NEW YORK (AP) — The investigation into the disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz has stretched through decades and countries, from basements to rooftops and seemingly everywhere in between.

No one has ever been charged criminally — and the little boy with sandy brown hair and a toothy grin was declared dead in 2001.

This week, after more than a decade of relative quiet, the case suddenly ran hot again, after a cadaver-sniffing dog picked up a scent in an old basement down the street from the boy’s home in New York City.

By Saturday, investigators had finished ripping up the basement’s concrete floor with jackhammers and saws, and were digging through the dirt in hope of finding the boy’s remains, or any other evidence.

So far, authorities haven’t given any outward sign that they’ve found anything.

“Law enforcement is always cautiously optimistic,” said Tim Flannelly, chief FBI spokesman in New York. “But this is one lead of many.”

It’s not clear what, if anything, the dig will turn up, but the investigation has reached similar highs before — only for the trail to go cold for years at a time.

Etan vanished on May 25, 1979, while walking alone to his school bus stop for the first time, two blocks from his home in New York’s SoHo neighborhood.

There was an exhaustive search by the police and a crush of media attention. The boy’s photo was one of the first of a missing child on a milk carton. Thousands of fliers were plastered around the city, buildings canvassed, hundreds of people interviewed. SoHo was not a neighborhood of swank boutiques and galleries as now, but of working-class New Yorkers rattled by the news.

“No one could understand how it could’ve happened, at that time, we all felt safe, we were a little community,” said Sandie Vega, who was Etan’s age when he disappeared. “We also thought it must’ve been someone from the outside, no one we knew could take him.”

Yukie Ohta, now 43, remembers police coming to her door to talk to her about the boy’s disappearance. Her sister had gone to a child’s play group with Etan, in the very basement police are searching. By the time he disappeared, the children’s collective had moved and the space was being used by a handyman.

“I didn’t really know anything helpful,” Ohta said.

No one knew enough. Etan’s parents, Stan and Julie, offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the boy’s whereabouts, and sightings were frequently reported, to no avail. In 1986, a child resembling Etan was spotted in Israel, which prompted detectives to circulate his photo there. Nothing came of it.

A name gradually emerged as a possible suspect: Jose Ramos, a drifter and onetime boyfriend of Etan’s baby sitter. In the early 1980s, he was arrested on theft charges, and had photos of other young, blond boys in his backpack. But there was no hard evidence linking Ramos to the crime.

Missing persons cases, like homicides, are generally considered cold after six months, but they’re never closed. And with seemingly no new leads, the case would go quiet for years. In three decades, 10 detectives have been assigned to head up the case. The FBI and police are working jointly.

“Those cases are still maintained by someone, but the attention they get diminishes over time,” said Joseph Pollini, a retired NYPD lieutenant in the cold case squad, now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “There’s often nothing you can do, when you have no new leads.”

A former federal prosecutor who had worked on the case declared in 1998 that he believed Ramos was behind Etan’s disappearance and death. Ramos, now serving a prison sentence in Pennsylvania for abusing an 8-year-old boy there, has denied killing Etan.

Police investigated leads to Ramos at various points, including a 2000 search of the basement of the building where he lived in 1979. They dismantled the furnace and searched it for DNA. But they found only animal traces.

By the next year, father Stan Patz, who never moved or even changed his phone number in the hope his son would reach out, had Etan declared dead in order to sue Ramos in civil court. He was tired of waiting for justice, he said at the time.

A civil judge in 2004 found him to be responsible for the disappearance and presumed death of the boy, after he disobeyed her orders to answer deposition questions under oath for a lawyer representing Etan’s parents.

The ruling provided a tiny measure of comfort to the family. But the criminal case continues, and prosecutors lacked enough evidence to charge Ramos criminally.

The case was quiet until 2010 when new district attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said he was going to revisit it.

Ramos is scheduled to be released from prison in November. His pending freedom is one of the factors that has given new urgency to the case.

But the focus has shifted to the basement that had been used at the time as a workspace for a handyman named Othniel Miller. He was interviewed after the boy went missing. Investigators noticed at the time that the basement had a fresh concrete floor; his space was searched then but never dug up.

