The FBI and the New York Police Department launched a renewed search on Thursday (April 19) in connection with the disappearance of Etan Patz in 1979, when the boy was 6 years old, in one of the city's most prominent missing child cases.
Patz, who was one of the first missing children to appear on a milk carton, was formally declared dead in 2001.
The authorities re-launched their search early on Thursday in the SoHo neighborhood where the boy disappeared.
Browne said the search could take about five days.
Authorities did not immediately make clear whether they knew where Patz's body was located.
Patz disappeared while walking to the bus stop, two blocks from his home. It was the first time his parents had allowed him to take the trip alone, according to news reports from the time of his disappearance.
No one was ever criminally charged in Patz's disappearance but in 2004 his family won a $2 million (USD) civil judgment against Jose Antonio Ramos, a friend of Patz's babysitter, who has denied any involvement in Patz's disappearance.
The sum has not been paid, and Ramos is serving a prison sentence in Pennsylvania for a separate child molestation case. His sentence will expire in November, a state
Department of Corrections spokeswoman said.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance reopened the case in 2010.
