BAY MINETTE, Ala. – Parole has been denied for an Orange Beach woman convicted of drowning her newborn infant and a man convicted of a series of rapes, according to the Baldwin County District Attorney’s Office.

District Attorney Hallie Dixon and Assistant District Attorney David Matheny attended parole hearings for Marsha Gossett Colby and Michael Levon Rencher to protest their release from prison before the end of their sentences.

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles denied parole for Colby, 47, who is serving a 15-year sentence for manslaughter in the state penitentiary for the 2005 drowning of her newborn infant.

Colby was convicted of capital murder in 2007, but the case was overturned. In early 2010, just prior to starting a new capital murder trial, Colby pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

“This was a horrendous crime against her own child, whom she drowned and then buried in a shallow grave on her Orange Beach property,” said Dixon, who attended the hearing last week.

“She should serve every minute of this sentence and I am committed to doing my part to attend these hearings and trying to make sure she stays in prison where she belongs.” Colby will be eligible for another parole hearing in one year.

Matheny attended Rencher’s parole hearing Wednesday, protesting his release from concurrent life sentences for a string of rapes, burglaries, assaults and an attempted rape of a previous victim in 1994 and 1995.

Rencher, 29, was denied parole and the parole board declined to hear the case again for another five years, the maximum allowable, Matheny said.

“It takes some effort for the district attorney to make the trip to Montgomery and attend these hearings,” Matheny said. “When the local DA is represented, it really makes a big difference.”