He gave investigators an alibi for the time of Etan’s disappearance, though they are giving his account of the day a fresh look, a person familiar with the investigation said Saturday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation

Law enforcement officials have spoken to him as recently as Wednesday, and one interview prompted them to take a closer look at the space, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.

The 75-year-old Miller hasn’t been named a suspect, and his lawyer says he has nothing to do with the case.

The attorney, Michael C. Farkas, declined to comment Saturday.

“I couldn’t believe it, and still don’t, not yet anyway” said Cass Collins, who lived in the neighborhood at the time. “He was always around, he would work in our loft, he was near our kids all the time. It would be shocking.”

The 13-by-62-foot basement space being searched sits beneath several clothing boutiques. Investigators began by removing drywall partitions so they could get to brick walls that were exposed in 1979. The work will continue through the weekend. About 50 law enforcement agents including forensics experts and an anthropologist are on scene. While cadaver-sniffing dogs are capable of detecting scents much older than 33 years, it’s also possible the dog picked up an animal scent or was plain wrong.

The cobblestone street remained closed off and was a veritable media circus, with trucks and crews parked along the curb and gawking tourists stopping to snap photos.

The Patz family hasn’t commented or turned up near the site, though it’s visible from their home — they’ve seen the circus before.

“To the hardworking and patient media people, the answer to all your questions at this time is no comment,” read a handwritten note outside their door. “Please stop ringing our bell and calling our phone for interviews.”

“Stan Patz, 3E.”

___

Associated Press writers Samantha Gross, Tom Hays and Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Canadian actress accused of stalking “30 Rock” star Alec Baldwin has been told to stay away from him.

Genevieve Sabourin was arraigned in a Manhattan court on Monday, a day after she was arrested on charges of stalking and aggravated harassment when Baldwin filed a complaint with police.

A judge released Sabourin, who has acted in television and film, on her own recognizance and issued a temporary order of protection for Baldwin, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.

NEW YORK (AP) — John Walsh and his long running television show “America’s Most Wanted” are still helping solve crimes in New York City.

The team was in New York recently to film new episodes to help locate fugitives wanted by federal and local authorities. After more than two decades on the air, the show is proving it’s still a venerable crime-fighting tool, whether on air in its new Lifetime network slot, or online.

There are more than 600,000 monthly visits to the site, and at least 40 captures came from online tips.

One fugitive, Danny Williams, made two appearances on the show after a 2002 shooting at a barbecue. He was captured in 2010 and sentenced to 50 years recently after he was convicted of murder.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sentencing has been postponed for a Jamaican drug lord who pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of drug and gun trafficking.

Christopher Coke, also known as “Dudus” Coke, was to be sentenced Friday in federal court in Manhattan. But another hearing on the case will now be held in May. The sentencing will be sometime after that.

Coke was captured in Jamaica in 2010 after a bloody siege of his stronghold in a slum west of Kingston left more than 70 dead.

Coke had written the judge to describe good deeds he did for slum-dwellers and to seek mercy. But several women abused by Coke’s gang in Jamaica begged for a harsh punishment.

Prosecutors say Coke terrorized anyone who interfered with his drug operation.

NEW YORK (AP) — The lawyer for a police officer whose name has come up in connection to the investigation of an accused multimillion-dollar madam says his client has no idea how any such link could exist.

Sgt. Richard Wall has been ordered to give internal-affairs investigators his work log for the past five years after someone reported he had been to the Upper East Side apartment building where prosecutors say trysts arranged by accused madam Anna Gristina happened.

Wall’s lawyer said the best way to describe Wall is bewildered.

NEW YORK (AP) — A lawyer says a police officer he is representing is bewildered that he’s been linked to an investigation of an accused multimillion-dollar madam.

Attorney Andrew Quinn says Sgt. Richard Wall “has no involvement” with accused madam Anna Gristina.

Prosecutors say during a five-year investigation Gristina was heard saying she’d made millions of dollars over about 15 years running a Manhattan prostitution ring and claimed to have law enforcement connections.

Gristina has pleaded not guilty to promoting prostitution and remained jailed on $2 million bond Wednesday.

Wall has been ordered to give internal-affairs investigators his work log for the past five years. Quinn says as far as he knows, Wall is not under any criminal or administrative investigation.