DA Reopens Case of First Missing Child on Milk Carton

(May 27) -- A new push is on to find out what happened to Etan Patz, who disappeared at age 6 more than three decades ago and became the first missing child to have his face featured on a milk carton.

On May 25, 1979, Etan vanished on his way to school in downtown Manhattan, sparking a national effort to find his abductors and changing the way missing child cases are investigated.

Manhattan district attorney Cyrus R. Vance agreed to reopen the case this week, making good on a campaign promise to try to bring suspect Jose Antonio Ramos justice. Ramos is suspected of abducting and murdering the child. Former district attorney Robert Morgenthau has said for years that the case lacked enough evidence to pursue. The body was never found.

Etan was declared legally dead in 2001, but his parents never gave up on pursuing the case.

"I'm very pleased to hear that he's publicly stating that he's willing to reopen the case and do some investigation -- this is a big change from the previous administration under Mr. Morgenthau," Etan's father, Stan Patz, told The Wall Street Journal.

Stan Patz, a professional photographer, used photos of his son to help in the search. In the months and even years after Etan's disappearance, images of the smiling, blond boy were everywhere, from "missing" posters in the Patzes' SoHo neighborhood to the sides of milk cartons in homes across the country. That tactic has worked in subsequent child-abduction cases but failed to bring Etan home.

But Etan's parents and investigators who have worked on the case think they know who killed him. Ramos, a convicted child molester, has long been the main suspect in the case. His girlfriend sometimes baby-sat for the Patz family.

"I'm quite pleased that the DA's office sees fit to reopen the investigation, and hopefully they'll also see fit to indict and convict Jose Antonio Ramos for the abduction and murder of Etan Patz," federal prosecutor Stuart GraBois told ABC.

A 2004 civil trial found Ramos guilty of Etan's abduction and murder, and a State Supreme Court judge ordered him to pay the Patz family $2 million. The family never received a penny, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In the 1980s, Ramos even made a partial confession to GraBois.

"How many times did you have sex with Etan Patz?" GraBois once asked Ramos point blank. GraBois said Ramos seemed ready to confess. "I'll tell you everything," he reportedly said at the time. But since then, Ramos has denied any role in Etan's abduction and murder. He is serving time in prison for molesting an 8-year-old in Pennsylvania.

Ramos is up for parole in 2012, but Stan Patz, who is 68 now, hopes reopening Etan's case will keep Ramos behind bars. "We're hoping to get a bunch of New Yorkers up in arms saying, 'Hang the bastard!' Patz told the New York Daily News this month. "Get the pitchforks out."

May 25, the date Etan disappeared, is now designated National Missing Children's Day. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 800,000 children go missing every year in the United States.