After Etan

by Lisa R. Cohen

  He tried not to dwell on his own vulnerability. The indirect threats were constant. If I ever found a snitch, Ramos often said, I would kill him without hesitation, and Fischer knew that Ramos could, even in a bare cell. A sharpened pencil, a broomstick, those utilitarian toilets—four inches of water could drown a man whose head was lodged in one.

  Fischer worked to banish such outcomes from his mind; he focused instead on advancing to second base. His own obsession ran to the Mets, and now he tried to see himself as just a player in the game. Daylight helped him maintain the illusion, so at moments like this, he would order himself to sleep. In a caged space that small, sleep was the only escape.

  The first real mention of Etan himself, perhaps understandably, came not during a therapy session, but in the ongoing Patz case legal discussions, while the two were “working” on Ramos’s various briefs. In a recurrent thread, Fischer was attempting to ingratiate himself by mapping out a plan to remove GraBois from the case. He’d quickly learned that invoking GraBois’s name would make Ramos more volatile, and thus more loose-lipped.

  “You’ve got a good case for prosecutorial misconduct,” Fischer would say, and they’d plot that for a while. Sometimes he’d instruct Ramos to lay out the facts of the Patz case, working GraBois’s name into the conversation as often as possible. Fischer tried never to ask a direct question, putting them instead in terms of GraBois.

  “GraBois thinks this, GraBois knows that,” he’d say.

  “GraBois doesn’t have a shred of evidence,” Ramos would retort, “except what I told him. He doesn’t know shit.”

  Then, with any luck, Ramos would show how the prosecutor was all wrong by telling Fischer what was right. How ironic, Fischer thought, that I’m working for GraBois, and he’s working for me.

  “You told GraBois yourself you picked the boy up in Washington Square Park,” Fischer now tried. “The newspapers even say that.”

  “And that’s wrong, too. I didn’t pick him up there. It was blocks away.”

  It was the sound of wood connecting with the ball. Fischer headed to second. “I need to see it on paper, Jose, otherwise the words just go into the air. If you want me to help you, I have to see it to understand, just like I need case law to write a brief. Something I can stare at over and over ’til it makes sense; that’s the only way we’ll figure out how to recant what you told GraBois.” Fischer found a piece of paper and prodded Ramos to draw it all out, just like he’d done for Jon Morgan some two weeks earlier. Ramos sketched in the X on the makeshift map where, he said, he’d picked Etan up. It was a spot on Prince Street, a block from the Patz apartment.

  “Then what?” Fischer pushed a bit.

  “Then we went back to my apartment. But I never forced him.”

  “Why would he ever go with you?”

  “I just walked up to him on the street and said, ‘Hi, remember me? I’m Sandy’s friend.’ ”

  “Ramos didn’t meet him at random, he was very forceful about this point,” Fischer later reported to GraBois. “He didn’t elaborate as to whether he’d met Etan before. I think it mattered to him that I didn’t think he had just ‘picked him up.’ That’s it so far as direct Patz involvement goes. If anything’s going to happen, it’ll come soon.”

  It wasn’t long in coming. Once Etan’s name had been broached in the legal discussions, it was easier to bring it up in the therapy sessions. Fischer believed that Ramos actually yearned to talk about what had happened back in 1979. At the end of previous confessional moments, he had always appeared relieved, drained, as though he felt expiated of his sins.

  Within a few days, an opportunity presented itself. Ramos had already mentioned other boys by then; visitors to the drainpipe, a young teen in Greenwich Village, and the boy in Ohio, whom Ramos called Peter James. Once again, as he often did, Ramos distinguished between his “relationships” and abuse. Fischer egged him on—in the absence of force, he concurred, Ramos was guilty of a societal rather than a legal crime. “These young lovers of yours.” Fischer tried to appear curious about the technicalities. “What constituted sex with them?”

  Ramos took the bait. He matter-of-factly described rubbing up against them from behind, sometimes taking them orally or having the boys fellate him. Penetration was difficult, he explained.

  “Is that what you did to the Patz boy?” Fischer kept his voice very neutral.

