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  To my three beloved teammates. And to my co-captain, Mike, who let me run with the ball… no matter where it led.

  Prologue

  In 1981 I interviewed a couple named Stanley and Julie Patz…. This was before pictures on milk cartons, or AMBER Alerts, or even the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which Etan’s disappearance helped create. Stan Patz is a photographer, and a picture he had taken of his son, bright eyes, long bangs, became iconic overnight. Etan Patz: the most famous missing child since the Lindbergh baby.

  —Anna Quindlen, Newsweek, April 19, 2004

  “I’ve been thinking about letting my nine-year-old ride the city bus to school on his own come September. I think it’s really important for his sense of independence.”

  “I have just two words for you… Etan Patz.”

  —two New York moms overheard in Central Park, summer 2004

  Etan Patz. Those two words are code. To many Americans and to an entire generation of New Yorkers, the two words are synonymous with the terror of suddenly, mysteriously losing a child forever.

  On May 25, 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz vanished sometime between 8 and 8:10 a.m., somewhere between his home and the school bus stop. He was walking the two short blocks solo for the very first time. His smiling face on the posters, billboards, and tabloid front pages that took his place tugged at America’s heartstrings in a singular way. Like another iconic New York tragedy—Kitty Genovese’s brutal stabbing death in 1964 as neighbors turned a deaf ear to her anguished cries for help—the Patz case didn’t touch most of us personally, yet it somehow went beyond the purely shocking, to fundamentally alter our collective perceptions. And like events of more historical significance—the Kennedy assassination or September 11—Etan Patz’s disappearance off his own street in broad daylight is a moment frozen in time, a bridge leading us away from a more innocent world, where such horror couldn’t possibly happen, to a darker one, where it did.

  Today our president doesn’t travel unprotected in an open car like John F. Kennedy did in 1963. Americans stand acceptingly in long lines at the airport and uneasily scrutinize the faces around us; and when a scream is heard outside our window in the early morning hours, we think twice about ignoring it. Thirty years after Etan vanished, his case has also changed our cultural landscape in ways that we take for granted: about our children’s safety, their independence, our peace of mind.

  Today some of the children missing in 1979 would be found more readily, with the help of resources like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and AMBER Alerts. Today, our children learn about “good touch, bad touch,” family security passwords, and, for better or worse, they’re intensely aware of stranger danger. So are the parents, the ones who don’t let their kids walk alone to school these days; schedule them to the hilt with supervised playdates; and shake their heads sadly because those same children live in fear of the world outside their backyards. For most of those parents, the Patz case seems like a mythic, cautionary tale, an artifact of a past era. But quite a few of them remember the Patz case vividly. One mother recently told me, with tears in her eyes, “It changed everything.”

  Whenever I mention my years of reporting on the case to one of those parents, I get that immediate jolt of recognition, like a current of electricity, followed by a rush of questions. “Didn’t the parents split up?” “Wasn’t the boy in Israel?” “I heard they caught the kidnapper and he’s serving life.” The answers that I give surprise people and inevitably lead to more questions. Until this account, the first book ever written on the case, no one has unraveled the details of this decades-long mystery.

  So little is known publicly about the case itself. It has remained an ongoing investigation for the past thirty years, which means that a curt, official “No comment” by authorities has always precluded a full account. But bit by bit, as over the last two decades I produced television reports on the story for both ABC and CBS News, then spent four years researching this book, I’ve been able to piece together a narrative that continues to amaze me. I found a mix of detective story, human drama, and a thousand other twists and turns as I traced the case from its origin in 1979 to its conclusion—of sorts—twenty-five years later.

  I started reporting this story in the fall of 1990, when as a fledgling ABC News producer at the network’s start-up magazine PrimeTime Live, I was handed a newspaper article literally “ripped from the tabloids.” The New York Daily News’s Joanne Wasserman had followed a New York federal prosecutor to Pennsylvania, in his own pursuit of a prime suspect in the Etan Patz case. KEY TO THE PATZ PUZZLE? read the bold headline running over a photo taken from high above a man sitting at his desk. A poster of Etan Patz emblazoned with the words still missing was prominent among the stacks of case files surrounding it. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stuart GraBois looked straight into the camera, radiating determination and purpose. That impression was confirmed as I scanned the article, about an extraordinary move on GraBois’s part, to be sworn in as a deputy prosecutor in Pennsylvania in order to go after the man he believed had kidnapped Etan Patz, by prosecuting him on a completely different case.

  “Check out this story,” my boss, senior producer Betsy West, said, thrusting the article at me. “If it’s something for us, and you can get it, we’d let you produce it yourself.” It would be my first producer credit on the show, and I was out the door. My first trip was shorter than the Daily News’s Wasserman’s, a subway ride downtown to catch GraBois in the U.S. Attorney’s Office a few blocks from City Hall. I came away intrigued by his passion and force, even more pronounced in person. And so I joined the ranks of other journalists, like Wasserman, but also former WNBC crime reporter John Miller, and a coterie of stalwarts for whom this little boy’s story had burrowed irretrievably under the skin. I eventually went to Pennsylvania too, and many other places, tracking this remarkable tale.

