BAY MINETTE, Alabama –  Mattie Cumbie was 67 years old and living in Fairhope in 1981 when a man she knew and trusted changed her world forever. Jessie Pettaway Jr., a Union Springs man who had previously done yard work for her, broke into her house, beat her, then raped her, then bashed her with a brick.

 Baldwin County Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Rushing Payne and Cumbie’s two sons attended a parole hearing today for Pettaway and successfully argued against his release from serving out a life sentence for the rape.

 “My mom started saying the Lord’s Prayer while he was beating her with the brick,” David Cumbie said. “After he left, she was able to crawl to the telephone and call 911.” “I lost my mom that day,” Michael Cumbie said. “She was never the same.”  Mattie Cumbie died five years after the attack.

 “Our office is committed to fighting early release of serious and violent felons like Jessie Pettaway Jr.,” Baldwin County District Attorney Hallie Dixon said. “It doesn’t matter how long ago it happened, and the fact that the victim is deceased makes it even more important that we be there to be her voice.”

 Family members of the now-deceased victim authorized publication of her name.