Nearly 40 years after Etan Patz disappeared, Pedro Hernandez was arrested in connection with his kidnapping and murder. Prosecutors involved The Forensic Panel at early stages after the arrest, before filing charges, to consider defense claims from several psychologists that Hernandez had falsely confessed because he was mentally ill and intellectually disabled. A forensic psychologist and forensic psychiatrist from The Forensic Panel interviewed Hernandez for many hours, conducted psychological testing, studied confessions he had made many years earlier to a prayer group and to a fiancée, and more recent confessions he made to police interrogators and jail medical staff. The specialist concluded that Hernandez confessed because he felt intense guilt and that the spontaneous, voluntary confessions Hernandez made decades earlier to a prayer group and his fiancée couldn't be attributed to a psychiatric condition.
The case proceeded to trial, and The Forensic Panel’s psychiatrist testified at the request of prosecutors about an absence of risk factors for false confession. Eleven jurors voted guilty, with one holdout juror remaining after nearly three weeks of deliberation. The case was retried, and The Forensic Panel’s forensic psychiatrist was again the prosecution’s lead mental health witness. This time, the jury unanimously rendered a guilty verdict to Hernandez.
