A lawyer for a man who police say confessed to choking a six-year old boy to death in a landmark 1979 missing child case said his client was mentally ill and had a history of hallucinations.

A man who New York police say has confessed to choking to death a six-year-old boy in a landmark US missing-child case has been admitted to hospital on the day of his first court appearance after he told psychologists he wanted to kill himself.

A man has implicated himself in the death of six-year-old Etan Patz, whose disappearance 33 years ago on his way to school helped launch a missing children’s movement that put kids’ faces on milk cartons, police said.

New York police say a person in custody has implicated himself in the case of a six-year-old boy who went missing in the city 33 years ago.