After Etan

by Lisa R. Cohen

  At first, Ramos had looked shell-shocked. But his characteristically cagey expression quickly returned. He laughed derisively. “Do you know where that place is?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, as if to confide in GraBois out of Portzer’s earshot. “It’s some backwoods little hole out in the middle of nowhere. You’re never going to go all the way down there.”

  GraBois leaned forward too, but his reply wasn’t hushed.

  “Just watch me,” he said.

  CHAPTER 16

  More Lost Boys

  CASE REOPENED:

  On date of 01-03-89, this officer was contacted via telephone by U.S. Asst. Attorney, STUART R. GRABOIS… New York, NY and he advised that he had information to lead him to believe that the Accused RAMOS in this case was involved in a kidnapping and possible homicide in that city…. He was having a Subpoena issued for this officer and the subpoena would include a photo album and papers that were located in the bus of RAMOS by the members of the Shippenville PSP Station at the time of RAMOS’s arrest in 1986 in this State and all records pertaining to this case….

  Asst. U.S. ATTORNEY GRABOIS advised that he was going to contact Warren Co. Dist Attorney, Richard A. HERNAN in regards to this case as he felt that it should not have been Nolle Prossed and after doing so would be in touch with this officer.

  —Trooper Dan Portzer, DD5, January 22, 1989

  Two months after Barry Adams told Stuart GraBois he could track down the Taylor family, they were sitting in the prosecutor’s lower Manhattan office. Adams had found them a few days after putting the word out on the Rainbow drumline, and now he and John Buffalo had accompanied the family to New York. Adams wasn’t yet completely sold on GraBois, but he encouraged his friends to at least listen.

  “He says the right things, and then he seems to back them up.”

  GraBois would have the chance to give the Taylors a similar pitch to the one he’d given the original Rainbow scouting party. He also needed to decide for himself whether Joey Taylor, now ten years old, and two years away from the crime, would make a good witness.

  His immediate first impressions of Joey himself: pleasant kid, quiet; GraBois imagined someone had told the boy and his younger brother Billy to behave themselves in this forbidding office. The parents were as he’d expected—frayed around the edges, with the world-weary look and demeanor of the well-trodden-upon underclass. Joe Taylor was a big man, with a sure grip when the two men shook hands. But he sat far back in his seat, wary and stony-faced through much of the conversation. His wife Cherie moved around more, like a fluttery hummingbird; her nerves were more apparent. The passage of time since Ramos’s attack on her son hadn’t dulled her raw response, and she cried as she talked about how Joey had changed since then, how withdrawn and mistrustful he’d become.

  GraBois asked the parents if they minded giving him some time alone with their son. As he gently talked Joey through what he needed him to do, the boy hesitated at first, and GraBois sensed that Joey felt some responsibility for what had happened to him. He’d gone on the bus without being forced, he told GraBois.

  “You had no control over this,” GraBois said, working hard to dissuade him. “He was an adult and he was bigger and older than you. He knew better. He’s the bad guy here.”

  Joey seemed to hear him, and within a few minutes the story was out. With little prompting he was able to give a lucid account of his rape. In a heartbreakingly clear, childish voice he explained the sequence of events in much the same way he had with the state trooper two and a half years earlier. He’d knock it out of the park on the stand, GraBois thought to himself.

  GraBois told the boy much the same thing. “You did exactly what I needed you to do, Joey. If you can tell your story, we’ll make sure Ramos stays in jail. Together we can get this guy. But remember, I can’t do it without you.” It was true. GraBois hated to put that kind of pressure on a ten-year-old, but he couldn’t sugarcoat this.

  The prosecutor stood up, and asked Joey to stand too. “Raise your right hand,” GraBois said, “and I’ll swear you in as my deputy.”

  The boy looked at him solemnly, held up his hand, and repeated GraBois’s improvised pledge.

  “Welcome to law enforcement, Joey.” GraBois shook the boy’s hand. “Now you’re my partner.

  “Okay,” Joey said, and his face was brighter, like a light had turned on inside, illuminating a dark place. The prosecutor was pleased to see that Joey was taking the conversation very seriously. So was GraBois.

  GraBois brought Joe and Cherie Taylor back in, and told Joey he could go out to the conference room to play with his brother.

