changed man. To Meagan in West Virginia. Hi, Meagan.
MEAGAN, WEST VIRGINIA: Hi.
CASAREZ: Thank you for calling.
MEAGAN: You`re welcome. I just have a couple questions. I just wonder if the mother was ever a suspect in this investigation or if they was -- they found him liable for the civil case in the wrongful death suit? How come they can`t pursue charges with a murder?
CASAREZ: OK. Good questions. Lisa Cohen, I think you already answered that. The family was looked at, as are all families, but they have been cleared in the last 30-some-odd years, right?
COHEN: Over and over again. Over and over again. Yes. They have been cleared. And the reason -- I mean, the standards for a civil case and for a criminal case, as you well know, are different. And you need different levels of evidence.
CASAREZ: Right. Lisa, with everything you know, and of course, the district attorney`s office is not going to make this public, but we know it`s an active case with Cyrus Vance, the new elected district attorney of New York City. The next step would be for them to take this case to grand jury, correct?
COHEN: That`s correct. Yes. Just to bring charges against him.
CASAREZ: How much of a likelihood do you believe that is?
COHEN: I think it`s really hard to know. It`s, you know, every year that this case goes by, it gets harder and harder. I think that there hasn`t been -- there haven`t been charges over all these years, and I think that the best -- the most important thing that everybody has hoped for involved in this case over the years, Stan Patz, Stuart GraBois, is that the district attorney`s office would be willing to look at the case and really focus in and put their resources into it.
And they`ve agreed to do that just recently. And so, everybody`s crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.
CASAREZ: And they have to see the reality that this man is getting out, and that could provide the impetus to do something. We haven`t talked about Stuart GraBois, who is the investigator that was relentless. He was actually deputized, right, Lisa Cohen, in Pennsylvania to go there and help with the prosecution?
COHEN: Yes. It`s an incredible sorry. It`s one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book because just over the many years, so many twists and turns in this case. He found Ramos in prison in Pennsylvania for one charge that was against another -- a little boy, and he was going to get out. And GraBois looked at his case and saw that there was a case that had been dismissed against him for a more egregious sex abuse case in Pennsylvania and went after him.
And Pennsylvania brought that case back, prosecuted Ramos, and that`s how he was locked up for those 20 years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: It`s now 30 years after Etan went missing. Now, the case is reopened, what`s that doing to the parents?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you know, the parents have an open wound in their heart. They`ve never been able to solve the case. They`ve never been able to bring the little boy home for a proper burial. So, it would reignite some hope that, perhaps, that ultimately can be achieved.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: These are the faces of America`s missing. Every 30 seconds, another child, sister, brother, father, mother disappears. Families left behind. We have not forgotten.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diana Gonzalez vanished in North Carolina in 2005. She was 14. Authorities say she was allegedly abducted by a man named Jose Barrera Pacheco. They reportedly may be traveling in a black four-door Honda or white van. If you have any information, call 1-800-the-lost.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sarah Elizabeth Kinslow. I`m her mother, Louise Kinslow. She disappeared on May 1st, 2001. Sarah was 14 years old. Her dad had taken her to school. We got a phone call from her friends later, about almost 5:00 that evening, saying that they had been looking for her all day, that she was supposed to meet them, and she never showed up. One of the office workers had seen her leaving the campus but never said anything to her.
She just never came home. I have a lot of faith in God, and He brings me through it, and without Him, I just -- I don`t know. I`ve made a lot of media pertaining to Sarah, bookmarks and stickers. I look for her every time I pass a car. Every time I see a girl at the mall, I look for her. I look for her all the time. She would never, never stay gone ten years. She had a brand new nephew who was only six weeks old who she loved. She loved to hold him and play with him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leonard Taku disappeared from Tampa, Florida in 2006. He`s 6`1" and about 190 pounds. He has tattoos and a New Zealand accent.
Bill Cordes disappeared from Placer County, California. His mother is still hoping he`ll come home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bill was living at a group home, did love his family, very handy, very skillful. He could fix those garbage disposals. I really believe that he would have called. He had a lot of good qualities about him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: I`m Nancy Grace. See you tomorrow night, 9 o`clock sharp eastern. And until then, we will be looking. Keep the faith, friend.
END
