(Newser)
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Etan Patz's killer may have been found, but the same may never be said for the 6-year-old's remains. If Pedro Hernandez did indeed kill Etan and put his body in a Dumpster, figuring out which landfill the body wound up in would be a painstaking task even if sanitation records reached back as far as 1979—which they don't, the Sanitation Department revealed yesterday, according to the New York Times.
If Etan's body was picked up by a department crew it would have gone to Staten Island's cringe-inducing-named Fresh Kill landfill. But it also could have been picked up by commercial carriers, who might have offloaded in Brooklyn, New Jersey, or elsewhere; detectives are trying to pinpoint which commercial company might have handled Etan's neighborhood 33 years ago. Without more information, police say they won't try excavating the 2,200-acre Fresh Kills dump. Still, police would dearly like to find Etan because they'd like some physical evidence to corroborate Hernandez's confession, something that has so far proved elusive.
