"The prosecution is expected to rest its case Monday in the retrial of Pedro Hernandez, the New Jersey man accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979. Wrapping up last week, prosecutors showed jurors some now-familiar footage: Mr. Hernandez making choking noises as he confessed to the crime, imitating the sound the first-grader allegedly made while he died. “Would that noise be consistent with someone who is beginning to be strangled?” Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi asked Michele Slone, Manhattan’s deputy chief medical examiner, who took the witness stand Thursday. Ms. Slone was one of the final witnesses called by the prosecution after six weeks of testimony. Lawyers for Mr. Hernandez are expected to begin the case for his innocence on Monday. Prosecutors were taking advantage of a last opportunity to replay a central piece of evidence, one that jurors have already seen several times: Videotaped confessions by Mr. Hernandez. Prosecutors have played those videos more often than in the previous trial against Mr. Hernandez, which ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to reach consensus. One holdout juror refused to agree with 11 who voted to convict. Overall, the prosecution has chosen not to alter its approach significantly since the first trial, calling many of the same witnesses in largely the same order and even using some of the same phrases in opening arguments. But prosecutors have made sure jurors spend more time reviewing footage of Mr. Hernandez explaining how he killed Etan. Those videos have been played by prosecutors during the testimony of at least five different witnesses. Mr. Hernandez’s videotaped statements, made to police in 2012, represent the core of the state’s case against the 55-year-old. Etan disappeared on his way to the school bus on May 25, 1979, and his body was never found. Defense lawyers argue that Mr. Hernandez’s confessions were false, made after hours of aggressive police interrogation. They say their client was susceptible to manipulation because of an abnormally low IQ and a mental illness that impedes him from distinguishing fact from fiction. In a case with no physical evidence, prosecutors want to show the confession as much as possible, said Richard Klein, a law professor at Touro College. “To the extent that they can have those jurors hear in Hernandez’s own words what he did, that’s the strength of their case.”"
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