Rebecca Petty

Rebecca Dean Petty (born April 13, 1970),

Background

Petty was born in Wichita, Kansas, and graduated in 1988 from Hatfield High School in Hatfield, Arkansas. Petty also attended Tulsa Community College in Tulsa, Oklahoma Roberts admitted to taking Brewer from her home in his red pickup truck, driving her to nearby woods, raping her, strangling her, and then hiding the body.

On May 24, 2000, Roberts was sentenced to death and as of 2025 he remains on death row. While Rebecca Petty advocated for the death penalty for Roberts in the decades following her daughter's murder, she later wrote an article for The Forgiveness Project saying that she had forgiven him.

Petty's experience led her to write articles on WattPad. She later published a book about the murder, Stolen, in July 2023.

Career

From 2000 to 2008, Petty was the executive director of The Andi Foundation for Children. Since 2009, she has been a Crime Victim/Child Advocate consultant for the National Criminal Justice Training Center at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin. Petty also works with the United States Department of Justice on training for Amber alerts. She advocates "keeping our children safe from sexual predators by equipping our police with the tools they need to put criminals behind bars." Petty polled 878 votes (55.3 percent) to Wolf's 710 (44.7 percent). The House seat was vacated by the term-limited Debra Hobbs, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor; Hobbs was defeated by Tim Griffin, the former U.S. representative for Arkansas's 2nd congressional district. Petty carried the endorsement of State Senator Bart Hester of Cave Springs. 3,508 votes (57.8 percent) to 2,565 (42.2 percent), in a heavily Republican year statewide and nationally.

Representative Petty held these committee assignments: Vice-chair of the House Judiciary Committee; Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative, and Military Affairs; and House Rules Committee. The legislation passed both houses and was soon signed into law by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson.

In February 2015, Petty joined dozens of her fellow Republicans and two Democrats in co-sponsoring legislation submitted by Representative Lane Jean of Magnolia to reduce unemployment compensation benefits. The measure was signed into law by Governor Hutchinson.

The same month, she supported House Bill 1228—sponsored by Bob Ballinger of Carroll County—which sought to prohibit government from imposing a burden on the free exercise of religion. The measure passed the House seventy-two to twenty. Bennett claimed the Ballinger bill would establish a "type of religious litmus test" which could impact nearly any law under consideration by the legislature. The measure was subsequently passed by a large margin in the House and signed into law in revised form, SB 975, by Governor Hutchinson.

Petty did not run for reelection in 2020 and left the Arkansas House in January 2021.

Personal life

Petty lists her religious affiliation as a non-denominational Christian. She is married to her third husband, William. She has two surviving daughters and two grandchildren.