  “Yes, before I sent him home.” Ramos was still hedging his bets, but Fischer had just hit a double, and he had to go on playing his part for the team.

  Ramos seemed completely at ease, and Fischer affected a casual air as he pushed for more detail, mixing in Etan’s name with the others he’d heard. This felt like the culmination of everything he had been working toward.

  He was trying to commit the words to memory, so that later he could write them all down faithfully. When he got the chance he would relay to GraBois how Ramos was clear and graphic about the sexual acts he’d committed, both orally and anally, on the boy. How Ramos acknowledged that Etan had been fearful and unwilling but that Ramos had reassured him that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  “I honor him every day,” Ramos said.

  Now as the session swung back and forth between conversational and confessional, Ramos’s mood was alternately calm and overwrought. Sometimes, discussing the sex acts, his eyes would glaze over and he’d rock back and forth.

  “You’ll never be whole until you get it out, Jose,” Fischer urged him on. “Redeem yourself.” This was a common tack. Fischer often encouraged Ramos to separate himself from his acts, so that he could purge those acts; the only way to heal, he told Ramos. Now Fischer wanted to hear Ramos finally say in no uncertain terms that he’d killed his victim. He knew GraBois needed that in order to clinch the case, as well as what Ramos had done with the body.

  But the moment never came. Instead, Fischer later told the Feds, both men were jolted out of their session as the door banged open and guards announced they were searching the cell. Fischer never knew why, but the two men were separated long enough for the intensity of the moment and the mood to pass. Now he could only sort through all he’d heard, while he waited until it was safe to put it on paper. He knew from experience that Ramos would need a break before the next foray, so for a few days he made notes when he could and looked for his next chance to play therapist. But at night, as he relived the exchanges and wrote them down, he began to hope the chance wouldn’t come again. He couldn’t deny that playing the game was a kick; his senses were alert in ways he’d almost forgotten since he’d gone back inside. He wanted to get the job done, for Ramos’s victims now as well as his own agenda. But even the heartless character Fischer was playing during the day was starting to feel things, things that made him feel awful. And he was starting to feel he’d had enough.

  CHAPTER 24

  Double Play

  Jeremy Fischer: Ramos said he knew Etan from Sandy. Ramos said, “I honor his memory.”…“GraBois knows I did it—I’ll take him [GraBois] to the grave with me and Etan.”… I asked, “Is he dead?” Ramos said, “What the fuck do you think? Of course he’s dead….” He said, “… They’ll never, ever convict me because they’ll never, ever have a body.”

  —Jeremy Fischer phone conversation with Stuart GraBois, April 19, 1991

  The phone rang midmorning on Friday, April 19. It was more than ten days since Stuart GraBois had last spoken with Jeremy Fischer. During that whole time Fischer had been unable to get word to GraBois.

  “I’m here in the city, at MCC,” Fischer said. “I’ve been writing down as much as I can. I have a lot to tell you.”

  Fischer quickly listed the most incriminating of Ramos’s admissions, up to and including the sexual assault of Etan Patz.

  “He definitely admitted to molesting Etan Patz, as well as the others. He said, ‘I did it, and it’s killing GraBois that he can’t get it out of me’ a bunch of times in a bunch of different ways. He didn’t tell me what I know you want to hear
from him—the words ‘I killed him.’ But I’m going to get it.”

  “This is great news. You’re almost there.” GraBois didn’t want Fischer to lose his enthusiasm over one setback.

  “We were so close,” Fischer bemoaned. “Those morons interrupted us at the worst possible time. I haven’t had another chance yet to go back at our guy, but it’s looking very promising. I want to hear him say what he did with the body. Then we’ll have him. If I can hold out that long. I gotta tell you, this is not what I thought it was going to be.” Fischer stopped—he knew it was pointless to tell GraBois about the psychic wear and tear.

  “You’re within reach of the home run,” GraBois encouraged.

