Man who killed Etan Patz in 1979 sentenced to prison

A former convenience store clerk was sentenced Tuesday to at least 25 years in prison for killing Etan Patz, the 6-year-old New York City boy who became one of the most visible symbols for missing children when he vanished 38 years ago.

Etan went missing on his way to a school bus stop in his Soho neighborhood in May 1979. His widely publicized case was a lightning rod for law enforcement practices nationwide. He also was one of the first missing children ever to appear on a milk carton.

Pedro Hernandez, 56, was a clerk at a store in Etan's neighborhood when the first-grader disappeared. Hernandez became a suspect in 2012, when renewed interest the cold case prompted a relative to tell police Hernandez told a prayer group decades earlier that he'd killed a child.

Hernandez later confessed, saying he'd offered Etan a soda to get him into the store basement, where he choked the boy, put him — still alive — in a box and left it with a pile of curbside trash. His body was never found.

“Pedro Hernandez, after all these years we finally know what dark secret you had locked in your heart,” Etan's father, Stanley Patz, said after the verdict, the Associated Press reported. “The god you pray to will never forgive you. You are the monster in your nightmares, and you’ll join your father in hell.”

What happens when someone goes missing?

Defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein argued during the trial in February that Hernandez is mentally ill and made up the confession. The jury convicted Hernandez of kidnapping and second-degree murder.

The case helped establish a national hotline for missing children and made it easier for law enforcement agencies to share information about them. It also helped tilt parenting toward more protectiveness in a nation where many families at the time felt comfortable letting children roam alone through neighborhoods.

The anniversary of Etan's disappearance was designated National Missing Children's Day.