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48 HOURS: “The Lost Boy” was Saturday’s #1 non-sport program with viewers, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for April 14. The broadcast delivered 3.72 million viewers and a 0.8/03 with adults 25-54, the demographic that matters most to those who advertise in news.

Saturday’s broadcast featured Richard Schlesinger and 48 HOURS’s investigation into the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz and the case against Pedro Hernandez, the man charged in 2012 with killing him. It is a story that shocked New York City and to this day haunts law enforcement investigators who have spent decades trying to find him. The disappearance of the young boy is more than a missing person’s case. Indeed, it changed the way parents watched over their kids.

Patz disappeared at a time long before social media and before every storefront had a video camera. He had asked his parents to let him do the short walk to the bus stop alone for the first time. He had a dollar to buy a soda at a corner deli. His parents were unaware that he was missing until he didn’t return home after school. Since then, Patz’s smiling image used on missing person’s fliers and milk cartons has been seared into the minds of people around the country.

Police began searching for Patz by going door to door. Over the years, the case would grow cold. However, police had their eye on a neighborhood man they suspected of being a pedophile – Jose Ramos. Ramos, according to law enforcement, had said he took a child back to his apartment and molested him. Ramos told them he was 90% sure it was Patz. The case against Ramos, however, lacked corroboration, and never moved forward, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. Then in 2012, the NYPD got a tip from a relative of Pedro Hernandez, saying Hernandez had talked about hurting a boy around the time Patz disappeared. During questioning by police, Hernandez told them he choked a boy. He later took them to locations near the Patz’s home. Was Hernandez telling the truth?

Schlesinger and 48 HOURS took viewers inside the painstaking investigation through the eyes of those who have spent years searching for the boy and trying to bring closure to his heartbroken parents.

48 HOURS: “The Lost Boy” is produced by Ruth Chenetz. Michael McHugh is the producer/editor. Murray Weiss is the development producer. Anthony Venditti is the field producer. Richard Barber and Phil Tangel are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer.

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