Jurors still haven’t reached a verdict in Etan Patz case

NEW YORK — Jurors in New York deliberated for a 14th day on Monday without reaching a verdict in the murder trial of a former deli worker accused of the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz.

Pedro Hernandez, 54, is charged with the kidnap and murder of Patz, whose disappearance from his Soho neighborhood in Manhattan brought national attention to the issue of missing and abducted children. The boy’s picture was among the first to appear on milk cartons in a national campaign to locate such children.

The panel was set to return to state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Tuesday to begin a 15th day of deliberations.

Patz vanished on May 25, 1979, as he walked alone for the first time to a school bus stop.

Hernandez told police in 2012 that he had choked Patz in the basement of a nearby deli where he worked, stuffed him in a box and left his still-moving body in an alley.

Hernandez’s attorneys argued he is mentally ill and that police coerced his confession.

They blame the boy’s disappearance on Jose Ramos, whose girlfriend walked Patz home from school and who was long considered the prime suspect.

Ramos, convicted of sexually abusing boys, is serving a prison term in Pennsylvania.

Last Wednesday, the jury told Justice Maxwell Wiley that it was deadlocked, but he told it to keep trying.

If the jury stalemate holds and a mistrial is declared, the prosecution would have to decide whether to retry the case.

Jurors earlier heard 10 weeks of witness testimony in the case and started deliberations on April 15.

One week into their deliberations, the jurors asked the judge for access to an Excel spreadsheet in an effort to organize their discussions.

On Monday, they asked to print out 12 copies of the spreadsheet so they could work together and discuss the same information, and the judge had a printer installed for the panel to use.

Patz, whose disappearance led to a massive search, was never found and was declared dead in 2001.