Man convicted of killing 'milk carton kid' Etan Patz could be freed after US court ruling
Six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared in 1979 while walking alone to his school bus stop in New York.
The boy's disappearance became one of the country's most high-profile cases, with Etan's image among the first pictured on milk cartons.
After a decades-long international search for the person responsible, Pedro Hernandez was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to at least 25 years in jail in 2017 for his kidnapping and murder.
But the Federal Court has now overturned the guilty verdict, ordering a new trial for the 64-year-old man.
The case also sparked a national movement on missing children, including new laws making it easier for law enforcement agencies to share information about missing children and the establishment of a national hotline.
The anniversary of Etan Patz's disappearance - May 25 - became the country's National Missing Children's Day.
Etan was legally declared dead in 2001, despite his body never being found.
But the Federal Court has now overturned Hernandez's guilty verdict, ordering a new trial for the 64-year-old man.
Judges have also ordered Hernandez be released from prison unless the new trial can be held within "a reasonable period".
Hernandez worked at a convenience store in Etan's Manhattan neighbourhood.
He became a suspect in 2012 when police got a tip that Hernandez, who was living in New Jersey at the time, had once spoken to a relative about killing a boy in New York City.
There was no physical evidence against Hernandez, but police said that during a seven-hour interrogation, he confessed to attacking Etan.
In the recorded statements, Hernandez said he offered a fizzy drink to entice Etan into the basement of the convenience store where he choked him, before placing him, still alive, into a plastic bag and a box, which he left in the street.
But lawyers for Hernandez during the trial said they were fake admissions from a man with a mental illness and a very low IQ.
The Federal Court overturned the conviction on Monday, saying the judge had given a 'clearly wrong' and 'manifestly prejudicial' response to a jury note during Hernandez's 2017 trial.
The Manhattan district attorney's office, which prosecuted the case, said it was reviewing the decision.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Junior - who oversaw the trial - said Etan's parents may miss out on justice for their son.
'They waited and persevered for 35 years for justice for Etan, which today, sadly, may have been lost,' he said.
The 2017 trial had been Hernandez's second after his first trial ended in a deadlocked jury in 2015.
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