Jurors from first Etan Patz trial show up to watch start of retrial

Seven jurors and two alternates who served in the first trial of the New Jersey man accused of killing Etan Patz returned to a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday — but this time they were sitting in the gallery rather than the jury box.

The group included lone holdout Adam Sirois, who refused to convict Pedro Hernandez in the 1979 kidnapping and death of the 6-year-old, causing a mistrial last year.

Sirois arrived alone and minutes behind the others, who sat together in a row next to Etan’s father, Stanley, in the Manhattan Supreme Court room, awaiting opening statements in the retrial.

Sirois took a seat on Hernandez’s side in the back.

After 18 days of deliberations, he refused to believe a videotaped confession in which Hernandez admitted choking the boy to death after luring him into a bodega with a soda.

The defense argued the confession was unreliable because Hernandez was mentally ill and has a low IQ.

Prosecutors were to begin opening arguments late Wednesday morning and the defense was expected to go in the afternoon.

Etan vanished as he walked alone for the first time to a school bus stop on May 25, 1979. His body was never found.

In 2004, convicted child molester Jose Ramos was found civilly responsible for Etan’s death.