NEW YORK – Jury selection has started in New York City for one of the nation's most infamous and enduring missing-child cases.
About 100 prospective jurors began filling out lengthy questionnaires Monday for Pedro Hernandez's murder trial. Prosecutors say the New Jersey man admitted killing 6-year-old Etan Patz (AY'-tahn payts), but his defense says his confession was false.
Etan vanished while walking to his Manhattan school bus stop May 25, 1979. That date, May 25, later became National Missing Children's Day.
State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley acknowledged that decades of publicity about the case means some potential jurors probably know about it. But he says that won't necessarily disqualify them.
A tip led police to Hernandez in 2012.
Jury selection is likely to take days and the trial two to three months.
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