The Lost Boy | Full Episode

[Music] we are trying to locate a lost Child by the name of Aon F he is only 60 years old he weighs 50 lb 40 in tall blonde hair and blue eyes it's not like a case you know nowadays where you may have surveillance video you may have social media so if this case was going to get solved you guys had to solve it you had to walk you had to talk to people we had to look at everything over again take a fresh look and we just kept pressing forward we just kept looking at everything over and over and over again every missing child case is very important but this was one of the oldest ones we had it was 30 something years worth of investigative steps it's a six-year-old boy you know six I think it was one of the most significant unsolved cases in the history of New York City when Eton was lost in 1979 I think the city was in more of an innocent state of mind I mean this is the first day he walked to the school bus you could stand at that door and you can see the school bus stuff it's like right there we have always felt that he's alive we have always kept up our hope that we would get him back we can't determine when it's going to end or if it's going to end and we will keep hope and we will keep [Music] looking that photo will always haunt me and every single day that I sent my son out to school I thought of a ton Pates and I was one of 8 million New Yorkers like that this is Washington Square Park and this is significant because Jose Ramos who was the main suspect in the case said he met a boy over there by the fountain molested the kid and then said he let him go they're trying to hook me up with pain that's when you looked at the evidence concretely about Jose Ramos it was it was lacking look at this see this here back in 2010 Lieutenant Zimmerman had approached me and he says hey you mind taking another look at this case dog indicated the presence of human remains human search here the case is always open always looking for the needle on the Hy stack we have a suspect dead andad that forced the truth out of hiding disappearance ofon page the call comes into our office onto the phone right next to my desk did you ever heard the name Pedro Hernandez before no sir I grabbed him by the neck mhm and I started to chok in him is do you recognize this person yeah that's him the facts of that confession make no sense he's unreliable because of his psychiatric condition you thought that you were looking at the man who killed Aon Pates [Music] yes [Music] 48 Hours the Lost [Music] Boy after more than 30 years it took a new team of investigators and a new prosecutor to Breathe new life into an old case trying to find out what happened to Aton Pates district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr you really should never close the book on a case if you think there's the possibility that it can be solved in 2012 investigators were literally digging for Clues just blocks away from where Aton was last seen after thousands of dead end leads the public held its Collective breath hoping this time the case might finally be solved yes I wish I hadn't let him go to the bus step that morning alone Aton Pates was just 6 years old and like many kids that age he wanted some Independence it was 1979 the last day of school before the Memorial Day weekend and eton's mother Julie finally agreed to let Aon Walk Alone to the school bus stop it was just two blocks away from their Manhattan apartment um my feelings that morning were very positive about got his going Aon was carrying a book bag and a dollar to buy a soda at the corner store near the bus stop and then he seemed to [Music] [Music] vanish Julie and her husband Stan didn't realize their son was missing until that afternoon when he didn't come home from school Julie called the school and learned Aton never arrived and his friends never saw him at the bus stop so she called the police I didn't want to start with something bad happened to her I would rather start in my mind in my heart that it was just a missing person former NYPD detective Patrick ianello immediately headed to the Pat's home and then we started to uh knock on doors anyone see this boy we worked all that day we worked all that night and then the following day I got home and uh I I was ready to break down myself because because I I saw my son and he was aon's age mhm MH a command center was set up right in the pes's apartment both my wife and I are continue to be confident that he is alive and uh we hope he's being cared for by someone who um might want a child as adorable as he the police did not know us we had to be cleared of Suspicion as well as many other people eton's image was splashed on storefronts and in newspapers eton's father is a professional photographer and took many phot pH of his son these pictures captured the Public's heart and captured aton's Spirit he's just bubbling over with life and he always saw the positive side where other people saw negative it's just he's just an incredible person our six-year-old boy is a loving trusting child we think an adult could have convinced him to come with him the police