The murder and kidnapping trial on 6-year-old Etan Patz, who was killed 35 years ago, will begin on Friday. The case relies heavily on a videotaped confession that the suspect made years ago.

Pedro Hernandez, now 54, is the suspect based on comments he allegedly made to friends and kin in the 1980s that he offered the kid a soda to convince the boy to join him at the basement of a convenience store in Manhattan. He allegedly strangled Patz and threw him, while still alive, in a box with garbage, although the boy's body was never found.

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Lawyers of Hernandez insisted that the confession is false, and would possibly point to the main suspect for years, now a convicted child molester in Pennsylvania.

Before Patz disappeared, he was last seen walking by himself to the school bus stop in New York City. His case led to the passing of law that crafted a U.S.-wide law enforcement paradigm used for missing kids. The day he disappeared in May 1979 is observed yearly as National Missing Children's Day, reports ABC.

Even state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley has expressed interest in the trial that picked a 12-person jury made up of seven men and five women selected from a pool of 700 people. The case is expected to last three months. It would include witnesses such as the mother of Etan, psychology experts and an inmate-informant who knows the suspect.

In the videotaped confession, Hernandez was quoted as admitting, "Something just took over me and I was just choking him ... He just kind of stood there, and I just felt bad, what I did."

To defend the suspect, the lawyers plan to point to his mental ailment, low IQ and history of hallucinations, worsened by six hours of police interrogation before the cops read his right, to convince the jury the confession is based on fiction.

After the confession, Hernandez said to a psychologist that he felt the incident was just a dream and he wasn't sure if it really took place.

What could count in his favor is that the prosecution lacks a corpse, autopsy report and scientific evidence to back up Hernandez's confession.

Tagsetan patz, missing children, videotaped confession