Jew World Order

NEW YORK — A lawyer for a man accused of strangling 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979 said Friday his client is mentally ill and has a history of hallucinations.

Pedro Hernandez was arraigned on a murder charge Friday, the 33rd anniversary of the boy’s disappearance. He was held without bail.

The 51-year-old Hernandez appeared in court via video camera from a conference room at Bellevue Hospital, where he was admitted after making comments about wanting to kill himself.

Court-appointed lawyer Harvey Fishbein told the judge Hernandez is bipolar and schizophrenic.

He didn’t enter a plea. A judge ordered a psychological examination.

Hernandez, of Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested Thursday after telling police he strangled Etan in 1979, when he was an 18-year-old stock boy at a convenience store where the boy waited for his school bus.

Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his two-block walk to his bus stop in Manhattan in a case that made New York parents afraid to let their children out of their sight and sparked a movement to publicize the cases of missing youngsters. He was one of the first missing children to be pictured on a milk carton.

Hernandez, who emerged as a suspect just days ago, after police received a tip, told investigators that he lured the boy into the store, then led him to the basement, choked him and put his body in a bag with some trash about a block away, police said.

Authorities never found a body, and Hernandez’s confession put investigators in the unusual position of bringing the case to court before they had amassed any physical evidence or had time to fully corroborate his story or investigate his psychiatric condition.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said investigators were retracing garbage truck routes from the late 1970s and deciding whether to search landfills for the boy’s remains, a daunting prospect.

Crime scene investigators also arrived Friday morning at the building in Manhattan’s SoHo section that once held the bodega where Hernandez worked. Authorities were considering excavating the basement for evidence.

They were also looking into whether Hernandez has a history of mental illness or pedophilia.

Browne said letting Hernandez remain free until the investigation was complete was not an option: “There was no way we could release the man who had just confessed to killing Etan Patz.”

Legal experts said that even though police have a confession in hand, they are likely to work hard to make certain Hernandez isn’t delusional or simply making the story up.

“There’s always a concern whether or not someone is falsely confessing,” said former prosecutor Paul DerOhannesian.

Fishbein asked reporters to be respectful of some of Hernandez’s relatives, including his wife and daughter.

“It’s a tough day. The family is very upset. Please give them some space,” Fishbein said.

Etan’s father, Stanley Patz, avoided journalists gathered outside the family’s Manhattan apartment, the same one the family was living in when his son vanished.

Former Soho resident Roberto Monticello, a filmmaker who was a teenager when Patz disappeared, said he remembered Hernandez as civil but reserved and “pent-up.”

“You always got the sense that if you crossed him really bad, he would hurt you,” Monticello said, although he added that he never saw him hit anyone.

Monticello said Hernandez was also one of the few teenagers in the neighborhood who didn’t join in the all-out search for Etan, which consumed SoHo and the city for months. “He was always around, but he never helped. He never participated,” Monticello said.

Hernandez, who moved to New Jersey shortly after Etan’s disappearance, suffered a back injury that has kept him on disability for years, according to police.

The Rev. George Bowen Jr., pastor at Hernandez’s church in Moorestown, N.J., said he attended services regularly. “I would judge him to be shy and maybe timid. He never got involved in anything,” Bowen said.

He said Hernandez’s wife, Rosemary, and daughter, Becky, a college student, came to see him Thursday morning after he was taken into police custody.

“They were just crying their eyes out,” Bowen said. “They were broken up. They were wrecked. It was horrible. They didn’t know what they were going to do.”

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Hernandez gave a detailed confession that led police to believe they had the right man. He also said Hernandez told a relative and others as far back as 1981 that he had “done something bad” and killed a child in New York.

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Associated Press reporters Julie Walker in New York, Patrick Walters in Moorestown, N.J., and Michael Virtanen in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.

