REBECCA Petty watched the darkness fall in terror. Her 12-year-old daughter was missing and she hated the dark. If she was safe, she'd have come home by now.
But worried Rebecca couldn't have imagined the horrific truth behind little Andi Brewer's disappearance – that she'd been raped and killed so violently by her own uncle that she'd bit her tongue in half.
Monster Karl Roberts, then 32, was sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and strangling Andi to death after luring his unsuspecting niece away from her rural home in Arkansas, in 1999.
Yet 20 years on, he's still alive on Death Row, after being granted countless appeals.
In a confession to police too vile to print in full, Roberts – nicknamed "The Devil" as a student – described how he told Andi, "I'm gonna f*** you", before stripping and raping her as she fought for her life.
Afterwards, he "started choking her and mashing my thumbs on her throat" until she turned blue. He then hid the youngster's naked body in woodland, threw away her clothes and fled the scene.
Now, grieving mum Rebecca is speaking out to slam the "disgusting" system that has kept Roberts living for two decades – as she reveals horrific details of her daughter's murder.
"Roberts confessed, he did it – but he's been on Death Row for 20 years," she tells Sun Online.
"It was a heinous thing Roberts did.
"Andi was a little kid and she was scared and wanted to go home. When she was assaulted and brutally raped, she bit her tongue in half. That's pretty wrong – but that's the truth."
A mischievous childhood
Rebecca, now 49, was just 16 when she gave birth to Andi – her precious "Andit Bandit" – in April 1987. "She had the prettiest hands I'd ever seen, they were so dainty," she recalls.
Growing up in Oklahoma, Andi was a funny, strong-willed and mischievous child who loved to make her mum, stepfather Kris and younger sisters, Melanie and Kristin, laugh.
But when she was 10, she decided she wanted to live with her dad Greg Brewer – whom Rebecca had divorced when Andi was young and who had just had a baby with his new wife.
"I just want to move to Arkansas so I can spend time with my new baby brother," she told her mum.
Despite feeling heartbroken and tearful over Andi's wishes, Rebecca eventually agreed to let her daughter move to her father's countryside home, 200 miles away, for a while.
But that decision would turn out to be the biggest regret of her life.
Terrifying phone call
Just a year and a half later, on May 15, 1999, Rebecca answered the phone expecting to hear Andi's voice – only to be told her little girl had vanished while babysitting her stepsiblings.
She'd been last seen leaving her home in a small pickup truck.
"It was so out of character – and when it got dark I knew something wasn't right," Rebecca recalls.
By the time Rebecca arrived at the scene, the area was swarming with police, neighbours and relatives – including Greg's sister's husband, Roberts, who lived nearby.
"I'll never ever forget seeing him," she tells us.
"When he saw me he just started talking. I thought it was strange how he was explaining why he was there, but I was so caught up in being concerned about Andi it didn't register."
Depraved Roberts even pretended to help with the search for his niece. But all the while he knew she was lying dead in the woods after he'd lured her away by lying that her grandparents were ill.
"Worst moment of my life"
Yet Roberts's facade didn't last long. He was soon identified as a suspect, with police noting that he drove a pickup truck. And on May 17, he confessed to killing his niece.
The local sheriff broke the news to Rebecca.
"I remember him taking his hat off," she recalls. "I knew what was going to come next. It was the worst moment of my life. You don't ever think about your child in relation to the words 'her body'."
And more horror was still to come – as prosecutors told Rebecca rape was among Roberts's criminal charges. Until that point, she hadn't known her child had been sexually attacked.
"It didn't commute in my mind that a 12-year-old child would be raped by a grown person," she says.
"It was another punch to the stomach."
Cruel change of mind
In May 2000, Roberts was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection – despite his defence trying to claim a childhood brain injury had meant he couldn't control his actions.
Like all Death Row convicts, he was given the right to a direct appeal after his sentencing. However, he waived his automatic right to this, insisting he wanted to die.
Yet four years later, moments away from getting the lethal injection and with Andi's family looking on, Roberts changed his mind and said he wanted to appeal after all.
"We drove down to the prison to see it and then at the last minute he said, 'Well I've changed my mind'. He was strapped down on the gurney," claims Rebecca, now living in Rogers, Arkansas.
"It was very cruel."
A long time to die
In America, Death Row inmates wait an average of 15 years to be put to death, at a huge cost to taxpayers.
This is mostly down to the slow and rigorous appeals process, which allows the convicts' lawyers to repeatedly appeal against their punishment – a luxury their victims didn't get.
But executions can also be delayed due to states having trouble acquiring the drugs required for lethal injections, and court challenges over the substances used to kill prisoners.
Nearly a quarter of Death Row inmates die of natural causes.
Which US states have the death penalty?
ARKANSAS is not the only US state with the death penalty.
Capital punishment is legal in a total of 30 states.
The others are: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
"Too many appeals to count"
The lengthy appeals process is supposed to avoid innocent people being executed due to errors in the criminal justice system. Yet each appeal can throw up a dozen issues to be dealt with.
In Roberts's case, there has been "too many appeals to count".
"It's something that's always looming over us. It's got so bad I don't even tell my family anymore," says Rebecca, a state representative and an advocate for victims of violent crime.
In recent years, Roberts has even started making money from Death Row by selling pieces of artwork.
"If they're going to give the death penalty then they need to use it," Rebecca adds.
"If not, we need to just get rid of it altogether. It's heartbreaking going back to court every time."
Mum's grief
Today, Rebecca thinks of Andi every day and is penning an online book 'Stolen' about her story.
She's married to third husband William and has two beloved grandchildren – including six-year-old Emma, whom she describes as a "little Andi" both in appearance and personality.
And although Roberts is still breathing, Rebecca's determined not to let his life haunt her own.
"My life certainly isn't hanging on the moment Roberts takes his last breath," she says.
"I'm living my life and, despite it all, I have a beautiful life."
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