Suspect reportedly kept Etan Patz' body in fridge for days NEW YORK - The man who confessed to strangling Etan Patz in New York was calculating enough to stash the child's corpse in a basement walk-in refrigerator before tossing it out with the trash. Murder suspect Pedro Hernandez, 51, told authorities that after killing the child on May 25, 1979, "he put him in the walk-in box and kept him there until he took him out and put him in the garbage," a law enforcement source told the New York Post. It was unclear how long Hernandez, then 19, kept the boy's body hidden in the basement fridge at his family's SoHo bodega after killing him. Etan's body was stuffed in a plastic bag and then put into a box before being stowed in the walk-in, sources said.