'Breakthrough' in Etan Patz case as suspect 'confesses' to strangling milk carton boy However, unofficial briefings from the police department made clear it was treating Hernandez's claims "cautiously" and with a "healthy dose of scepticism." That was partly because he had provided no new information that was not already in the public domain. The confession also happened the day before the anniversary of Etan's disappearance, when investigators traditionally receive a flood of false leads. Hernandez was already known to the police and had been considered a possible suspect in the past, but was dismissed. Etan vanished after heading out from his family's apartment to catch a school bus, the first time his parents had let him do so alone. At the time, Hernandez lived a few blocks away from the Patz family, and also worked in a shop nearby. In the 1990s he received jail sentences in Indiana for cocaine possession and battery. He later moved to Camden, New Jersey where he had relatives. Over a period of years he reportedly confessed to family members, and a spiritual adviser, that he had killed a child but did not mention the name of Etan Patz. After publicity surrounding a police search of a cellar 100 yards from Etan's home last month a relative was said to have contacted police. Hernandez had no connection to the cellar which was used in 1979 as a workshop by Othniel Miller, a handyman who paid Etan to help him with chores. Miller, now 75, was not named a suspect and denied any involvement. Police spent four days excavating the cellar, including ripping up a concrete floor, but the search produced no clues. In the past, the case has largely centred on Jose Antonio Ramos who had been dating the boy's babysitter at the time he disappeared. Ramos was later convicted of child molestation in a separate case in Pennsylvania involving an eight-year-old boy. He is serving a 20-year jail sentence and is due to be released later this year. Etan's father, Stan Patz, had his son declared legally dead in 2001 so he could sue Ramos. In 2004 a civil judge found him to be responsible for Etan's death. But he has never been criminally charged in the case and denies harming the boy. In the 1980s the search for Etan led to the dare of his disappearance, May 25, being declared "National Missing Child Day" by President Ronald Reagan The Patz family, who still live in the same apartment in Manhattan, have undergone a series of false starts in the investigation before. Despite the child having been declared dead the case was re-opened by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in 2010 and Hernandez was questioned at his office. Police also took him back to the spot where he claimed to have dumped the victim's body. They are also interviewing relatives of Hernandez to see if he told them any details about the crime over the last three decades.