  In her office on the other side of the building, Mary Galligan got the next call from Fischer, with the same hurried headlines. “The kid is dead,” she scribbled on a scrap of paper. “ ‘I honor Etan’s memory’… he was Sandy’s boyfriend… had sex with Etan, not a random act… he penetrated but not all the way…‘I didn’t use force… they’ll never have a body.’ ”

  Galligan had a different reaction to this breakthrough. She’d never been Fischer’s biggest fan, and now in one brief phone conversation, without any context, he was offering up untold treasures. She was skeptical about anything this character said, let alone such shockingly incriminating statements. But still, this was huge. If it was true.

  “It’s a confession. It’s not perfect, and we’re not done, but this is great.” GraBois was exuberant when he talked to Galligan a few minutes later. He had sweated blood to keep this investigation going, and now he had just heard vindication. For the first time since the “90 percent confession” in his office, the Etan Patz case had, he thought, clearly been advanced.

  “We have to be careful not to put all our eggs in one basket,” Galligan cautioned. “I want to sit this guy down face-to-face and ask him about a million questions, see his body language, and try to shoot holes in his story.”

  “And you will. But we have to give him another chance to pull more out of Ramos. If Fischer leaves the cell now, we jeopardize getting everything. We need to leave him in there as long as we possibly can.”

  They considered other options. A wire was the logical next step. In the movies, that was so simple—in one quick scene, a dark figure slips into the room, rummages around off camera; cut to men in a truck outside with headphones eating cold take-out as they monitor reel-to-reels. But in reality, undercover recordings were a nightmare. In New York State, it was illegal to tape a conversation unless one participant consented. If Fischer were that one person, what would happen if he fell asleep and Ramos said something to an unsuspecting guard or another inmate? Or to himself—Ramos was known to talk out loud. There were so many privacy issues that could demand a judge’s ruling, not to mention the myriad logistical issues, especially in a jail cell. And this wasn’t any ordinary cell. This was seg, where the inmates never left their little boxes. The stakes were high. Any slip-up could get someone killed. Fischer had just told Galligan he’d consent to being recorded, but she’d never have him wear the wire himself—too dangerous. They’d have to figure out somewhere to plant a bug in the tiny, nearly bare room. Even if they did that successfully, she knew there might be technology glitches. There were so many moving, breakable parts that these things worked only a fraction of the time. But it was worth a try.

  The two also talked about Jeremy Fischer’s potential for burnout. He sounded like he was nearing his sell-by date. If they pushed him too far, the whole thing could blow up. Not only that, if they couldn’t get the wire in, they needed another plan to back up Jeremy Fischer’s information. Either way, it would be great to open another witness and have him ready to go, the way Fischer was when Morgan came out. But the chances of another informant coming forward, as Fischer and Morgan had, were slim to none. As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary.

  Two days after Fischer’s bombshell phone call from MCC, while he was still waiting to be returned to Otisville segregation from New York City, Morgan beat him back there. Morgan got into what he saw as a bullshit argument with his unit manager and what the other man saw as a failure to obey orders. Within hours he was in the hole again, hungry and outraged. He angrily rubbed the black-and-blue mark on his arm left by the unit manager, who’d thrown him out of his office.

  Morgan spent the next several hours waiting around for the write-up, the medical exam, and the Polaroid photos documenting his bruises. Now he had a two-week hold in seg before a disciplinary hearing would adjudicate. His old cellmate Jose Ramos was the last thing on his mind. But the next morning, he realized Ramos was in another interior cell not far away, one flight up and across a small courtyard created by the L-shaped tier. Morgan was surprised to hear Ramos call out a greeting, then to invite him back to share his cell. Their last round together hadn’t ended on the best of terms, but apparently now that was all forgotten. Out of courtesy, Morgan sent a note to GraBois to tell him what had happened.

  “I am back in seg temporarily,” Morgan wrote that first day. He told GraBois Ramos wanted him back for a roommate, but that he’d declined, needing to focus instead on the many court papers he had yet to file. Morgan knew he would never get his own work done with Ramos as a distraction. But even on a different floor, Ramos still managed to distract. Just hours later Morgan suddenly heard a commotion from somewhere on the tier above. Shrill screams that he recognized as Ramos’s signaled Jeremy Fischer’s return from New York City, and Ramos was less than happy to see him.

