BAY MINETTE, Ala. – A 64-year-old man has been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the 2008 rape of a Daphne woman, according to the Baldwin County District Attorney's Office.

Leroy Levert Harris Jr., of Elmore, Ala., was convicted in April of first-degree rape in a 2008 attack on a Daphne woman, according to a July 25 news release and online court records.

Harris knocked on the victim’s door, punched her in the face, dragged her out of her house to the wooded edge of her yard and raped her, brutally beating her during the assault, Assistant District Attorney Chalea Tisdale, who prosecuted the case, said in the release.

The jury deliberated 45 minutes before returning the verdict of guilty, the release stated.

“The victim in this horrible crime will live with its memory for the rest of her life,” District Attorney Hallie Dixon said in the release. “The vicious animal who raped her more than deserves to spend his remaining years in a cage.”

Tisdale said Harris received the maximum sentence because he has three prior felonies, one of them a Class A felony, and was sentenced under the Habitual Offender Act.

“I am pleased by Judge (Joe) Norton’s decision, and thankful to him,” Tisdale said. “My job as a prosecutor is to seek the truth and justice in all cases in which I am involved. I believe justice was done in this case, and the fact that this man will never be able to brutally attack another woman leaves me with a huge sense of accomplishment and peace.”