AFTER ETAN – The Story Continues

In 1990 as a fledgling producer at the ABC News magazine PrimeTime Live, I heard about an incredible story  - a New York federal prosecutor named Stuart GraBois had traveled out of state  - and out of his jurisdiction - to western Pennsylvania. There, he’d had himself deputized as a state prosecutor, to go after his prime suspect on the famous Etan Patz missing child case.

I traveled down to the Warren, PA courthouse to watch Jose Antonio Ramos be sentenced to 10-20 years for his attack on another little boy. I then followed the story off and on over the entire length of that prison term, right up to today. When I moved to “60 Minutes” in 1998, the story went with me, and I reported it there in 2000, when Ramos first came up for parole, and Stan Patz went on camera in a rare appearance, to make the argument against it. 

Finally, after Stan Patz won a civil lawsuit against Ramos in 2004, I decided to write the first book ever told on the case, with the cooperation of the Patzes, and with the help of Stuart GraBois.  Like my childhood literary influences, writers like Madeleine L’Engle, Harper Lee, and later Anna Quindlen, I’ve always been drawn to stories about quiet heroes – ordinary people who face extraordinary situations with great courage, character and creativity. The story of Etan’s family, and the dogged effort to find out what happened to Etan, epitomized those qualities.

It’s taken five years to complete the book. I’ve done hundreds of interviews, dozens with Stan Patz and with Stuart GraBois, and I’ve been privileged to speak with Julie Patz on occasion – she is an amazing woman. Stan Patz works in his photo studio in the loft’s front room, and I spent many days sitting next to him, leafing through the phone logbooks they’ve been keeping for the last thirty years, trained by the police to write down every call. It was an amazing resource.  Another amazing resource is Stuart GraBois, who as a collaborator and consultant, kept me moving down the right path.  

Now, after the book has been finished, there’s actually still news. Pennsylvania gives no time off for good behavior and barring parole, which is unlikely, Jose Ramos, had been scheduled to serve his full term by March of 2014. Just recently he has managed to shave sixteen months of his sentence through a “recalibration,” and will walk out of jail in November 2012, in three and a half years.  GraBois, upon learning that news, immediately began to pursue avenues to keep Ramos behind bars, and he just learned about a new statute pending in Pennsylvania legislature that would apply to Ramos – civil commitment for offenders like him. GraBois is now on a new mission to see that law passed. And both he and Stan Patz are carefully following the current NY District Attorney’s race to succeed retiring DA Robert Morgenthau.  All three candidates are pledging to take the case further if elected. One candidate, Leslie Crocker Snyder, has been on the record for years, stating she’d put the Patz case into a grand jury if she gets in.
 
So the story continues.