A Westchester man who was 6 when three ghouls beat, raped and fatally shot his mother and another woman in a 1977 home invasion is leading a petition drive to deny them parole.
Jason Minter, now 43, fears that one of the murderers — who now denies his confession and has his family campaigning to free him — will win when the New York State Parole Board hears his case later this month.
“He personally raped my mother. He personally shot my mother. He laughed about it as he left the house,” Minter said of Samuel Ayala. “I heard him as he got into the (getaway) van and joked about his sexual prowess.”
“He thought it was funny,” Minter told The Post. “He’s a monster who should never ever get out of prison.”
Ayala, then 26, James Walls and Willie Profit broke into the South Salem home of Sheila Watson on March 2, 1977 while Minter’s 3-year-old sister was playing with Watson’s daughter. They were held at gunpoint while Minter’s mother, Bonnie, arrived with Minter.
“I tried to save my mother. I was six years old,” recalled Minter, who said Profit rammed a gun so hard against his nose that he suffered black and blue marks.
While the children were herded into another room and listened in horror, the two mothers were brutally beaten, raped and then shot several times.
“The last words I heard my mother say were her begging for the life of her children,” Minter wrote in an online petition he launched last week and was signed by 1,200 people the first day.
After they were captured, Walls confessed. Ayala and Profit were convicted after all 11-day trial. All three got 25-year-to-life jail sentences but began coming up for parole in 2002.
Minter, who now runs the Indian Road Cafe in Inwood, said he’s mainly concerned about Ayala’s appeal because “he’s smart” and has enlisted his relatives in a campaign to get him freed.
He said Ayala admits his guilt to others but “he’s lying to his family. They want to believe he’s innocent.”
“For 10 years I’ve tried to get in touch with this man to get some closure,” he said. “I spoke to his counselor who told me that it wouldn’t be good for Sam for me to be in touch with him.”
“He’s never responded to me. I’ve written him letters. He’s a coward,” Minter said.
More than 2,700 people have signed his petition, which also calls for reforming the parole hearing system, so that he relatives of victims don’t have to go through the ordeal and relive the tragedy every two years.
“Every two years the nightmares return more intensely,” he said.
“He really messed with my family. He destroyed us,” Minter said. “we have no choice but to do this.”