The New Jersey man who confessed to the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz – one of the first missing children to appear on a milk carton – pleaded not guilty in a New York court on Wednesday to charges of murder and kidnapping.

Pedro Hernandez, 51, appeared in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, seven months after he told police he had committed the crime and was arrested. His lawyer has said he suffers from mental illness.

Patz disappeared on May 25, 1979, while walking alone to the bus for the first time on his way to school.

The high-profile case shook the city and altered the way law enforcement agencies approached missing child cases. Patz’s body was never found.

(Reuterss)