( CNN ) A New York jury deliberating the fate of the man charged with the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz is struggling to reach a verdict . The little boy 's disappearance , more than three decades ago , sparked an era of heightened awareness of crimes against children . Deliberations resumed on Thursday , one day after New York Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley ordered the jury to continue efforts to reach a decision on the guilt or innocence of a bodega worker named Pedro Hernandez . On the 10th day of deliberations , the jurors on Wednesday said in a note that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision . Hernandez confessed to police three years ago , but his lawyers said he made up his account of the crime . Etan Patz 's parents have waited more than 35 years for justice , but some have questioned whether that is even possible in Hernandez 's case . His lawyer has said that he is mentally challenged , severely mentally ill and unable to tell whether he committed the crime or not . Hernandez told police in a taped statement that he lured Patz into a basement as the boy was on his way to a bus stop in Lower Manhattan . He said he killed the boy and threw his body away in a plastic bag . Neither the child nor his remains have ever been recovered . But Hernandez has been repeatedly diagnosed with schizophrenia and has an `` IQ in the borderline-to-mild mental retardation range , '' his attorney Harvey Fishbein has said . Police interrogated Hernandez for 7½ hours before he confessed . `` I think anyone who sees these confessions will understand that when the police were finished , Mr. Hernandez believed he had killed Etan Patz . But that does n't mean he actually did , and that 's the whole point of this case , '' Fishbein has said . But in November , a New York judge ruled that Hernandez 's confession and his waiving of his Miranda rights were legal , making the confession admissible in court . Hernandez is charged with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly intending to cause the boy 's death and for a killing that occurred during a kidnapping . Another man 's name has also hung over the Patz case for years -- Jose Antonio Ramos , a convicted child molester acquainted with Etan 's babysitter . Etan 's parents , Stan and Julia Patz , sued Ramos in 2001 . The boy was officially declared dead as part of that lawsuit . A judge found Ramos responsible for the boy 's death and ordered him to pay the family $ 2 million -- money the Patz family has never received . Though Ramos was at the center of investigations for years , he has never been charged . He served a 20-year prison sentence in Pennsylvania for molesting another boy and was set to be released in 2012 . He was immediately rearrested upon leaving jail in 2012 on charges of failing to register as a sex offender , The Associated Press reported . Since their young son 's disappearance , the Patzes have worked to keep the case alive and to create awareness of missing children in the United States . In the early 1980s , Etan 's photo appeared on milk cartons across the country , and news media focused in on the search for him and other missing children . `` It awakened America , '' said Ernie Allen , president and chief executive officer of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children . `` It was the beginning of a missing children 's movement . '' The actual number of children who were kidnapped and killed did not change -- it 's always been a relatively small number -- but awareness of the cases skyrocketed , experts said . But the news industry was expanding to cable television , and sweet images of children appeared along with distraught parents begging for their safe return . The fear rising across the nation sparked awareness and prompted change from politicians and police . In 1984 , Congress passed the Missing Children 's Assistance Act , which led to the creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children . President Ronald Reagan opened the center in a White House ceremony in 1984 . It soon began operating a 24-hour toll-free hot line on which callers could report information about missing boys and girls . CNN 's Lorenzo Ferrigno and Joe Sterling contributed to this report .
Etan Patz died in 1979 ; his face appeared on milk cartons all across the united states . His case marked a period of heightened awareness of violence against children . Pedro Hernandez confessed three years ago to the killing .