Etan Patz vanished May 25, 1979, as he walked from his family's SoHo apartment to his school bus stop two blocks away.
His shocking disappearance helped launch a nationwide movement to put the photographs of missing kids on milk cartons.
The boy, 6 years old when he disappeared, was declared legally dead in 2001.
PHOTOS: TIMELINE OF THE ETAN PATZ CASE
No one was ever arrested or charged with Etan's disappearance, but in 1985 a pedophile named Jose Ramos was identified as the prime suspect in the case. His girlfriend baby-sat for Etan.
Ramos, who is 68 and is doing time in a Pennsylvania prison for molesting two boys, has admitted taking a young boy back to his apartment to rape on the day Etan disappeared. He said the boy looked like Etan, but he insisted he let the boy go.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Jose Ramos (l.) was one of several people believed to have kidnapped and killed Etan Patz. Another suspected in the case Othniel Miller. No one has ever been charged.
Ramos was declared responsible for Etan's death in 2004
ETAN PATZ CASE: PEDRO HERNANDEZ ARRESTED IN ETAN PATZ'S 1979 DISAPPEARANCE
Echoes of Etan's disappearance have appeared in other missing children cases, including the July 2011 case of Leiby Kletzky. Both boys vanished the first time they were allowed to walk the streets alone.
HISTORY: ETAN PATZ CASE CHANGED THE WAY POLICE HANDLED MISSING KIDS CASES
Interest in Etan's case was revived last month when law enforcement agents dug up a SoHo basement that was the workplace of former handyman Othniel Miller, who knew Etan from the neighborhood.
The building containing Miller’s workshop was on the two-block route the sandy-haired boy was taking to his bus when he disappeared
33 years ago. The search, however, turned up no new evidence.
