Now that's heartbreak for a parent...

Rachael Levy has the story in Slate:

The FBI and the New York Police Department began searching a Manhattan basement in hopes of finally determining what happened to six-year-old Etan Patz, one of the first children to be featured on milk cartons after he went missing in 1979.
Patz disappeared without a trace when, for the first time, his parents allowed him to take the short walk alone from their SoHo apartment to catch his school bus. His parents have never moved nor changed their phone number in the three decades since in hopes he might return or call.
Investigators haven’t publicly said what led them to search the basement, which is less than a block from where the Patz family home. But a law enforcement official, speaking under anonymity, told the Associated Press that the building housed the workspace of a carpenter who was thought to have been friendly with Etan at the time of his disappearance.
Meanwhile, The New York Times notes that the basement being searched is along the route Etan is thought to have taken the day he went missing. The basement was also a known meeting place for sexual liaisons at the time.
Investigators have long suspected Jose Ramos, who dated one of Etan’s babysitters around the time Etan went missing, and who is a convicted child molester, of being involved in the disappearance. Ramos is currently serving time in Pennsylvania on another case, but he once admitted that he was with Etan the day he disappeared. Ramos has, however, denied abducting or killing the boy. In 2001, Etan was declared legally dead, and, in 2004, a Manhattan judge ruled Ramos responsible for Etan’s death, largely for his refusal to contest the case.