At Inquest, Father of Boy Gone Missing 25 Years Ago Seeks Finality

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The New York Sun

The father of Etan Patz, the boy whose abduction from the streets of SoHo made him a symbol of missing children, spoke in court for the first time yesterday, seeking some finality to a quarter-century nightmare.


“Etan was – was – my son,” Stanley Patz said in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, his voice soft and quavering. “Etan was a wonderful child. A happy, outgoing, beautiful, athletic child.”


The 6-year-old disappeared May 25, 1979, on a rare day when his father and mother, Julia, allowed him to walk from their home on Prince Street to the school-bus stop.


“We hoped it was a misunderstanding,” Mr. Patz said. But as the days, then years, went by, he said, “We understood he was gone and that we would never see him again.”


Etan Patz would have turned 32 last month. The intervening years have been “very difficult,” Mr. Patz said. It was an understatement, spoken in a whisper.


Etan’s body was never found. A criminal case never materialized against the man the Patz family says it believes abducted, abused, and killed their son: a convicted child molester, Jose Ramos, who is incarcerated in Pennsylvania until 2014. Prosecutors have said they don’t have enough evidence to prosecute Ramos.


The only contact the family has had with Ramos over the years has been indirect. Twice a year, on Etan’s birthday and on the anniversary of his abduction, Mr. Patz sends him a missing-persons poster of Etan on which he writes: “What did you do to my little boy?”


In 2001 the family finally declared Etan dead, to file a wrongful-death lawsuit against Ramos and to depose him for questioning. Ramos first refused to answer questions.


On a second occasion, however, Ramos said he was with a young boy who looked like Etan in Washington Square Park that day, the family’s lawyer, Brian O’Dwyer, said in court yesterday. According to Mr. O’Dwyer, Ramos said a policeman approached them in the park and asked him about Etan’s whereabouts, showing him a picture of the missing boy. Mr. O’Dwyer told the judge yesterday that scenario was implausible.


“This incident occurred on the morning of the 25th,” Mr. O’Dwyer said. “Etan was not reported abducted until much later.”


Mr. O’Dwyer has asked District Attorney Robert Morgenthau to meet with Mr. Patz, but that request was denied, he said.


Yesterday, the family asked the court for $5 million in damages. The judge, Barbara Kapnick, will issue a judgment after the family’s lawyer files a memo in the next two weeks detailing the claims.


“This is the last chapter in a civil procedure,” Mr. O’Dwyer said outside the courtroom. “It represents to the family very incomplete justice.”


The $5 million sought from Ramos, Mr. Patz said, is a symbol of finality and a preventive measure. Ramos has said publicly that he intends to sell his story to the media. “The money is to make sure he never profits,” Mr. Patz said outside the courtroom.


The New York Sun

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