  “He should do fine,” GraBois said. “Here’s the bottom line. You speak to Joey, and if he doesn’t want to go forward, I won’t do anything to force the issue. But if you agree, then I’ll arrange to have the DA in Warren meet with you while you’re out here, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “We already know that Joey will do this,” Joe Sr. said. “We’ve talked about this more times than you can imagine. Our family has been torn apart by Ramos. We all want him to pay for what he did.”

  As the Taylors were leaving, Joe Sr. took GraBois aside.

  “I appreciate everything you’re doing for us on this.” The father paused. He was uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to leave before he finished his thought. “I want to ask you… Is there any way you can arrange to get me and Ramos in a room together, alone, just for a few minutes?”

  GraBois laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “To be honest, Joe, I think that’s a great idea. But I can’t let you do that.”

  Afterwards, GraBois had called Rick Hernan, the DA, who suggested setting up a meeting in the future.

  “No,” GraBois insisted. “They’re here now. Let’s just do this. I’m sending them down, and I expect you to let me know what the next step is after you meet with them.”

  There was just one problem. Warren was a seven-hour drive from New York, and between them, neither the Taylors nor their Shanti Sena escorts had a credit card or any other means to rent a car. GraBois looked to his team of investigators, who in turn all but pushed Jim Nauwens forward into the line of fire. “You’re going to have to give them your car.”

  Letting a government car out of your hands was serious business. Allowing virtual strangers with little to recommend them drive it out of state was right up there with handing over your gun. Nauwens drove a white sedan that, at least to him, screamed “unmarked car.” He sat down and composed the Rainbows a “To Whom It May Concern”:

  “The bearers of this letter are NOT law enforcement agents. However, they have been authorized to be in possession of this vehicle, for the express and only purpose of traveling from New York City to Warren Pa and back, solely to perform business in the interest of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.” Then he and his fellow investigators laid odds on getting the car back.

  With that the Taylor family, Barry Adams, and John Buffalo were en route to Warren. When they called GraBois several hours after they’d left for Pennsylvania, he assumed they were reporting in on how the meeting went.

  “We’re here,” Joe Taylor said, “but we’re still waiting to see him. We’ve been waiting a few hours.”

  GraBois was outraged. He hung up the phone, called the DA’s Office directly, and tried to contain his anger. The Taylors were ushered in to see the DA soon afterwards, but the episode left a bad taste in GraBois’s mouth. I got him everything he asked for, GraBois thought, and he couldn’t care less.

  The Rainbows were due back on Monday. GraBois had put on a good front to his men, but he couldn’t contain a sigh of relief when Barry Adams called to say they were downstairs parking the car. In a way, the Rainbows had just passed a test. If there were going to be any more anxious moments, GraBois would remember this one, and know that despite their outward appearance the Rainbows could be counted on. When he followed up with the Warren DA later that day to get Hernan’s impressions, it was clear he felt differently.


  “Have you actually seen these people?” Hernan said. That was all GraBois needed to hear. He didn’t care whether the DA was making a personal statement or whether in practical terms he was concerned about their ability to make good witnesses. With that one sentence, taken in any context, GraBois knew this was not the man to win against Jose Ramos. Hernan went on to say that he had no objection to recharging Ramos in the Taylor case—as long as GraBois and the Feds were prepared to assume all costs.

  This is all about money, GraBois thought disgustedly. Once again, he was profoundly grateful to know the expense was not an issue in his office, and he assured the DA the Feds would handle the witness costs and any other expenses. But maybe not right now, not while this man was running the office.

  “If you’re not chafing at the bit to prosecute a bum who sodomized and raped a little kid, what kind of prosecutor are you?” GraBois had worked himself up into a state by the time he told Nauwens about it later. “Who cares what they look like? Okay, maybe if you’re going to trial and they have to testify, you dress them up a little for the jury; get Barry Adams to trade in his chaps for a suit.” GraBois had heard with his own ears that Joey told his story clearly and credibly, so he knew the family’s appearance was irrelevant. He couldn’t help but take it personally, not only for the Taylors, but because it reflected badly on his profession.