canvased the neighborhood talking to people on the street interviewing workers at a corner store near the school bus stop hi one you heard anything anything she justest no anybody talking anybody saying anything nothing okay thanks a lot keep your ears open the longer we've gone without any bad news I think that's good detective Bill Butler was iano's partner uh was last seen at uh 7:55 a.m. we have leads we don't know where we're going to end up on the leads that we have now well they pronounce it eight time when you go this long on something like this you do you you feel like you're looking for your own son the search for Aton dragged on detective Butler a father with six children lived and breathed the case how did this case influence Bill Butler more than I could imagine he was very very tight into the case in 1986 Bill Butler took his own life and there was speculation his frustration with this case may have been part of the reason why the search went on without Butler Julian Stan had two other children to protect protect eton's older sister and younger brother we keep saying we we try to lead normal lives but in so many small ways uh it's just totally impossible I mean we have his belongings all over the house and yet uh to put them away is saying to to us and to our children that uh he's gone and he's not coming back and if we're patient we'll get them back but their patience went unrewarded the patas did everything they could to keep their story in the news and that helped other missing children everyone says how many where why what happens to them in the 1980s mil cartons showed eton's face and then those of others but Eton remained among the missing by 1998 a new detective was heading the the missing person Squad Phil Mahoney was drawn to the case by of all things a poem titled the missing boy it's about a mother and son looking at aon's missing poster I read that poem and I said that's it I want to work on the Aton Fates case it was pretty much inactive it had been inactive for many years it was cold it was colder than gold we had to find the the the reports put them back together Mahoney sorted through nearly two decades worth of work and some bizarre tips this tip about this cult in Westchester did that Source say that Aon was there yeah that Aon was killed by that cult and dumped the leads LED nowhere but there was someone who police were very interested in Jose Ramos the man who said he may have encountered a boy in Washington Square Park not far from where the pes's lived did he say it was Aon Pates he has said he was 90% sure it was Aon [Music] Pates you ever have a kid named Anon pots yeah that was in the papers in 79 in 1982 Jose Ramos was picked up by police for stealing some books from children he was homeless living in a drainage tunnel in New York City and former Lieutenant Phil Mahoney recalls Ramos had some disturbing photos he had a bunch of photos of kids that look like Aon Pates he was a shaky character so he enjoyed looking at these photos so Ramos was questioned by investigators about the photos what what is it about that people say it looks like eaten the smile I think how about the hair maybe the hair not that much Susan used to take care of him Susan Harrington Susan Harrington Ramos's girlfriend walked Aon to school during a bus strike shortly before Eton disappeared did you know where he lived in SoHo it was in the papers investigators suspected Ramos was a pedophile who could have ties to Aon there was enough there there was a lot there to draw attention to him certainly Aton often played in Washington Square Park a place Ramos was known to visit Jose Ramos has said several times that on May 25th 1979 he was here and a young small sevenish blonde kid came up to him and started talking to him and Jose Ramos said at that point he eventually took the kid back to his apartment Ramos told that story to Federal prosecutor steuart grab who had been working the case since 1985 grab and the FBI had Through The Years tracked leads around the world but they always came back to Ramos in June 1988 Ramos was uh brought to my office and uh proceeded to state that he was 90% sure that the young boy he took that day May 25th 1979 was the same boy whose picture he saw both in newspaper and on television that being atamp Pates investigators learned Ramos had sexually molested children around the country one of the things he did was to travel around the United States in a converted School Bus giving out Matchbox cars and toys and baseball cards to children to young boys to entice them on to the bus grabois wanted to prosecute Ramos even if it wasn't for the Aon Pates case he succeeded in Pennsylvania in 1990 Ramos pled guilty to molesting an 8-year-old boy and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison you've got a known pedophile who says that he's 90% sure that he picked up Aton Pates you know around the time that he disappeared why didn't you just go okay case closed because you didn't have that corroborating evidence you didn't have that one person who said yeah I saw him and Aon in Washington Square Park you got the information