Andre Rand

Andre Rand (born Frank Rostum Rushan; March 11, 1944) is an American convicted child kidnapper, sex offender, and suspected serial killer, currently serving two twenty-five years to life sentences in prison for the abductions of two girls, age 7 and 12.

He is eligible for parole in 2037.

Rand was born Frank Rostum Rushan on March 11, 1944.

His father died on March 27, 1958, when Rand was 14.

His mother was institutionalized at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood, New York, where he and his sister would visit her as teenagers.

Between 1966 and 1968, using the name Frank Bruchette, he worked as a custodian, orderly and physical therapy aide at Willowbrook State School - later renamed the Staten Island Development Center.

On May 5, 1969, Rand was arrested in the South Bronx for kidnapping and attempting to rape a 9-year-old girl, whom he had enticed into his car and driven to a vacant lot.

He removed his clothes and hers, but a passing police car interrupted the crime.

Charged with attempted rape, Rand pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and was sentenced to four years.

He served sixteen months in prison, gaining parole in January 1972 and legally changing his name to Andre Rand, but logging three more arrests by the end of the decade for "minor" offenses, including burglary.

On July 7, 1972, 5-year-old Alice Pereira vanished from the area around the Tysens Lane Apartments in the 600 block of Tysens Lane on Staten Island.

Alice was playing in the building's lobby with her brother and disappeared around 3:30 p.m. after he briefly left her alone.

After that, Alice might have been seen in a park close to the apartment complex in the Island's New Dorp neighborhood.

She has not been seen or heard from since.

At 6:15 p.m., her mother reported her missing.

At the time of her disappearance, her parents were divorced.

She lived with her mother, and her father lived in Manhattan.

Authorities at first believed that Alice's father had taken her, but he was later cleared as a suspect.

Rand is the prime suspect in Alice's case.

He worked as a painter in Tysens Lane Apartments at the time of Alice's disappearance.

Nerenberg's hebephrenic schizophrenia had caused her to spend brief periods of time in numerous New York City healthcare institutions between 1974 and 1977.

She had been a patient at Hillside Medical Center in Queens, Gracie Square Hospital in Manhattan, and Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn.

At the time of her disappearance, Nerenberg was an outpatient at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn.

She was not carrying any identification or medication with her at the time.

Audrey Lyn Nerenberg, 18, was last seen July 5, 1977 leaving her family's home in the 1200 block of Ryder Street in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The house was close to Flatlands Avenue, Kings Highway, and Flatbush Avenue.

Nerenberg informed her mother that she would be returning immediately after going two blocks to get cigarettes, but she has never been heard from again.

On July 4, 1977, the day before she vanished, Nerenberg travelled with her family to Staten Island in the evening to see a movie at the former Jerry Lewis Theater on Forest Avenue.

The theatre was adjacent to a campsite that Rand had previously visited.

There is suspicion that Nerenberg may have returned to the area on July 5 while feeling disoriented and may have crossed paths with Rand as a result of her mental illness, which occasionally caused her to repeat her actions.

He has not been officially connected to Nerenberg's case.

Ethel Louise Atwell, 42, was last seen October 24, 1978 at the Willowbrook State School, where she worked as a physical therapy assistant.

At 6:00 a.m., she arrived, parked behind Building 47, and locked her car.

Before she could get from the parking lot into her building, two female employees inside the building heard a male voice outside say "Come on, come on," and Atwell say "No, you'll beat me."

Then she screamed.

In 1979, he was accused of raping a young woman and a 15-year-old girl, but neither pressed charges.

In 1983, driving a school bus, Rand picked up a group of eleven children from a Staten Island YMCA, purchased a meal for them without the consent of any of their parents, and took them to Newark Liberty International Airport.

None of the children were harmed in this encounter, but Rand was apprehended and served ten months in jail for unlawful imprisonment.

He is the subject of the 2009 documentary Cropsey which states that he may have been the source of that urban legend.

According to his younger sister in the 2009 documentary Cropsey, neither she nor her brother were sexually or physically abused as children.