Suspect held in abduction of boy 33 years ago

New York: A New Jersey man was in custody yesterday in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz from his New York City neighbourhood, a case that drew national attention to the plight of missing children.

The break in the case came one month after the FBI and New York City Police conducted a four-day excavation of a basement in Manhattan's Soho neighbourhood near where Patz lived and was last seen. At the time, police said no obvious human remains were found and it remained a missing person case.

"An individual now in custody has made statements to NYPD detectives implicating himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz 33 years ago," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement.Kelly said police would provide more information later in the day.

A law enforcement source told Reuters the suspect is Pedro Hernandez of New Jersey, who was taken into custody Wednesday night in New Jersey.

Investigators remain skeptical about Hernandez's story, said authorities familiar with the case.

Although the boy was formally declared dead in 2001, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance re-opened the case in 2010 and investigators tore apart the basement in April looking for clothing and human remains after a cadaver-sniffing dog sensed something at the site.

On May 25, 1979, Patz's parents allowed the boy to make his first unaccompanied trip to the bus stop two blocks away. They never saw him again.

Patz was one of the first missing children in the United States to have his photograph printed on milk cartons, and his case helped fuel an intense national outreach campaign for missing children in the 1980s.

Long targeted as a suspect in the case was Jose Antonio Ramos, a friend of Patz's babysitter who was later convicted of child molestation in a separate case in Pennsylvania.

He is due to be released from prison in November.