investigators hunted for more evidence in 2000 Mahoney ordered a search of an apartment building Ramos lived in when Aon disappeared Ramos had allegedly told a fellow inmate this is where he disposed of aton's body when he was in jail Jose Ramos said that he put a on into the furnace in the basement this building this building and you know burned up the body but like so many tips in the Aton Pates case nothing came of it there was just never that next thing to make you say yep that's it close the books we got the guy Mahoney felt they didn't have enough on Ramos to charge him with aon's disappearance neither did the Manhattan da at the time but Stan Pates and Stuart grabois were becoming more convinced Ramos was their man I believe this man stalked my son I believe he lured him back to his apartment I think he used them like toilet paper and I think he threw him away Brian OWI is a prominent New York attorney and started representing the Pates he was friends with Stuart grabois and in 2000 he approached grabis with an idea I said you know you have an opportunity you may not have thought about it but of taking a civil case against Ramos it would be a wrongful death suit Odo hoped Ramos would be subpoena and might say something incriminating to help bring a criminal case but before the wrongful death case could proceed OWI had to ask the Pates to officially give up hope they would have to ask a Court to declare their Son dead it's one of the toughest things I've ever done in my practice and on June 19th 2001 a judge declared that Aon Pates was officially dead I used to have fantasies of of a taxi cab pulling up in front and Aon coming out of it but uh that was a long time ago I don't entertain those fantasies anymore the pes's attorney went to the Pennsylvania prison where Ramos was being held to interview the man he believed had killed Aon Pates this was evil incarnate if I met him on the street I would have been very scared and what did he say he said that yes indeed he was on the street that day and he picked up a little boy by the name of Jimmy this time Ramos did not say eton's name were you convinced that Ramos was the guy absolutely Ramos would never answer more questions or testify in court and the Pates won the civil case against him once and for all at least have a final declaration by a court of law that Jose Antonio Ramos caused the death of Aton Pates it was a victory but it was not the end of the fight the ultimate objective was to get a criminal prosecution did you think it was enough to prosecute him criminally I did the Manhattan da disagreed he still would not charge Jose Ramos he thought he couldn't prove it Beyond A Reasonable Doubt do you keep thinking about this case or did you move on no I never moved on never moved on Jose Antonio Ros was in prison unpunished for what he believed was the death of Aon Bates but 33 years after Aton disappeared there was a tip this is where it all started and it could change everything in this [Music] case I think about my son every day he's he's he's gone but I will never forget him as time passed for Stan and Julie Pates Eton was and is Frozen in Time as a six-year-old gone missing they remained convinced that Jose Ramos the pedophile who was behind bars in Pennsylvania was responsible for aon's death I send him a a poster twice a year and I write on the back what did you do to my little boy from the time Aton disappeared in 1979 until until 2009 one man held the position of Manhattan da Robert morganthall he never felt there was enough evidence to indict Ramos but morgantha was retiring I support sance Cyrus Vance Jr was running for the office the Pates family reached out to me and Stan asked me if I would look into the [Applause] case and when Vance became hatan da in 2010 he did look into it Side dance is like listen we'd like to re you know fresh that eyes relook at it go backwards see what was missed Lieutenant Chris Zimmerman headed the missing person Squad at the time and part of the fresh look included another look at Jose Ramos we looked at the case for quite a while and I never was convinced that there was proof Beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ramos was aon's killer and so the search for another suspect continued the FBI had been involved on and off since aon's Disappearance in April of 2012 investigators took another look at this handyman who used to work for the PES along with the NYPD they started that day it was at the former site of the handyman's workshop we're EX uting a search warrant regarding The Disappearance of Aon Pates it was not far from where the peses still live excuse me the Dig went on for 5 days as investigators sifted through Subterranean spaces and decades old dirt it was starting to look like there might finally be some answers we're cautiously optimistic we'll find evidence in the end nothing was found the handyman was cleared at this point there's no obvious human remains but this was not just another dead end far from it in fact it led to the first major turning point in this case the call comes into our office onto the phone right next to my