Whenever
a cold case cracks open there is both relief and a resurgence of
questions. How was it possible for
people to miss the evidence at the time?
How did the criminal get away with the crime? What could people have done differently?
The Etan
Patz case is no different. After Pedro
Hernandez confessed to the murder of 6 year-old Patz newspapers and media find
themselves reexamining the past and facing several unanswered questions. The biggest one at the moment? How can someone throw a body away without
anyone finding out?
According
to the Wall Street Journal, the 1970’s was a time before recycling bins cut
away the massive amounts of trash that families threw out every day. As such, most bags were big, opaque, and
heavy, and most sanitation workers picked up hundreds of them every route.
This
means that when Mr. Hernandez dumped the bag in front of 113 Thompson St. it
makes sense that the bag would be gone when he returned. It’s possible that a sanitation worker simply
picked it up with the rest of the trash and never noticed that it contained a 3
feet, 4 inch tall first grader.
And
given that the family didn’t learn that he was missing until he didn’t come
home from school there was plenty of time for the plastic bag to
disappear. Where it went is uncertain,
it either went to Fountain Avenue Landfill in Brooklyn or Fresh Kills Landfill
on Staten Island depending on whether the building was residential or a
business at the time.
It’s
also possible that Pedro Hernandez is not remembering what happened exactly
correctly, with his history of auditory and visual hallucinations. But even if the family doesn’t know exactly
where Etan’s body is, at least they have some closure on the events of that day
so many years ago.
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