NYPD back at Soho building where suspected Etan Patz killer once worked

The NYPD returned Wednesday to the Soho building where the suspected killer of Etan Patz once worked — and searched a part of the building that they had never accessed before, police sources said.

Investigators were later seen leaving the building at West Broadway and Prince St. with at least one paper bag filled with possible evidence.

The building now houses an eyeglass shop, but it used to be the bodega where Pedro Hernandez worked at the time of Patz’s disappearance in 1979.

Hernandez has confessed to strangling the 6-year-old after luring him in the bodega basement with a soda. It was the first time that Patz had been allowed to walk to the school bus by himself.

Questions have been raised about Hernandez’s mental state, and police say they have no physical evidence linking the suspect to the crime.

A police source said Wednesday’s basement search is not tied to any new developments. But the source added that police were given access to a portion of the buillding that they had not searched before.

Detectives were also seen yesterday at the nearby home of Hernandez’s sister.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly would not comment on a report that Hernandez’s first wife told police that in the mid-1980s she found a picture of Patz from a police flier hidden in Hernandez’s belongings.

The picture was not found when police searched Hernandez's New Jersey home after his arrest.