desk it came from Jose Lopez who called police after he watched news coverage of the Dig can can you tell what brought you to the police thank you very much okay that's what I went he said his brother-in-law might be involved in the case detective Dave Ramirez helped lead the investigation and who was his brother-in-law Pedro Hernandez did you ever heard the name Pedro Hernandez before no sir no what did he tell you about his brother-in-law um that he had made statements to various people about him having done something really bad to a child in New York Pedro Hernandez worked as a stock boy at that corner store by the bus stop he was 18 when Eton disappeared and soon after Hernandez left that job and moved home to New Jersey over the years he had been divorced remarried and had children he worked on and off at menial jobs and had no criminal record but he had told people about hurting an unnamed child so who had Hernandez spoken to there was a religious group apparently there was a retreat that they had gone on they all had information to the fact that M Hernandez did something to this child Ramirez learned Hernandez also told his ex-wife and a friend similar stories detectives notes from 1979 show police at the time knew Hernandez worked at the store but it is is unclear if he was ever questioned why do you suppose he was not a suspect before I don't have the answer for it I wasn't there you know I I never got Clarity on that and I don't think he did either about two weeks after they learned about Hernandez on May 23rd 2012 police went to his New Jersey home to talk to him I had a told him that we were investigating an old missing person's case in New York City at that point he like he lost all the color in his face still Hernandez readily agreed to go to the prosecutor's office in Camden New Jersey to be questioned was it hard to get him talking no no he talked for 6 hours without a lawyer or a recording of the conversation and during that time he was shown a missing poster of Aon Pates later the video camera was turned on can you start telling us again exactly what you just told us before about what happened and Hernandez told them about seeing a boy outside the store where he worked who was waiting for the school bus who was waiting for the school bus what's his name and P these are the words that changed the course of one of America's most heartbreaking cold cases Hernandez went on telling police he offered Aon a soda then I asked him I asked him to go to the in the basement with me to get the soda it is hard to listen to his story then what happened after that then I choked him yeah when I choked he went this what made you do this I don't know I don't know it was something that just happened he signed aon's missing poster writing I am sorry and choke him and you recognize this to be the boy that you choked that day after the confession Hernandez showed investigators where he said it happened 33 years earlier Lieutenant Zimmerman recorded the walk with his cell phone so Hernandez told you here that this was the basement entrance yes so according to Hernandez Aon was that way from where we are yes and he lured him in into the basement through this door yes sir Hernandez said he put Aon in a box after choking him put him in a box and then put the Box on his I'm carry the Box up out of here at this point I said could you show us exactly the way you walk that day we crossed the street on to the other side and how far down did he go then he went down to the corner he went this way right yes he crossed the street here and um he stops here at this location he said he went down some steps he he took the body down here yes and then he put the box down police believe the box was picked up by garbage collectors Hernandez was interviewed again hey Mr Hernandez hello hours after the Soho Walk This Time by a prosecutor in the Manhattan DA's office then I choked him and I tried to let go but I just couldn't let him go he repeated the same story and later that day Pedro Hernandez was arrested we have a suspect in custody who has made a statement to the NYPD implicating himself in The Disappearance of Aton Pates 33 years ago he had confessed to killing Aon Pates it was a credible confession so says the prosecutor but soon questions were being asked about the 6 hours when Hernandez was questioned before the videotape in began why weren't those first hours [Music] [Applause] videotaped it was a day or twoo shy of the 33rd anniversary it was a day or two shy that we made the arrest this evening the New York City Police Department is announcing the arrest of Pedro Hernandez age 51 of Mr Pat was taken back a little surprised and I would say overwhelmed you know it had a sink in you know 30 something years it had a sink in you know I can't imagine not having an answer for that many years for decades Stan and Julie Pates believed another man was responsible for their son's Disappearance in 1979 I believe this man stalked my son I want him to admit it now someone was admitting it but it was this man Pedro Hernandez he was waiting for this then he went down the stairs right he went