Lawrence Bernard
"Larry" Singleton (July 28, 1927 – December 28, 2001) was an American criminal known for perpetrating
an infamous rape and mutilation of adolescent hitchhiker Mary Vincent in California in 1978. He raped Vincent and cut off
her arms, then left her to die in a culvert off the Interstate 5 in Del Puerto
Canyon, California. Vincent managed to crawl up to safety and later acted
as a key witness against the rapist. Released from prison on good behavior
after serving 8 years of his 14-year sentence, he later murdered Roxanne Hayes, a mother of three. On
February 19, 1997, police found Singleton covered in blood after stabbing her
in his new home.
Biography
Singleton was born in Tampa, Florida. He worked as a merchant seaman.
First conviction
On September 29, 1978, Singleton picked up 15-year-old Mary Vincent of Las Vegas while she was hitchhiking in Berkeley, California. He knocked her unconscious with a
sledgehammer, spent the whole night raping her, and tortured her by severing
both her forearms with a hatchet. Singleton figured she was dead or near death,
and he threw her off of a 30-foot cliff on Interstate
5 near Del Puerto Canyon, California,
leaving her naked and bleeding out. She was smart enough to stop her bleeding
stumps by shoving them into the mud. That suppressed her bleeding while she
managed to pull herself back up the cliff. She walked for three miles, naked,
covered in blood, and armless, before finding and alerting a passing couple,
who took her to a hospital. By the time of Singleton's arrest, Vincent wore
prosthetic arms.
Six months after the assault, Vincent faced Singleton at his
trial, where her testimony helped to convict him. Singleton was sentenced to 14 years in
prison, the maximum allowed by law in California
at that time. The presiding judge remarked: "If
I had the power, I would send him to prison for the rest of his natural life.”
While Vincent won a $2.56 million civil judgment against
Singleton, she was unable to collect it when Singleton revealed that he was
unemployed, in poor health, and had only $200 in savings.
Along with the particularly gruesome and callous aspects of
the crime, the case became even more notorious after Singleton was paroled after
serving only eight years in prison. He was able to reduce his time through good
behavior and working as a teaching assistant in a prison classroom. Singleton was paroled to Contra Costa County, California, but no town would accept his
presence, so he had to live in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin until his parole ended a year later.
According to Time,
"as authorities attempted to settle
him in one Bay Area town after another, angry crowds and Tampa's chapter of Guardian
Angels led protests, screamed, picketed and eventually prevailed." In Rodeo,
about 25 miles northeast of San
Francisco, a crowd of approximately 500 local protestors were up in arms
and forced officers to move him under armed guard from a hotel room.
Authorities tried housing him across the street from Concord's City Hall, but that was met with protests and failed
too. He was removed from one apartment
in Contra Costa County in a
bullet-proof vest after 400 residents surrounded the building to protest a
decision to place him there permanently.
Governor George Deukmejian ordered
that Singleton is placed in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin for the duration of his one-year parole.
The outrage at this sentence resulted in legislation,
supported by Mary Vincent, which
prevents the early release of offenders who have committed a crime in which
torture is used: in 1987 Singleton's parole led to the passage of California's "Singleton bill", which carries a 25-years-to-life
sentence. (Harrower, 1998). The leniency of the legal system shocked and
outraged many. One journalist who interviewed him remarked, "What was most surprising to me,
however, was not his sentence. It was that Larry
Singleton had worked his crimes around in his mind so completely that they
did not warrant punishment at all."
Right before Singleton's parole ended, Donald Stahl, the Stanislaus
County prosecutor at Singleton's trial, said, "I think, if anything, he's worse now. He has not taken
responsibility. He lives in a bizarre fantasy land and acquits himself each day.
He doesn't accept his guilt and won't resolve to do it again."
Move to Florida
Singleton returned to his native Florida after his release. In 1990, he was twice convicted of
theft. He served a 60-day sentence for stealing a $10 disposable camera in
spring 1990 and in the winter received a two-year prison term for stealing a $3
hat. Before his sentencing for the latter crime, he described himself to the
judge as "a confused, muddleheaded
old man".
In the spring of 1997, a neighbor called police to report
Singleton assaulting a woman in his home in Sulphur Springs, Florida. When police responded, they found the
body of Roxanne Hayes; she had been
stabbed multiple times in the upper body. Hayes was a sex worker and a mother
of three.
Mary Vincent
traveled from California to Tampa to appear at Singleton's
sentencing. During her testimony, she
described Singleton's attack and the toll the ordeal had taken on her. The judge sentenced Singleton to death. Singleton died in 2001 of cancer in a prison
hospital at the North Florida Reception
Center in Starke, Florida.
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