Etan Patz Case Reopened 31 Years Later

May 26, 2010 -- The 31-year-old case of Etan Patz, the little boy who disappeared on his way to a school bus stop in downtown Manhattan, has been reopened, a spokeswoman for the New York district attorney confirmed to ABC News.

On National Missing Children's Day, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance agreed to investigate the iconic case, which sparked a national campaign to find missing children and marked profound changes in how missing children cases were investigated.

Vance took office in January after the retirement of District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who had declined to proceed with the case, citing insufficient evidence.

For the Patz family, it has been more than three decades of agonizing investigations and years of wondering what happened to their blond son with the gorgeous smile, and questioning why the man they believe is responsible for his kidnapping -- Jose Antonio Ramos -- has never been held criminally liable.

"I still gag with fear that this child must have felt ... when he realized he was being betrayed by an adult," Etan's father Stan Patz told ABC News' "20/20" in an interview last May.

Former federal prosecutor Stuart GraBois, who fought to solve the disappearance of Etan Patz for more than 20 years, told ABC News he agrees with Vance's decision.

"I'm quite pleased that the DA's office sees fit to reopen the investigation and hopefully they'll also see fit to indict and convict Jose Antonio Ramos for the abduction and murder of Etan Patz," said GraBois, who took over the investigation in 1985, but was never able to prosecute the case.

Ramos, an imprisoned child molester whose former girlfriend had worked for the Patzes, walking Etan to and from school during a bus strike, is still the main suspect in the case.

Investigators connected Ramos, a convicted pedophile, to the Etan Patz case. Etan's body was never found, but he was declared dead in 2001. In a 2004 civil suit, a New York judge ruled Ramos responsible for Etan's death -- a charge he denied. Ramos is currently serving time in a Pennsylvania prison for molesting an 8-year-old boy in an unrelated case. He is expected to stay behind bars until 2012.