(AP) - A former convenience store worker confessed to luring 6-year-old Etan Patz from a school bus stop in 1979 and choking him to death in a basement, police said Thursday, ending a three-decades long investigation into one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases. Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested on a murder charge after he told police he promised the boy a soda, took him to the basement of the convenience store where he worked and killed him there, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. Hernandez told police he put Etan's body in some trash about a block from the store, Kelly said, where it's possible it was picked up by sanitation crews. No body has been recovered, and Kelly said it's possible the remains would never be found. Hernandez was questioned by police for more than three hours after he was picked up in New Jersey Wednesday, and gave police a signed confession, Kelly said. His motive was not yet clear. "He was remorseful, and I think the detectives thought that it was a feeling of relief on his part" to confess, Kelly said. "We believe that this is the individual responsible for the crime."It's not clear if he had an attorney. No one answered the door at Hernandez' New Jersey home Thursday night.