By DAVID B. CARUSO
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press
NEW YORK — When police dug up a Manhattan basement last month in a fruitless search for the remains of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy who disappeared in 1979, Lucy Suarez saw the news on TV and wished that the family of the missing child would finally get some peace.
“My sister and I prayed about it. We prayed and we said, ‘Let justice be done,’” Suarez said. “Never did we think it was going to be done with our family.”
On Friday, her older brother was charged with Etan’s murder.
Police said Pedro Hernandez, a 51-year-old, churchgoing father described by some friends as quiet and timid, had given an emotional confession earlier in the week to luring the little boy away from his school bus stop with a promise of a soft drink, and then strangling him in the basement of a convenience store where he had been working as a stock clerk.
The admission surprised investigators, who had been confounded by the disappearance for three decades and never considered Hernandez a suspect until this month. Just weeks ago, they had focused their attention on another man, and even ripped up a basement he had once used as a workshop in the hope of finding clues.
Suarez said her family is reeling, too, despite having had concerns for years that her brother had once done something bad to a child.
Hernandez, now living in Maple Shade, N.J., was 18 when Etan vanished. When he moved to New Jersey not long after the disappearance, he said something to relatives about having hurt a child back in New York.
Suarez said her brother never spoke to her directly about what had happened, and the family’s knowledge of the incident was vague.
“He didn’t say, ‘I killed somebody,’” she said. “My conclusion was that it was a hit and run, or he hit someone with a bike. Nothing like a murder.”
Suarez said she was shocked to find out about his arrest early Thursday, but another of the suspect’s sisters, Norma Hernandez, said at least some relatives had heard something far more horrifying about what he had done.
“If he did do it, God will have justice,” she said. Suarez said she would continue to pray for Etan’s parents, Stanley and Julie Patz. “I would like to have a chance to meet them and apologize to them, whether my brother is guilty, or not.”