Manhattan district attorney candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder announced she was endorsed by the father of Etan Patz, a young boy who was abducted and presumed murdered 30 years ago. The father, Stanley Patz, said he had tried at the time getting Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau to investigate the case, to no avail.
Morgenthau’s office never brought the case forward.
“It’s 30 years later, and there still hasn’t been any justice for Etan,” Crocker Snyder said. She said she’d seek a grand jury investigation into the matter, if elected.
At the event, Snyder was asked if she’d seek the death penalty for whomever is convicted of the crime. She supported the death penalty during her previous run for the office, in 2005, but now opposes it. It’s a change that her opponents, Cy Vance and Richard Aborn, have criticized.
“As you know by now, I am against the death penalty,” she said, before adding, “and there is no death penalty in New York.”
After the event, I asked Stanley Patz if any other candidate sought his endorsement. He said he felt “beholden” to Snyder because “she’s the one who came out years ago as an advocate. Now, we were being stonewalled by Robert Morgenthau’s office.”
