Thursday, New York Police and FBI agents descended on a basement in downtown Manhattan, where they could spend up to five days looking for human remains, clothing or other personal effects, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.
He didn't say why the cold case was reopened.
An investigator who was briefed on the search said authorities were drawn to the location after a cadaver dog recently seized on a scent there.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that at the time of the boy's disappearance on his way to school, the building being searched housed the workspace of a carpenter thought to have been friendly with him.
The basement, about a block from where Etan lived with his parents, Stanley and Julie, was identified in the initial search but was never excavated by police, Browne said.
Onlookers watch police and media activity outside a building in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan on Thursday.
No one has ever been prosecuted, but Stanley Patz sued an incarcerated drifter and admitted child molester, Jose Ramos, who had dated Etan's babysitter.
Ramos denied killing the boy, but in 2004 a Manhattan judge ruled him to be responsible, largely because of his refusal to contest the case.
Etan's parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, became outspoken advocates for missing children. For years, they refused to change their phone number, in the hope that Etan was alive somewhere, and might call. They never moved, although they obtained a court order in 2001 declaring the boy dead.
Stanley Patz didn't respond to phone calls and email messages Thursday. A man who answered the buzzer at the family's apartment said they wouldn't be speaking to the media.
No one has ever been prosecuted for Etan's disappearance, but Stanley Patz sued an incarcerated drifter and admitted child-molester, Jose Ramos, who had been dating Etan's babysitter around the time he disappeared.
Ramos, who is not the carpenter whose workspace was being searched, denied killing the child, but in 2004 a Manhattan civil judge ruled him to be responsible for the death, largely due to his refusal to contest the case.
Ramos is scheduled to be released from prison in Pennsylvania in November, when he finishes serving most of a 20-year-sentence for abusing an 8-year-old boy. His pending freedom is one of the factors that has given new urgency to the case.
Investigators have looked at a long list of possible suspects over the years, and have excavated in other places before without success.
The 13-foot by 62-foot basement space being searched Thursday sits beneath several clothing boutiques. Investigators began by removing drywall partitions so they could get to brick walls that were exposed back in 1979 when the boy disappeared, Browne said.
Browne said the excavation is part of a review of the case, which was reopened by the Manhattan district attorney two years ago.
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