STEUBENVILLE — James Moodie, the Jefferson County man who’s spent the last 50 years behind bars for brutally murdering and abusing his half-sister’s 3-year-old daughter in 1974, is going to remain in prison.

The Ohio Parole Board denied Moodie, 73, parole, posting its decision in his offender details section on the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction website over the weekend. His next hearing will be in 2035.

“The community is safer every single day that this man is locked away,” Prosecutor Jane Hanlin said Monday. “In the eyes of the state, there will never be a day that we will agree to his release. He should spend whatever time he has left in this life in a prison cell.”

Moodie and his half-sister, Mary Lou Higgs, were convicted of her daughter Gina’s murder in a Steubenville motel room. Moodie had been adopted soon after birth and the two had only recently reunited, with Mary Lou Higgs and her daughter moving into the motel with him. At trial, Mary Lou Higgs related for the jury the “three days of intermittent torture” her daughter had endured at the hands of Moodie, a man she said she loved and continued to correspond with after their arrest and told them she was “afraid of (him) but loved him.”

Both were sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison. Moodie also was sentenced to 10 years for gross sexual imposition of the toddler, to be served concurrently. Mary Lou Higgs was released from prison after 13 years. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Moodie is currently incarcerated at Southeastern Correctional Institution in Lancaster.

Witnesses had testified the child was covered with bruises; had second-degree burns to her face, eyelids and eyes; and “hundreds of superficial puncture wounds,” primarily on her chest and abdomen, and deep gouges on her body, “particularly on her external genitalia.” A chunk of her hair had been “cut or pulled out” of her head and human hair was found in her vagina and rectum, both of which were lacerated. Her hymen was torn and her vagina “dilated, lacerated and full of blood, as was the rectum.” There was no evidence of sperm in any of the child’s orifices, but the county coroner was quoted in news accounts of the trial as telling jurors “something obviously penetrated (her) vagina and rectum.”

The autopsy found the child’s liver had been ruptured and was nearly severed.

BlockParole.com founder Bret Vinocur, who spearheaded efforts to keep Moodie off the streets, welcomed the news, describing the convict as “pure evil.”

“Moodie is a ticking time bomb,” Vinocur said. “Placing him back into the community would pose an imminent risk to any child that would be around him. Prisons and life sentences were designed for monsters like Moodie. He needs to serve every day of his life sentence to protect society.”

Vinocur credits publicity surrounding his Feb. 19 date with the parole board with persuading its members to keep him in prison. He said 505 petitions opposing Moodie’s parole were submitted to the Ohio Parole Board after a Feb. 4 story in the Herald-Star recounting Gina Higgs’ gruesome death.

“Community input is one of the factors the parole board considers when making their decisions,” Vinocur said. “That input is especially important in cases where parents are involved with the murder of their children because often there is no family to oppose release.”

Vinocur said he appreciated efforts to “bring attention to this case and all those who submitted a petition and were a voice for Gina Higgs,” particularly since she had no family to speak for her.

“We commend the Ohio Parole Board for making the right decision and giving this horrific child murder the maximum 10-year continuance,” Vinocur said. “Justice has been served.”