Confused portrait of murder suspect

New York: The anniversary of the day six-year-old Etan Patz vanished on his way to school dawned with his suspected killer in police custody, but it ended with a muddled portrait of the man who confessed to strangling the little boy and dumping his body in the trash.

A former neighbour who knew Pedro Hernandez as a teenager says he was someone you wouldn't want to cross — a reserved but "pent-up" young man. But the pastor of his church says Hernandez, now 51, is simply a shy and timid man who faithfully attends Sunday services.

Now on suicide watch at Bellevue Hospital, Hernandez was arraigned on Friday via video link from a hospital ward on a charge of murder. His court-appointed lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, told the judge that Hernandez is bipolar, schizophrenic and has a "history of hallucinations, both visual and auditory".

Hernandez, who was a teenage convenience store clerk at the time Etan went missing, now lives in Maple Shade, New Jersey.

Surprise confession

He was arrested on Thursday after making a surprise confession in a case that has bedeviled investigators for 33 years.

Hernandez told police he lured Etan into the basement of a convenience store with a promise of a soda, choked him to death, then stuffed his body in a bag and left it with trash on the street a block away.

The legal proceeding lasted only about four minutes. Expressionless, wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, Hernandez didn't speak or enter a plea.

A judge ordered Hernandez held without bail and authorised a psychological examination.

The prosecutor who appeared in court, Assistant District Attorney Armand Durastanti, said it was 33 years ago on Friday that six-year-old Etan Patz left his home on Prince Street to catch his school bus. "He has not been seen or heard from since. It's been 33 years, and justice has not been done in this case," Durastanti, said.

Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his two-block walk to his bus stop in Manhattan. It was the first time his parents had let him walk the route by himself.

Hernandez's confession put investigators in the unusual position of bringing the case to court before they had amassed any evidence or had time to corroborate his story or investigate his psychiatric condition.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said they were deciding whether to search landfills for remains.