Jose Antonio Ramos, Suspected in Etan Patz Case, Dies

Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child molester long suspected of the murder of first grader Etan Patz in Manhattan, has passed away. He died on March 7 at Bellevue Hospital, as noted by prosecutors in a complaint regarding Pedro Hernandez, who is confronting a third trial for Patz’s 1979 murder.

Ramos maintained his innocence regarding Patz’s kidnapping and never stood trial for the child’s disappearance. In 2016, a Supreme Court justice invalidated a 2004 civil ruling that had determined Ramos was responsible for the boy’s death.

Before his cancer diagnosis, Ramos was living on the streets of New York City. Rabbi Howard Cohen, a former prison chaplain, shared that after relocating to Manhattan, Ramos found a home near Washington Square Park.

Most of Ramos’s life was spent in a Pennsylvania prison due to various convictions, including child sexual assault. Cohen described the situation as “pretty bleak,” mentioning that Ramos had listed a New England rabbi as an emergency contact.

Etan Patz became a notable case of a missing child when he vanished from Soho on May 25, 1979, while walking alone to catch his school bus for the first time. Sadly, his remains have never been recovered.

Ramos was initially implicated in Patz’s murder in the early 1980s after being investigated for attempting to lure two boys into a drainage pipe in the Bronx and allegedly stealing their backpacks. He later claimed to police that he had dated a woman who had dropped Etan and other children home during a bus strike, but no evidence connected him to Patz’s disappearance.

A former federal prosecutor expressed a belief that he was “90% sure” Ramos abducted the boy from Washington Square Park but returned him after failing to fulfill his intentions. There were also reports from two prison informants alleging that Ramos made self-incriminating comments regarding Etan.

During a sworn examination in 2003, Ramos insisted he had never met Etan and claimed he had “nothing to hide.” Authorities did not believe they had sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against him. Additionally, the Patz family pursued a wrongful death lawsuit against Ramos in 2001, which led to a 2004 ruling finding him civilly liable. This verdict was later overturned, though the family had originally been awarded a symbolic judgment of $2.7 million.

Pedro Hernandez, aged 64, emerged as a suspect in 2012 after it was reported that he confessed to killing a child in New York during a prayer group meeting. His first trial resulted in a hung jury in 2015, while his second trial, which ended in a murder conviction in 2017, was overturned by the Court of Appeal in July.

Hernandez’s defense team asserts he is innocent and that delusions tied to his mental illness prompted him to confess to the crime.