  Crime stories are the bread and butter of television magazine shows, but they had never particularly appealed to me. I preferred the subjects of my stories to be alive, and often the only living figure in a crime drama is the bad guy. I also preferred my subjects to be the good guys, the ones who showed viewers their humanity. So what initially drew me to this story wasn’t the crime part. I had no children, so I couldn’t relate as a parent. In 1979 I didn’t live in New York City, didn’t live through the power this case held over its inhabitants. In 1990, what tugged at me was the unlikely intersection the Patz case had with the one in Pennsylvania, where another small victim, shoved aside by the system, had now been championed. And the way that fate, resolve, and exemplary detective work had combined against the odds to see justice served.

  When my report finally aired on PrimeTime Live more than a year later, it featured a chilling appearance by GraBois’s prime suspect, Jose Ramos, his first and only television interview ever. But his bad juju was overshadowed by an unlikely group of natural opponents who had overcome their differences to join forces against him. I got to tell my story about the good guys, and I was hooked—on both a career and this particular story. Along the way I’d developed an admiration for the prosecutor Stuart GraBois and his tenacious pursuit of the case.

&nbs
p; “You can’t just say it’s over,” he said at the end of the story, “because it’s not over.”

  It wasn’t. Ten years later I was at CBS News and produced a follow-up for 60 Minutes II with the first interview in over a decade of Etan’s father, Stanley Patz. He had turned me down—politely—for the earlier piece at ABC, but for reasons that will become clear as this story unfolds, in 2000 he felt such a pressing need to come forward that he overcame his natural reserve. And I found someone else who inspired me with his grace and strength.

  By the time I sat down with him, Stan Patz knew what had happened to his son. But he talked vividly about the nights he’d lain awake, trying to imagine an explanation that would make sense. It wouldn’t ease the pain of losing Etan, but the not knowing was, for the Patzes, worse. Should his son’s death be mourned? Should his family try to move forward with their lives? Should Etan’s toys be thrown away? Or was he not dead at all, but out there, somewhere, trying to get home? The need for answers drove Stan as much as anything else, and in turn it drove those around him who wanted desperately to help. Stan and Julie Patz are two “everymen”—a childcare worker and a commercial photographer—whose lives would almost certainly have gone unchronicled except that they lived through what is always referred to as a parent’s worst nightmare. And then they lived through its aftermath, and an unfathomable mystery, and they endured. They are both wise, kind, empathetic people. Their wryly humorous take on life and basic faith in others has seen them through not just a tragic moment, but also the years that followed while they, and so many others, searched to find answers.

  While reporting the story, I have interviewed more than two hundred people, including the Patzes themselves and their extended family, friends and neighbors, reporters, bystanders, and policy experts. I’ve also spent endless hours talking to a long list of former investigators. They were the cops, FBI agents, attorneys, and others in law enforcement who threw themselves into the search like they were looking for their own child. One of them said the following to me, and it bears repeating: It is always easier to investigate a crime going backward in time. Likewise, making judgments with the benefit of hindsight serves no purpose. This book is not an attempt to find fault and lay blame. Rather, it fills in the gaps, clarifies, and sets several records straight about the trail of this case up to the current day.

  A few notes about methodology: First and foremost, I could not have written this book without my primary collaborator and consultant, Stuart GraBois, who joined forces with me to ensure a faithful retelling of the story. Throughout this process, I turned to him to corroborate, to hash through conflicting accounts, and to point me toward other sources when either he didn’t have information or because of legal constraints, couldn’t give it to me. He also read multiple versions of this book and corrected my language and occasional misperceptions.

  Beyond the hundreds of interviews I conducted, scores with Stuart GraBois and Stan Patz alone, I also pored over every available article on the case, and spoke with many of the reporters who wrote them. The Patzes were gracious enough to offer me unfettered access to their copious files of news clips, personal correspondence, and documents. This included twenty-five years’ worth of phone logbooks in which they recorded virtually every call and which ultimately became almost a faithfully kept family diary. From those first days in 1979, the police taught them to record their every activity, and in the interest of cracking this case Stan and Julie Patz were vigilant. The vast files served me well as primary source material in a story so distant in time to everyone I interviewed and so traumatic to some that memories could hardly be my only resource. I also spoke to Julie Patz on several occasions, although much less often than her husband, and I relied more heavily on lengthy early interviews she gave to the media, as well as her personal writings over the years. The Patzes asked for one caveat, to which I readily acceded. Their eldest child, wishing to guard her privacy, asked not to be included in the book, and I agreed, beyond a few important early scene-setting mentions.

