She has since pursued a master's degree in leadership and ethics at the private John Brown University in Siloam Springs in Benton County.
[4] 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.
[5] 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.
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.
She advocates "keeping our children safe from sexual predators by equipping our police with the tools they need to put criminals behind bars.
In the low-turnout primary on May 20, 2014, she defeated Margaret "Marge" Wolf (born c. 1937), a former Wisconsin resident, a member of the Rogers City Council, and the president of the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank.
[11] 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.
[12] 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.