  During the four days that Fischer was in Manhattan, Ramos had been assigned another cellmate. When Fischer was brought back to segregation, the other man was abruptly ushered out and Fischer was put back in. This was highly unusual, evidently setting off alarm bells in Ramos’s paranoid brain. He’d already begun to question Fischer’s trip to MCC, a place that put Fischer, along with some very damning revelations, in suspiciously close proximity to Stuart GraBois. Now Ramos erupted, banging wildly on the walls and screaming.

  “Get him out! Get him out right now. I don’t want him back in here.” When the guards seemed indifferent, Ramos did the one thing that guaranteed they’d be separated.

  “I’m going to hang myself if he stays,” Ramos bellowed. He pulled a sheet off his bed and started to drape it over the top bunk. Suicide threats were taken very seriously at Otisville, and were cause for immediate action. Inmates in seg often talked about “suicide vacations,” where they’d be moved to the nearby prison infirmary and kept under constant surveillance. The “vacations” never lasted long, usually a few days, but they were coveted, especially since the infirmary had television.

  “Are you okay, Fischer?” someone called.

  “Yeah, fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “He’s a liar,” Ramos yelled back, and the screaming ramped up again before the two were separated and Ramos, as he’d intended, went off to the infirmary.

  After a few days in suicide watch, where someone kept an eye on Ramos round the clock through one side of the observation window, the guards brought him back to Jeremy Fischer’s cell. Briefly Fischer’s soothing words seemed to calm him down, but Ramos was flipping back and forth daily.

  He demanded to be moved, and told prison authorities Fischer’s health would be jeopardized if that didn’t happen. Finally Fischer was removed from the cell again, and the two men placed in separation. When inmates are so volatile, “separation” is the official designation that keeps them apart, sometimes so far apart that the hallway is cleared of one before the other moves through it. Once again Ramos was alone, and more paranoid than ever, as he stared furiously across the courtyard into Fischer’s new cell. The inmates on that interior side would listen to him vent.

  “Jeremy, you motherfucker,” Ramos would scream. “You rat son of a bitch.”

  “Ramos, you’re crazy.” Every time Fischer would call Ramos crazy, it would make Ramos crazier. It was the worst thing Fischer could come back with, and he knew it.

 
; “I have to talk to you,” Ramos implored with a desperate air, once he’d discovered Jon Morgan was just a few doors away. “You gotta meet me in the library.” Ramos was clearly agitated about something and he told Morgan repeatedly, as well as anyone else who couldn’t help but hear through their own windows, that he wanted him back.

  Morgan said little and made notes for GraBois, not particularly anxious to be more than a bystander, until about a week later, when he was ordered to the lieutenant’s office. The officer dialed the number for the assistant U.S. attorney, and even though the man then walked out discreetly, Morgan knew this was highly irregular and potentially compromising. He and GraBois spoke tersely, mindful of who else might be listening in.

  “I don’t know what happened exactly,” Morgan said, “but our man is going crazy. He’s talking to me every day, and he really wants me in there.”

  “I know, I know. Listen we’re working on some things. We might need you to go back in, and I might not get a chance to talk to you again if the right moment comes. I have to warn you that Jeremy’s been helping us too, and Ramos may have figured things out. If so, it’s a riskier proposition and possibly more dangerous,” GraBois said. “But we’re at a very critical stage, and we need more. Can you do it?”

  While Morgan hadn’t planned to volunteer, he had to admit he wanted to get to the end of this himself. As long as he was in seg, he’d help out any way that he could, and since Ramos was asking for him, he was the only logical choice.

  “In the meantime, even if you don’t end up in with him,” GraBois instructed, “any chance you talk to him, push the concurrent time angle. Tell him there’s no way that he could get additional time if he were smart about making a deal on the Patz case. Tell him he could negotiate for ten to fifteen, and he’d serve it at the same time as what he’s doing now on the Pennsylvania charge. That means no additional time for him, and we’d probably be willing to buy it because it finishes things for the family. I’ve said this to him, but it would sound better coming from you. Try that, and let me know.”