Suspect's Wife Never Knew Secret Shared With Others - Wall Street Journal

By SEAN GARDINER AND PERVAIZ SHALLWANI

MOORESTOWN, N.J.—As news emerged on Thursday morning that police were interrogating a man never before questioned in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, the man's wife and daughter sought out their pastor.

"I don't think they had any idea," said Pastor George Bowen of Maranatha Christian Fellowship Church on Friday.

Pedro Hernandez, the 51-year-old suspect arrested in Etan's murder, had spoken of harming a child to his brother-in-law, sister and a religious mentor—all of whom discussed the story with police. His wife, Rosemary Hernandez, 51, told the pastor she hadn't known about the alleged incident from her husband's past until police took him into custody.

"She and Becky were in here crying their eyes out," Pastor Bowen said of Ms. Hernandez and the couple's college-age daughter. "They asked me if I knew about the case, and I said, 'Yes.' There was a lot of crying."

Authorities on Thursday questioned a man they said had confessed to the murder of six-year-old Etan Patz, a 1979 case that drew national attention to the issue of missing children. WSJ's Tamer El-Ghobashy reports. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

The case made national headlines almost 33 years ago to the day of Mr. Hernandez's arrest Thursday. Etan had been walking to the school bus stop from his family's home in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood when he vanished, striking a chord of fear in parents and drawing widespread attention to the issue of missing children.

Under questioning from detectives Wednesday, Mr. Hernandez described coaxing Etan into a nearby bodega where he worked at the time, choking him to death and disposing of the body in the trash, police said. While awaiting arraignment on second-degree murder charges Friday, Mr. Hernandez was admitted to Bellevue Hospital after telling doctors he wanted to kill himself, a law-enforcement official said.

Rob Bennett for The Wall Street Journal

In April of this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York Police Department descended upon an apartment building near the corner of Wooster and Prince streets in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood, half a block from the Patzes' house.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said the tip that broke the case came last month, when a relative called police to relay Mr. Hernandez's past claim to have killed a child, and law-enforcement officials have confirmed interviewing both Mr. Hernandez's sister and brother-in-law.

A brother-in-law, Jose Lopez, 58, wouldn't say during an interview Friday at his home in Pennsauken, N.J., if he had notified authorities. "That don't matter," he said. "It's already done and that don't matter."

Asked if he thought Mr. Hernandez did it, Mr. Lopez replied: "No doubt about it." He said the family felt "relief" at the arrest.

Inside the 450-member church in Moorestown on Thursday, Pastor Bowen was comforting two family members still reeling from revelations about a man they knew as a husband and father.

"He was a very quiet, very shy man," Pastor Bowen said of Mr. Hernandez. "Even on the continuum of shy people, he would have been on the shyer side."

Rosemary and Becky Hernandez are active in the congregation, the pastor said, regularly volunteering as greeters before Mass and, in Becky's case, singing in the choir. The women had come to the church Thursday to let him know they wouldn't be able to continue their regular activities.

Later that day, Pastor Bowen asked the congregation to pray "for truth and justice" as well as Rosemary and Becky. He said he wasn't the mentor who spoke to police about Mr. Hernandez.

Mr. Hernandez had no past arrests and had been receiving disability benefits ever since a 1993 construction accident. Pastor Bowen said he avoided eye contact and spoke little beyond one-word replies to questions.

Still, the pastor questioned whether he should have noticed something about his congregant.

"When something horrible like this comes to light, you go back and look—and there was nothing that would indicate this," he said.

—Alison Fox and Maura R. O'Connor contributed to this article.