like this after Hernandez was arrested he was thought to be a suicide risk and taken to Belleview hospital I met him at uh the prison Ward Harvey fishbine is Pedro Hernandez's court-appointed attorney I walked out of there and I said the man has an issue that needs to be addressed I hear voices sometimes talking to me a defense psychiatrist diagnosed Hernandez with a personality disorder that can leave a person unable to different iate between what's real and what's not I had Vis do you think Pedro Hernandez knows if he killed Aton Pates or not I I I think he knows he didn't and that's think are you sure it's hard to look into someone's mind which is one of the real problems we have here the diagnosis of mental illness would be a major part of Hernandez's defense and in January of 2015 2 and 1/2 years after his arrest Hernandez went on trial for the murder of Aon Pates Aon Pat's father walked silently past reporters in the courthouse finally hoping to see Justice served nearly 36 years after his young son's disappearance at trial the defense would argue that Hernandez's mental illness made him make up the whole story of murder ing Aton starting with seeing him by the bus stop Pedro says I saw him standing there he was waiting for the yet no parent that was at the bus stop that morning who knew Aon saw Aon that morning so the fact that Pedro said that he saw the child there when no one else did immediately raises questions as to did this actually happen or not Hernandez told investigators he tried to hide aon's book bag in the basement of that store so I took the book bag and I threw it behind the freezer but fishbine says the police would have searched that store and if they did they should have found the bag or some other evidence that bag was never recovered the defense also argued that Hernandez has a low IQ and is susceptible to suggestions we argued to the jury he's unreliable because of his low intellect because of his psychiatric condition and of course the story in the end does not make sense but the prosecution experts interviewed Hernandez I'm going to say some words and concluded he is not mentally ill and that the jury could believe his words prosecutors had home videos showing Hernandez socializing like anyone else and they pointed out that Hernandez never reported any mental illness on a driver's license renewal form he filled out do you believe that he was competent to confess absolutely I think there was ample evidence that Pedro Hernandez was not fabricating uh this uh homicide as the product of Mental Illness but that he in fact was admitting to something that had tortured him and he confessed but fishbine wants the jury to wonder what happened during those 6 hours before this videotaping began can you start telling us again exactly what you just told us before there was an affirmative decision not to videotape what was going on all it would have taken was the pushing of a button why wasn't that taped uh I think it was not taped because there was no legal requirement that it be taped how do you know that they didn't feed him information how do you know they didn't Bering the way you assure yourself is by talking to the witnesses who were there uh after speaking to those who were present and being informed of what happened I did not doubt that uh there was uh anything but a fair handling of Mr Hernandez and uh the appropriate questioning of him did you give him any information about the crime when you were talking to Mr Hernandez no did you try and influence him I wouldn't say no this was all of him just talking to you volunteering this stuff yes the defense argued police prayed on Hernandez's vulnerability and manipulated him to confess Pedro is a very religious person one of the detectives says thank you ped I can't be to tell you how proud I am of you that's the strength of the Lord right there is strength that's the strength of the Lord what's the strength of the Lord that he said something that they said they needed in order to make people feel better than family to resolve it but the police would counter and the prosecutors would counter that this guy confessed to so many people over the years that he corroborates his own words well they they would like to say that that's I know and I don't think that's accurate the prosecution called those church members Hernandez's ex-wife who did you tell you said you told your ex-wife right and his friend who all said Hernandez told them he he did something bad to a young boy but at the time they never reported anything because they didn't know whether to believe him if it was one statement in isolation that would be one thing there were a number of people to whom he unburdened himself but fishbine told the jury those accounts varied and Hernandez may have been making them up to look tough and he offered the jurors another suspect the man many including the PES first thought killed Aon Jose Ramos the known pedophile whose girlfriend knew Aon I feel certain that if the District Attorney's office tried Jose Ramos he would be convicted the evidence against Pedro Hernandez was much stronger than it had