A Timeline of the Etan Patz Case

The disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz in Manhattan in 1979 horrified New Yorkers, ushered in an era of jittery parenting and took decades to be apparently solved.

On Monday, the conviction that had seemed to end the matter was overturned, reopening the case and reviving one of the most haunting episodes from the city’s troubled 1970s. Here is a timeline of Etan’s disappearance and the decades-long search for his killer.

1979

Etan Patz disappeared on May 25, 1979, as he walked by himself less than two blocks to the school bus through the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, where he lived with his family. It was the first day his mother had allowed him to walk to the bus alone in the neighborhood, which at the time was a gritty and semi-industrial area. He never made it to the bus.

His parents reported him missing that day when he did not come home from school, and the police searched for him for weeks. His body was never found.

1980s

Etan’s was one of the first missing children’s cases to attract national attention, and it became a cautionary tale during the 1980s. It inspired many parents to restrict their children’s activities and warn them to beware of all strangers.

The boy’s face appeared on billboards and milk cartons along with information about his case. His parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, spoke frequently to the news media. And President Ronald Reagan marked the anniversary of Etan’s disappearance in 1983, proclaiming it National Missing Children’s Day.