The former bodega clerk convicted in the infamous 1979 disappearance and murder of little Etan Patz should be given a new trial — or set free, a federal appeals court ordered Monday in a

"48 Hours" goes inside the painstaking investigation through the eyes of those who have spent more than three decades trying to find the 6-year-old boy and to bring closure to his heartbroken parents

Pedro Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life after confessing to the 1979 murder of the 6-year-old first-grader.

Etan Patz disappeared while walking to his Manhattan school bus stop alone for the first time on May 25, 1979. Pedro Hernandez was arrested in 2012. He was convicted of murder and kidnapping in 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Pedro Hernandez, the man convicted of killing six-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, should either be retried or released. Hernandez, 64, has been in a New York state prison since 2017,