ever been against Jose Ramos the prosecutors had one piece of evidence they considered critical it was something Hernandez said when he showed police where he said he dumped aon's body he noticed there was a door where he didn't remember one and he says there wasn't a door there was when they researched the building's history prosecutors discovered Hernandez was right the door was added after 1979 that's a fact that was not known publicly that we believed only the killer would know but the defense says Hernandez wasn't even sure which building it was which one you remember he said I thought maybe this is it and then he looks and he says no this is it right it was a lot for the jurors to sift through the trial took nearly 3 months and in April 2015 they began deliberating and deliberating for 18 [Music] days what happened after that then I ched him yeah when I ched he went back for 18 days the jury considered Pedro Hernandez's confession to the murder of Aon Pates a big bone of contention was the mental health issue we debated that for days Adam Siris was one of the jurors the other issue that was very sticky at first was the confession everyone felt very upset about not being able to see the entire interview the jurors disagreed on whether the confession could have been coerced twice they told the judge they were at an impass and the third time they reported they could not reach a verdict on May 8th 2015 this has been a very long trial and a very long deliberation the judge declared cled a mistrial our long ordeal is not over when they said they were unable to reach a decision we believed it was going to be 11:1 for a quiddle it was 11:1 but not for a quid only one juror voted not guilty it was Adam Siris do you remember the date [Music] no he found the confession hard to believe not knowing what went on before the camera started rolling you know it's very hard for people to wrap their minds around the idea that somebody would confess to murdering a child if he didn't actually do it yeah and a lot of the jurors said that in our deliberations but the whole reason why you don't just throw someone in jail when they confess is that there's a lot of people out there with mental illness that could confess to lots of crimes and doesn't mean they're all guilty but the rest of the jurors believed Hernandez was guilty Pedra Hernandez you know what you did still 11 out of 12 is not enough to convict and Stan Pates was obviously disappointed this man did it he said it how many times does a man have to con confess before someone believes him Stan was uh was unequivocal in his support that the case should be retried and so he did about a year and a half later Pedro Hernandez went on trial again the evidence and the issues were the same as the first trial and like the first trial it was long more than 3 months and this trial also ended with a long deliberation nine days did it start fueling like the first time to you um nothing felt like that 18 days the first time but yes it was reminiscent of that and we were just trying to understand what was going on it's impossible to try to read a jury but unlike the first first trial this jury reached a verdict Pedro Hernandez was convicted of killing Aon Pates 37 years after the first grader left home and vanished the Pat's family has waited a long time but we finally have found some measure of justice for our wonderful little boy Eton I am truly relieved and I'll tell you it's about time it really is it's about time Pedro Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life why do you think this case was so hard to solve why did it take so long I think people had great intentions I think people got focused on people like Ramos not criticizing anybody independently because it made a lot of sense he's an evil man he's just not our evil man it's a feeling now shared by others who were once convinced Jose Ramos murdered dayon Pates before police found Pedro Hernandez if I were on the jury I would have come with the same verdict do you still think of Aon pides I do what do you think about it could have been my son that is the thought that still haunts so many involved in this case my kids are like 22 and I still think about it when I'm when they're out of sight and out of mind we were kind of hoping that it would be like a movie ending where the the boy would eventually walk in the door but it didn't work out that way I notice a couple of times you've looked down at this why why do you does this still mean something to you yeah this this is this is the poster we remember the most I would say this is the kids looking right at you I feel for the family I'm a father myself and so is Dave case is solved but solved but I never give them complete closure I couldn't give him their son back would have loved to give him their son [Music] back [Music] he

Channel: 48 Hours

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Keywords: 48 hours, cbs news, etan patz 48 hours, Pedro Hernandez, missing boy, NYC, 48 hours full episodes, true crime

Id: HZxLLVLCX3w

Length: 43min 0sec (2580 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2024