  GraBois explained his reluctance to involve the local DA to the Taylors, who’d returned from Warren freshly reinfused with the zeal of the righteously wronged. “I’m completely on board,” he told them, “but I know from experience that everyone involved has to be as well. We’re better off waiting for a new DA.”

  GraBois was well aware that the Taylors might see those words as yet another stalling tactic and he worked hard to convince them that, on the contrary, it was a tactic designed to ensure the best chance to win. He’d already heard that the DA’s Office was likely changing hands at the next election, slated for the end of the year.

  “Don’t give up hope,” he urged the Taylors before they left to go back west. Unlike the Warren DA, meeting Joey Taylor had strengthened GraBois’s resolve, and seeing how Joey and his family had been treated had moved the federal prosecutor one step closer to traveling outside his turf.

  GraBois picked up the picture that had been sitting on his desk since Barry Adams had brought it to him, the photo of the teenage boy who’d traveled with Ramos at the Rainbow Gathering, and who’d reminded the Rainbows so much of the computer-aged photo of Etan. P.J. Fox, the Rainbows had called him.

  GraBois was skeptical about the P.J. connection. The prosecutor had no doubt that Etan Patz was dead, and this boy was probably another in the long list of a certain type Jose Ramos was drawn to. Besides, Etan would have been thirteen in the summer of 1986 when P.J. stood at the door of Ramos’s bus and had his picture taken. The teenager glaring at the camera looked considerably older and more mature. But even if P.J. Fox weren’t Etan Patz, GraBois had now met Joey and heard what Ramos had done to him. If nothing else, P.J. might know something—about Ramos, about what happened at the Rainbow camp—and GraBois wanted to find him. He might even be an eyewitness to Joey Taylor’s rape.

  As tidbits of information began to stream in, P.J. Fox became more interesting. There was a report that the teen had been involved in male prostitution in the Columbus, Ohio, area, and he also had a healthy rap sheet, complete with an outstanding warrant. When GraBois learned that P.J.’s mother had worked at a foster care home, it raised the obvious question: Was P.J. adopted? If so, it lent more credence to that next-to-impossible thought: Could P.J. actually be Etan? GraBois was taking it seriously enough to want to know what Etan would look like now, in 1989. The 1984 computer-enhanced portrait that the Rainbows had seen in GraBois’s office depicted a prepubescent boy. This year was the tenth anniversary of Etan’s disappearance. He would be sixteen years old now, fully adolescent. At that age, youngsters physically transformed.

  GraBois called Stan Patz, and while assuring him this request was just in the service of eliminating yet one more “look-like,” he asked Stan to dig up teenage photos of himself and Julie. Together with a current picture of Shira, these were sent to the FBI Special Projects Unit in Quantico. There the graphics whizzes who prepared exhibits for trial and worked techno-magic, re-created a computer-enhanced estimate of a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Etan.

  They gave the teen an unkempt mullet haircut, to match P.J.’s, but otherwise worked entirely off of the Patz family’s facial features. Only after they were finished did they set eyes on P.J.’s actual photo. Even to the naked eye, the resemblance was astonishing. Next, Special Projects overlaid a grid on each face, dividing them into several distinct areas. Then each individual square of the grid was compared side by side, one square at a time. Every separate grid section matched.

  “Oh my God.” GraBois held the two photos next to each other and listened to FBI special agent Lisa Smith describe the grid process. The two faces staring back were twins. For the first time in the four long years of his investigation, he allowed himself the unthinkable thought: “What if the kid’s alive?” He’d been so sure it wasn’t possible, knowing Ramos, knowing the odds. Then the moment passed, and the logical, methodical side of GraBois’s brain reasserted itself. It just didn’t add up. Still, he needed to see that for himself.

  In late October 1989, GraBois and Bob Shaw, along with Agent Smith, headed to Ohio. They flew to Columbus with a collective air of contained excitement. P.J.’s mother had an apartment in nearby Portsmouth, and the team drove to her trim, well-groomed garden complex to interview her, hoping she’d lead them to her son. At one point, GraBois and Lisa Smith were standing outside the apartment house while Shaw and a local FBI agent were inside talking to P.J.’s sister. Suddenly, the two spotted a young man walking toward the building, and they realized he matched P.J.’s description. But in the next moment he saw them, glanced around wildly, and turned as if to run.

