areished in 1979. in 2001 declared legally dead, remains never found. tonight, though, just blocks away from his home in manhattan s soho district, police and fbi agents believe they re on to something. susan candiotti is there for us. she has the latest breaking developments. i understand you have something that tells us what led officials to that building. what do you know? reporter: law enforcement sources tell me that they came here based on new and old information that led them to a man, a man who is now in his mid-70s. but at the time he was a carpenter and and part-time handyman. i m told he had befriended the boy and given him a dollar. we don t know the circumstances how this came about, in fact this led authorities into that basement picking up a human scent, bringing in a team of investigators, and they ve been searching the basement all day long. basically tearing the basement apart, i imagine? reporter: they are. in fact, they also don t have this man in cu