He had a dollar to buy drink, and Pedro Hernandez worked at bodega
(NEWSER) - Exactly 33 years ago today, on another Friday before Memorial Day, 6-year-old Etan Patz convinced his mother to let him walk the block and a half to his school bus stop alone, for the first time. His mother told detectives Etan had a dollar with him so he could buy a soda, and the Daily Beast points out that the bodega next to the bus stop, where Pedro Hernandez was a 19-year-old stock clerk, would have been a logical place for him to stop. The neighborhood was a gritty one at the time, and a longtime resident tells the New York Times the seedy bodega had a "hostile" feeling and was rumored to host cockfights in the basement. So why didn't investigators, knowing Hernandez worked at the store, ever interrogate him? That's the question the Daily Beast raises, though it offers no clear answers. More»
