Missing Brooklyn Boy’s Tragic Murder Echoes Etan Patz Case from 1979

The tragic and horrific murder of eight-year old Brooklyn boy Leiby Kletzky has similarities with a case from more than three decades ago that shocked New York City and the nation.

Six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared one day from the streets of SoHo in lower Manhattan in May 1979 and was never seen alive again.

Etan was the focus of a national search and he was one of his first faces found on milk cartons as a way of advertising his abduction

Attorney Stuart GraBois, who worked closely with the Patz family, told the New York Daily News: The truth is that the evil that lurks out there still exists. While people are much more aware of the dangers now, it is still scary out there.

GraBois noted that in both cases, the boys were walking alone on the streets.

That hit me immediately when I read the story this morning, GraBois told the News.

However, Patz body was never found and he is presumed to have been murdered. No one was ever charged with his disappearance.

Etan was legally declared dead in 2001.

But there are some leads.

Cy Vance, the Manhattan District Attorney, who re-opened the Patz case last year, said that Jose Antonio Ramos , a convicted child sex abuser who was also friend of Patz's baby-sitter - had confessed to the murder.

Ramos is currently in a prison in Pennsylvania, having been convicted of molesting an 8-year-old boy. He will be released in November 2012.

Meanwhile, Leiby’s remains were located in a dumpster and man named Levi Aron has been taken into custody,