The First Face on the Milk Carton: The Disappearance of Etan Patz

On the morning of May 25, 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz walked out of the family's SoHo loft on Prince Street and turned the corner toward his school bus stop. It was the first time his parents had ever let him make the two-block walk alone — a milestone he had argued for, insisted on, and finally won. He was wearing a black pilot's cap that said "Future Flight Captain." He had a dollar in his pocket for a soda. His mother Julie watched him as far as Wooster Street, then turned back inside. She had toddlers to tend to. He never arrived at the bus stop. At 3:50 that afternoon, she called the police.

What followed is one of the longest, most legally tangled, and most consequential missing-persons cases in American history. This episode traces the full arc: the massive 1979 search that went cold, the federal prosecutors who spent decades pursuing one suspect, the high-profile 2012 basement dig that shook loose a different tip entirely, the seven-hour interrogation that produced the only evidence the prosecution ever had, two criminal trials separated by a hung jury, a 2017 conviction — and a 2025 federal appeals court ruling that overturned everything. As of the day this episode goes to air, the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to restore that conviction. A third trial looms. The deadline is June 1st.

Etan's parents, Stan and Julie Patz, never moved from 113 Prince Street. They kept the same phone number for forty years.