  But what the Patz family gave me was just one small part of my extensive body of research. I immersed myself in court transcripts and documents; investigative reports; videotape archives; and actualities from the time. Citing the case’s ongoing status, neither the New York Police Department nor the District Attorney’s Office of the County of New York would make official comment. Jose Ramos also declined several requests to be interviewed for this book, but I was able to dip back into primary source material for conversations with him from my TV days. A self-avowed pack rat, I had held on to all my notes and original material since I first undertook the research and reporting of this case in the early 1990s. I also found that to be true of many of the subjects I interviewed—it was astonishing to see how many reporters and investigators still kept their files on this case, buried in an attic or hidden beneath their current work in a desk or cabinet nearby.

  When at all possible, dialogue in this book has been taken faithfully from transcripts, but by the very nature of this far-reaching story, many of the conversations have been reconstructed based on historical records and interviews with at least one—and often more than one—of the parties present. In a very few instances, particularly those involving victims of sexual abuse or their family members, I have changed names. In addition, there are two notable sources whose lives could be endangered behind prison walls by my identifying them publicly, and I have changed their names as well. In those two cases, I have seen timely corroborating documentation and interviewed other credible sources that back up the two men’s lengthy conversations with me over several years.

  Finally, all of the accounts I read and people I spoke to, whether they were searchers or survivors, inspired and moved me forward in the long pursuit of this story. Although what follows in these pages was triggered by a terrible tragedy, what it’s really about, and what has always resonated for me, is what happened to the men, women, and children whose lives were touched by one little boy after he vanished. Through twenty-five years of this unfolding mystery, life went on—agonizing, suspenseful, frustrating, even comedic, since that is what real life can be at the worst of times. Much of what followed that one day was not tragic.

  The search to solve the mystery of Etan Patz’s disappearance is a heartbreaking story, but it’s not just a true crime story. Yes, what happened to Etan Patz on May 25, 1979, was a truly unthinkable crime. What happened afterwards is a story of true heroes.

  CHAPTER 1

  May 25, 1979

  Police hypnotist: About what time is it?

  Julie: About 7:00 a.m.

  Hypnotist: What do you do?

  Julie: Get out of bed.

  —Julie Patz hypnosis transcript, August 7, 1979

  In August of 1979, nine weeks after Etan Patz disappeared, his mother, Julie, was hypnotized by police to recall the events of Friday, May 25. She was nervous but eager to do anything to add to the shortage of clues. She began to retrace her steps that day, minute by minute. After a stoic ten minutes, the NYPD hypnotist stopped her and told her she was doing a wonderful job, but that she had to start all over again from the beginning. And this time, he said, she needed to stay completely in the present tense, as if every minute were just happening now. He thought it would help her to recall the day more easily. He actually used the word “easily.” Julie started again. “The alarm clock is ringing,” she said. “Stan is shutting it off.”

  Her husband turns over and goes back to sleep. He had worked late the night before. Julie pulls herself out of bed, unwillingly, but she has a lot to do. Their across-the-street neighbors, Larry and Karen Altman, have invited them to their country place for the weekend. The weather is changeable this time of year—lots to pack. Julie’s in-home daycare group will be arriving soon, bringing their daily chaotic mess of arts-and-crafts supplies, spilled Cheerios, and sweet cacophony. The other wild card this morning is Ari, her two-year-old. A playmate of his had slept over the night before, the toddlers snuggled under b
lankets on the floor in the front room that doubled as the daycare center. This means an extra wiggly body to keep track of. And when Julie peeks in, sure enough they are awake already, “reading” their books amid the bedclothes.

  As usual, when Julie wakes Etan, he hops right out of bed. Eight-year-old Shira is a different story. Once awake, Shira might lie in bed imagining ways to get out of having to go to school. Today is really part of the long weekend, she might argue, and then it’s almost the end of the term, and it isn’t like anyone’s learning anything this late in the year anyway. Julie has already decided she isn’t going to push her daughter too hard.

  She goes to her room to throw on a long blue-and-yellow peasant dress with white flowers and pull her shoulder-length brown hair back in its usual casual ponytail. Then she checks on Etan, who is putting on his blue pants and a T-shirt. While Julie goes to the kitchen, he laces up his racing sneakers, the light blue ones with the fluorescent green lightning stripe on the side. His best friend Jeff has just grown out of a blue, wide-wale corduroy jacket and Etan is now its proud owner, even though the name sewn inside hasn’t been changed. He already has on his favorite hat, the Future Flight Captain pilot’s cap he bought for a dime at a garage sale and sometimes slept in, as he comes into the kitchen where his mother is making lunches.

  Julie watches as, unbidden, he takes the milk out and pours himself a glass. With a naturally contrary older sister and a typically terrible-twoish younger brother, Etan is an easy middle child. There are the usual qualifications, of course. He actively tries to please, a refreshing change of pace after Shira, but he knows the secret ways to provoke his sister as only a sibling can. He is fiercely protective of baby brother Ari, but equally jealous. He is sunny and sweet, but has a stubborn, moody streak. He is fanciful and full of stories, planning trips to far-off lands with his imaginary playmate Johnny France-America. For a while, he felt like he could walk on water as Jesus had, if only he practiced hard enough, so he spent hours walking flat-footed around the house.