A former bodega clerk will face trial for a third time on charges he abducted and murdered little Etan Patz — whose 1979 disappearance shocked the country, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said that it’s “prepared to proceed” to go to trial against Pedro Hernandez, 64, who confessed to killing the boy but whose 2017 murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court in July.

“After thorough review, the district attorney has determined that the available, admissible evidence supports prosecuting” Hernandez on murder and kidnapping charges, Assistant District Attorney Sarah Marquez wrote in a letter filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Pedro Hernandez, 64, will face trial for a third time on charges he abducted and murdered little Etan Patz — whose 1979 disappearance shocked the country, prosecutors said Tuesday. AP

Jury selection in the new trial needs to start by June 1, or Hernandez will be released from an upstate New York prison, according to federal court rulings.

A third trial would be the latest chapter in a saga that baffled the nation for decades after Patz vanished from a SoHo street on May 25, 1979 — the first time he was allowed to walk to the bus stop alone.

Hernandez only became a suspect until 2012, when cops received a tip that he’d confessed during a prayer group to killing a child in New York.

He later made a chilling videotaped confession to fatally strangling the 6-year-old after luring him into the bodega basement with a promise of a soda.

Patz’s body was never recovered, and no physical evidence ever tied Hernandez to the murder.

Hernandez admitted to killing Patz in a videotaped confession, luring the 6-year-old boy to the basement in a bodgea, promising the child soda before fatally strangling him. Stanley Patz

A first trial ended in a hung jury in 2015.

Hernandez’s lawyers insist that he’s an innocent man, and that his confessions to the heinous crime were caused by delusions he suffered as part of a mental illness.

“We are deeply disappointed in the decision by the New York County District Attorney to retry Pedro Hernandez for a third time,” defense attorney Harvey Fishbein told The Post on Tuesday.

Hernandez’s defense attorney, Harvey Fishbein, says his client is innocent, telling The Post, “We are deeply disappointed in the decision by the New York County District Attorney to retry Pedro Hernandez for a third time.” AP

“But if this 46-year-old case is actually to be retried,” Fishbein added, “We will be ready.”

The DA’s office has separately urged the US Supreme Court to reinstate Hernandez’s 2017 conviction after a midlevel appeals court found that the trial judge had instructed the jury improperly.

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Bragg’s office had assigned a new group of prosecutors in recent months to reach out to witnesses and determine if bringing the case to trial for a third time was feasible.