Timeline in Etan Patz case

May 25, 1979

Etan Patz, 6, disappears after leaving his family apartment on Prince Street for school.

May 1981

A Long Island man is charged with attempted grand larceny and aggravated harassment after trying to extort $2,500 from Etan's father by claiming he could guarantee the safety of the child.

May 1982

Stanley and Julie Patz, Etan's parents, offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to Etan's return or proof that he is dead.

December 1982

A retired taxi driver tells police he may have picked up Etan and a man in his cab the morning of the boy's disappearance.

December 1982

Three Manhattan apartments belonging to members of a homosexual teenage pornography group are raided in a search for clues after a photo resembling Etan is found in Wareham, Mass. One of those arrested in Wareham, a member of the North America Man-Boy Love Association, said he saw a copy of the photo in a Manhattan apartment.

May 25, 1983

President Ronald Reagan signs a proclamation making May 25th National Missing Children's Day.

November 1985

FBI agents go to Israel on a tip that Etan might have been smuggled there by a group of ultra-Orthodox Romanian Jews. At the FBI's request, several Israeli newspapers reprint a photo of Patz.

January 1986

An Israeli police investigator says he believes that Etan "is somewhere in the United States."

February 1986

In a case of mistaken identity, Seattle police and FBI agents fingerprint a 12-year-old after a classmate saw a photo of Etan.

May 25, 1989

On the 10-year anniversary of Etan's disappearance, city investigators say that after a decade of false leads and alleged sightings, "statistically speaking," Etan is probably dead.

Nov. 3, 1989

Investigators reveal that a former mental patient serving a long prison term for a sex crime, Jose Antonio Ramos, told them he brought Patz to an apartment for sex, but the boy refused and left unmolested.

June 15, 2000

Police searched a basement where Ramos was living when Patz disappeared.

June 19, 2001

Patz is declared legally dead, clearing the way for the family to sue Ramos.

April 19, 2004

A civil judge enters a judgment finding Ramos responsible for Etan's death after Ramos failed to submit to a deposition in the lawsuit against him by the Patz family.

April 2012

Investigators conduct an excavation and search of a building's basement in SoHo over several days in an effort to find remains. Evidence is recovered but investigators say none of it is human remains.

SOURCE: Newsday research