  “FBI, P.J. Don’t run, we just want to talk to you.” Smith, a tiny but toned long-distance runner who habitually ran six miles, took off after him, quickly reaching P.J.’s side before he could get away. But everything after that dramatic moment was anticlimactic. Inside his mother’s apartment, it quickly became apparent that P.J. was not Etan Patz. A copy of his birth certificate was produced. Even if it were forged, the age difference, as GraBois had suspected, was obviously too great. Later there would be confirming fingerprints, even DNA, and the Patzes themselves, when eventually shown P.J.’s photo, would shake their heads right away. But the follow-up was all just a formality—the evidence was clear that day. P.J. was not Etan Patz. Worse, in GraBois’s mind—since he’d been skeptical all along—P.J. professed to know nothing further to help them in their case against Ramos.

  Afterwards, the three investigators—GraBois, Smith, and Shaw—went to dinner and spent most of it staring at each other in disbelief. How many more highs and lows could there be in this case? Later, after he talked to Bonnie on the phone back at the hotel, GraBois found it easier to put things in perspective. His own frustration was nothing compared to what the Patz family had gone through every day of their lives for years. Then GraBois thought back to his encouraging words to the Taylor family not to give up, and he turned them inward.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I Told You So”

  Dear Mr. Ramos,

  I have reviewed your letter of October 16, 1989 wherein you ask whether the District Attorney will refile charges. This is to advise that once charges are nolle prossed they cannot be refiled.

  —letter from Thomas Bonavita, assistant public defender, Warren County, to Jose Ramos, October 23, 1989

  On a miserably wet November morning a week after the Ohio trip, Stuart GraBois was back in his office. Jose Ramos was back there too, for one final visit before the end of his latest stint in federal custody at GraBois’s behest. This was the third time the prosecutor had writted Ramos from Pennsylvania’s Rockview prison, each ti
me for several months at a stretch, each time in the futile hope the inmate’s resolve would crack. As the two men waited for Ramos’s attorney Leonard Joy to arrive, GraBois as usual cautioned Ramos not to speak without his lawyer present.

  “You just need to listen,” GraBois said, “and understand that your situation is about to change. The decision you make today in my office will affect you for the rest of your life, because by tomorrow, word will be out all over this city—and then beyond—that you are the guy we’re looking at in the Patz case.”

  GraBois knew that Channel 4 reporter John Miller planned to break a big story on the case that night, a story that for the first time in ten years would put a name and a face on its prime suspect. Never mind that Jose Ramos’s near confession was over a year old by November 1989; to a still fascinated public, it was the first news in years. From his reporting in the days following Etan’s disappearance, then slogging through the drainpipe in 1982 and trekking to Israel three years later, Miller had been a presence at several pivotal moments. He liked to refer to himself as the Patz case’s Zelig, recalling the Woody Allen character who’d been cleverly edited into newsreel footage of real-life historical events.

  In Ohio, GraBois had pointedly ignored the large white satellite uplink truck with the “WNBC—New York” logo emblazoned on its side that was parked outside his hotel every day. Tipped off to the Ohio trip, Miller had hauled a producer, camera crew, and the company truck across state lines to Columbus, where they’d all cooled their heels for several days, staking out the Feds.

  By this time, Miller had become a high-profile reporter at Channel 4, the NBC network’s flagship affiliate, where he’d made a name for himself with his irreverent, ballsy coverage of New York mobsters. He was often seen on camera in his signature trench coat, trailing after feared crime boss John Gotti and lobbing pointed questions. But now the reporter had taken a long-shot bet, hoping to roll the camera, knock on a door, and record history when it was opened by a seventeen-year-old Etan Patz. It didn’t happen. After delicate negotiations back in New York both the disappointed GraBois and the persistent Miller agreed that it was finally time for the Ramos angle to surface. Miller would get a big scoop to help mitigate his wild goose chase out of state. For his part, GraBois hoped a new lead would result from getting the word out. Press was always a tricky proposition, but as the Patzes had found out in those first few days, it was often the best way to mobilize resources. Plus, GraBois hoped the publicity would have the extra benefit of putting added pressure on Ramos.