A federal appeals court on Monday ordered Pedro Hernandez, the SoHo bodega clerk convicted of kidnapping and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, get a new trial or be freed from custody —

Pedro Hernandez, 64, was convicted of Etan’s kidnapping and murder in 2017 and was serving a 25-year sentence until the appeals court ordered on July 21 that he be released unless he gets a

The decades-long case of Etan Patz, whose 1979 disappearance transformed America’s approach to missing children, takes a new turn as his killer’s conviction is overturned.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals based its decision on a flawed jury instruction given by a New York State judge about Hernandez's purported confessions.

The judges’ decision echoed ProPublica’s reporting from 2013 that raised questions about the veracity and legality of suspect Pedro Hernandez’s confessions in one of the most famous missing child cases in U.