Etan Patz

At left is a home in New Jersey where suspect Pedro Hernandez was living when arrested by New York police in 2012.  (Mel Evans / Associated Press)

In 2012, the FBI searched for the remains of Etan Patz in a building in the SoHo neighborhood in Manhattan. They found nothing.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The last dumpster with material from the basement of 127 Prince St. is removed from the scene on April 23 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.  (Louis Lanzano / Associated Press)

New York police spokesman Paul Browne shows an original Etan Patz missing-person poster while speaking to reporters near an apartment building in Soho. Police officers and FBI agents began tearing apart a basement as part of a decades-old search for 6-year-old Etan Patz, who disappeared May 25, 1979, after leaving his family’s apartment for a short walk to catch a school bus.  (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press)

NYPD officers keep onlookers away from the search site on Prince Street.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Members of the search team leave the tented area where they are thought to be looking for human remains.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

A blue tent stands near the guarded entrance to the basement where FBI agents and New York police have been working.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

People look on as New York City police and FBI investigators search for signs of Etan Patz, a boy who disappeared 33 years ago at age 6.  (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Stan and Julie Patz on the fire escape of their loft in New York in 1980. Below runs Prince Street, along which Etan, their 6-year-old son, set off to school on May 25, 1979.  (Marty Reichenthal / Associated Press)