The man they call the Hannibal Lecter of Staten Island stepped out of a white jail bus, his hands cuffed, legs shackled, and head bowed.

Wearing a black shirt and pants and clutching legal papers in an oversized postal envelope, twice-convicted pervert Andre Rand shuffled into Courtroom 209 of State Supreme Court in Staten Island, and the clock turned back to the year 1981.

It was a remarkably different New York then, much more dangerous and forbidding, with 1,826 murders – more than three times last year’s total of 596 – and it was the year that Holly Ann Hughes, a giggly, playful 7-year-old girl, was snatched off the streets, never to be seen again.

Rand, a 60-year-old drifter, is on trial for snatching Holly – whose body has never been found – in a case that time forgot. Twenty-three years ago, the disappearance was front-page news for weeks and dominated television and radio reports. Now, after 20 years of building a case and three years of legal arguments, only two newspapers, and no TV or radio stations, are staffing the trial.

“It’s truly amazing,” one court official said. “It’s like she never existed.”

Holly Ann was last seen going to a grocery story on the evening of July 15, 1981. Rand, who has been linked to the disappearances of at least three other people on the island, was a suspect from the start, but the case went nowhere.

Rand was well known to police: He was convicted of sexual abuse in 1970. He’s now 16 years into two-thirds of the way through a 25-year-to-life sentence for a 1988 conviction for kidnapping 12-year-old Jennifer Schwieger, whose body was found near where he lived in the woods. The jury deadlocked on the murder charge.

Nothing happened in Holly Ann’s case until a jailhouse informant – a species slightly less reliable than TV weathermen – told authorities Rand confessed to him. According to published reports, the inmate said Rand compared himself to executed serial killer Ted Bundy and told him: “Bundy likes women, and I like children, little kids, and we both use Volkswagens.

Prosecutors re-interviewed old witnesses and found people who said they saw Holly Ann get into Rand’s green VW, and got an indictment in a case that lacks a body and is almost purely circumstantial.

The trial began with a bang last Friday, when Holly’s mother, a former dancer at topless clubs named Holly Cederholm, repeatedly clashed with defense lawyer Drew Felton under cross-examination, finally cursing at him and begging Judge Stephen Rooney to stop the questioning.

Yesterday, prosecutors played the tedious game of connect-the-dots, trying to push Rand closer and closer to Holly.

Retired detective Frank Marchionne testified that Rand admitted a day after the disappearance that he spoke to Holly just before she vanished. “He said he had a conversation with a little girl in the street about 8 or 9 p.m…. He said, ‘I sent her to the grocery store to buy a bar of soap.’ I said,’Why?’ And he said, ‘Because she was dirty.'”

Holly Ann’s father, Peter Hughes, a retired dock worker and car service driver, testified that he got a message from Holly’s mother, his estranged wife at the time, that the little girl had vanished. He broke down when asked to identify a picture of Holly Ann, and marveled at how large the investigation was at first. “Each day, it got bigger and bigger,” he said.

Neighbor Thomassa Skirlis testified that Holly Ann played with her daughter, Delilah, that afternoon and that she dropped her off near her home shortly before she disappeared. She also broke down when Assistant District Attorney Janet Silvers showed her a picture of Holly Ann. “Mrs. Skirlis, have you seen or heard from Holly Ann since July 15, 1981?” Ms. Silver asked. “No,” Mrs. Skirlis answered, her voice catching in her throat.

And Thomas Venditti, a dispatcher for a car service where Rand worked at the time, testified that Rand missed work the day Holly Ann disappeared and the next day. “He seemed a little nervous” both days, Mr. Venditti said.

Prosecutors contend they have a strong case, while the defense disagrees, saying it is based on foggy – and changing – memories and the unreliable word of a jailhouse snitch.

All of this has some Staten Islanders worried that if Rand is acquitted of snatching Holly Ann, he could be paroled as early as 2012 and be free to roam the borough once more – a scenario that is both scary and possible.