Did black man kill white child?

The FBI got a warrant to dig up the basement near Etan Patz’s home after one of the suspects, African-American Othniel Miller, was accused of raping his ten-year-old niece a few years after the boy disappeared. The ex-wife of Miller, a black handyman who was friendly with six-year-old Etan, told police that she divorced him after learning that he attacked the girl in her New Jersey home. Police used this claim of child abuse to excavate the Soho basement where Miller had his wood shop and was living when the boy vanished in 1979. Police have been aware of Miller, a Jamaican immigrant, since the boy vanished as he walked alone for the first time to get to his school bus stop. However, Jose Ramos, who did odd-jobs for Miller, was held responsible for the boy’s death in a civil case. Ramos is currently in jail serving a 20 year sentence for abusing two other boys. It is believed that Etan's mother Julie Patz urged authorities to question Miller - who now lives in Brooklyn - after Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance reopened the case shortly after he took office in 2010.