The US Supreme Court has reinstated the murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez in the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, the six-year-old New York City boy whose case became one of America's most haunting missing-child stories. The 6-3 ruling, handed down on Monday in Washington, clears the way for the conviction to stand again after a federal appeals court threw it out last year.
The news came after a long and messy legal battle that has already stretched across decades and two trials. Hernandez, now 64, has been serving a sentence of 25 years to life since his 2017 conviction, but the case was heading towards a third trial after the Second Circuit overturned the verdict over the trial judge's handling of a jury question.
