Moorestown , New Jersey ( CNN ) -- Rosemary Hernandez was going through hard times , coping with financial woes after recently losing her job at an insurance company , all that coming years after an accident left her husband unable to work . Yet it was something else entirely on her mind when she and her daughter came weeping into their Moorestown , New Jersey , church Thursday , according to their pastor . `` I knew it was something bad , '' Marantha Christian Fellowship church Senior Pastor George Bowen told CNN on Sunday . Hernandez told Bowen that police came to her door the previous day , saying their visit had `` something to do with the Etan Patz case . '' The 6-year-old boy 's sudden disappearance a block from his Manhattan home on May 25 , 1979 , spawned a national movement to raise awareness of missing children , including the then-novel approach of putting an image of the child 's face on milk cartons . Her husband , Pedro Hernandez , ended up leaving the family home with police -- and , with his subsequent arrest , he has n't returned . `` She seemed absolutely shell-shocked , '' Bowen recalled Sunday of his conversation three days earlier with Rosemary Hernandez . `` She was crying . She had an expression on her face like , 'How could this ever happen ? ' '' That same day , police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters that Pedro Hernandez had admitted -- as a then-19-year-old clerk in a Manhattan bodega -- to luring Etan to the store with the promise of a soda , choking him and placing his body in the trash about a block and a half away . The Manhattan district attorney 's office charged Pedro Hernandez with second-degree murder , finding his confession credible even given that authorities concede there is no physical evidence linking him and that Patz 's body has never been found . Defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein claims his client -- who is on suicide watch at New York 's Bellevue Hospital , according to a law enforcement source -- has a `` long psychiatric history '' including schizophrenia , bipolar disorder and hallucinations . Hernandez has not entered a plea due to a pending psychiatric evaluation . Rosemary Hernandez is Pedro Hernandez 's second wife . Bowen , the New Jersey pastor , said he got the impression Pedro Hernandez never mentioned anything about the Patz case or about killing anyone to his wife , while ceding he never posed the question directly to Rosemary Hernandez . What he did know for certain was that the Hernandez family attended the church regularly . The couple faithfully sat in the second row during services , the pastor said . Rosemary Hernandez and her daughter were active in church ministries . But Pedro Hernandez , who Kelly has said had been collecting disability payments since a 1993 accident prevented him from working , was more in the background . `` He 's very quiet , very shy , '' Bowen said , describing him as `` socially awkward . '' The pastor said that his interactions with the husband typically consisted of brief greetings and little else . Once , the couple came to him for counseling -- for an issue he say was not related to their marriage or a crime -- and Rosemary Hernandez `` did all the talking , '' Bowen said . For this Sunday 's services , Rosemary Hernandez and her daughter were not in their regular spot in the second row . But they were on Bowen 's mind , as was Pedro Hernandez 's alleged victim and the boy 's family . `` Please pray for the Patz family , pray for Rosemary and ( her daughter ) , '' the pastor told his congregation . `` Please pray for Pedro . ''
Rosemary Hernandez visited her pastor after her husband 's arrest , the pastor says . She was weeping and confused that Rosemary Hernandez was accused of murder . Police say her husband confessed to killing Rosemary Hernandez , a half , in Sunday . The pastor asks church members to pray for the Bellevue Hospital and Hernandez families .