• CORRECTS YEAR OF KELLY’S STATEMENT – This undated file image provided Friday, May 28, 2010 by Stanley K. Patz shows a flyer distributed by the New York Police Department of Patz’s son Etan who vanished in New York on May 25, 1979. New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday May 24, 2012, that a person who’s in custody has implicated himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz, (AP Photo/Courtesy NYPD/file) EDITORIAL USE ONLY, NO SALES, FOR USE ONLY IN ILLUSTRATING EDITORIAL STORIES REGARDING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ETAN PATZ OR OTHER MISSING CHILDREN

• Stan Patz, father of missing child Etan Patz, arrives at his home in SoHo, Friday, May 25, 2012, in New York. New life has been breathed into the case after Pedro Hernandez implicated himself in the death of 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose disappearance 33 years ago on his way to school helped launch a missing children’s movement that put kids’ faces on milk cartons. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

• Supporters of the Patz family leave flowers on their doorstep in SoHo, Friday, May 25, 2012, in New York. New life has been breathed into the missing child case of Etan Patz after Pedro Hernandez implicated himself in the 6-year-old’s death, whose disappearance 33 years ago on his way to school helped launch a missing children’s movement that put kids’ faces on milk cartons. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

• Stan Patz, father of missing child Etan Patz, arrives at his home in SoHo, Friday, May 25, 2012, in New York. New life has been breathed into the case after Pedro Hernandez implicated himself in the death of 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose disappearance 33 years ago on his way to school helped launch a missing children’s movement that put kids’ faces on milk cartons. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

• FBI and NYPD law enforcement officials search a SoHo basement at the corner of Wooster and Prince streets for the possible remains of missing child Etan Patz on Thursday, April 19, 2012 in New York. Patz vanished in 1979 after leaving his family’s SoHo home for a short walk to his school bus stop. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne says the building being searched is about a block from where the family lived. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

• Raymond Kelly

  New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly speaks during a news conference Thursday, May 24, 2012, in New York. Pedro Hernandez has implicated himself in the death of 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose disappearance 33 years ago on his way to school helped launch a missing children’s movement that put kids’ faces on milk cartons. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

• A woman speaks to a reporter through a door at 116 E. Linwood Ave., Apt. B, in Maple Shade, N.J., Thursday, May 24, 2012. The woman, who would not identify herself said that it is the home of Pedro Hernandez, who is in custody in the disappearance of Etan Patz in 1979. Hernandez has implicated himself in the death of Patz, police said Thursday. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

• A house, left, at 116 E. Linwood Ave., is seen in Maple Shade, N.J., Thursday, May 24, 2012. A woman who would not identify herself, answered the door at Apt. B, door left, back of house, and said that it is the home of Pedro Hernandez, who is in custody in the disappearance of Etan Patz in 1979. Hernandez has implicated himself in the death of Patz, police said Thursday. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

• 448 West Broadway

  The site of the alleged 1979 abduction, pictured in 2011

• Deputy Police Commissioner of Public Information Paul Browne speaks to the media Monday, April 23, 2012 in New York. Authorities on Monday finished excavating the Manhattan basement in connection to the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. three decades ago without finding any obvious human remains, law enforcement officials said Monday. FBI and police had been searching the former workspace of a handyman since Thursday, after a cadaver-sniffing dog detected the scent of possible human remains. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

• The last dumpster with material from the basement of 127 Prince Street is removed from the scene, Monday April 23, 2012, in New York. Authorities say no obvious signs of human remains have been found in a Manhattan basement being searched in connection with the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

• Investigators work the crime scene in connection to the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old boy Etan Patz in New York, Sunday, April 22, 2012. Heavy rains expected in the region halted the investigation on Sunday, but work in the basement is expected to resume Monday morning. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

• Investigators remove debris from the basement of a building on the corner of Wooster Street and Prince Street in the Manhattan borough of New York on Saturday, April 21, 2012 during a renewed investigation into the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. Patz vanished after leaving his family’s home for a short walk to his school bus stop. NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne says the building being searched for his remains is about a block from where the family lived. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

• A note is posted at the Prince Street loft of Stan and Julie Patz, Monday, April 23, 2012, in New York. Authorities on Monday finished excavating the Manhattan basement in connection to the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz without finding any obvious human remains, law enforcement officials said Monday. FBI and police had been searching the former workspace of a handyman since Thursday, after a cadaver-sniffing dog detected the scent of possible human remains. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)