Lawrence Bernard Singleton

Lawrence Singleton (July 28, 1927 - December 28, 2001) was an American criminal best known for perpetrating an infamous rape and mutilation of a teenage hitchhiker in California in 1978.
Mary Vincent is able to count herself as one of the fortunate attempted murder survivors, though her case is riddled with chilling and horrible things. During a day of hitchhiking in 1978, she was attacked, raped, and dismembered before being left for dead.

In 1978, when she was 15, Vincent began cutting classes, wearing a lot of makeup, and started running away from home. She lived with her boyfriend out of his car until he got in trouble for allegedly raping a high school girl.

After her boyfriend was arrested, Vincent decided to head toward California, to explore the neighboring state. She'd hitchhiked before and was still incredibly naive. It was during this 400-mile journey that she endured a living nightmare.

When Lawrence Singleton slowed down in his van to pick up Mary Vincent in Berkeley, CA, on the morning of September 29, 1978, nothing really seemed to be amiss.

However, under the surface, Lawrence Singleton was a terrible mess of a man. He'd recently become divorced from his second wife, and earlier that year, he'd fought viciously with his daughter, who resisted any attempts at discipline on his part. In the past, he'd been convicted of contributing to delinquency of a minor and had a history of drinking. He was known to have a temper and a great hatred of women. All of these factors were about to come to a head as Vincent began her long drive with him.

Almost right away, things began to feel a little off inside the van. As Vincent lit up her cigarette, she sneezed, and Singleton reached over to feel her neck, asking if she was sick. Mary didn't like the physical contact and pulled out of his reach, but soon drifted off to sleep when he didn't try anything further. She even offered to help him carry some laundry at a stop along the way before nodding off, thinking that nothing was wrong.

When she woke up, she realized that they were way off course, heading back to Nevada. Scared for the first time, she found a long sharp stick in the car, which she pointed at Singleton. She demanded he turn around and take her to where she was headed. Singleton, calm as ever, turned around and apologized, saying that he was an honest man who had just made a mistake. "I'm not gonna hurt you," he said to soothe her, and Mary relaxed.

However, as she leaned down to tie her shoe, Singleton struck her by surprise. He beat her across the back of her head, punching her until she fell. Then, Singleton forced his penis into her mouth and told her to perform oral sex or else she would die. Not satisfied by that, he dragged her to the back of the van and raped her. He told her not to scream or he'd kill her. He told her to obey him if she wanted to live.

He then bound her hands behind her and drove for a while. Eventually, he came to a stop, cut her hands free, and ordered her to drink some unknown alcohol from a plastic jug. Woozy and confused, Vincent was raped again and again until she eventually passed out. But her ordeal was far from over.

When Vincent regained consciousness, Singleton was still there. He ordered her to lie on the edge of the road and she pleaded with him to set her free. He began saying, "You want to be free? I'll set you free," as he went to the van to find something. He returned with a hatchet. Mary struggled as Singleton held her down and cut off her right arm in three blows. She screamed as he moved on to the other arm, severing this one in just two strokes, right below the elbow. Some think he did this so that the body would have no fingerprints if found.

He then shoved the naked and bleeding girl down an embankment into a culvert. He stuffed her into a concrete pipe and told her, "Okay, now you're free." He left her there, unconscious, probably assuming that the poor girl would die from her vicious wounds.

When Vincent regained consciousness, she was in a truly bad state. She was at the bottom of a ravine, bleeding profusely, alone, and naked. But she still found the strength to stand up and walk three miles out of that culvert, which she later found out was the Del Puerto Canyon. She followed the sounds of the nearby freeway and kept her arms held up in front of her, to keep the bleeding to a minimum and to keep her muscles from falling out.

Upon reaching the freeway, the first people who spotted her sped away in fear. However, a second couple, who had been traveling on vacation, did stop to help her. They wrapped her in towels and drove her to a nearby airport, where they called an ambulance. The first words she managed to say after her ordeal were simply, "He raped me."

What became of Mary Vincent? When she was younger, she wanted to be a dancer, but her dreams were dashed when pieces of her leg had to be used to reconstruct her arms. She got married, then divorced, and had suffered years of stress and depression due to her trauma. Eventually, she became a mother of two boys. From there, her life began to change for the better. She began to heal, establish close relationships, and her new family became her life.

Vincent also began to paint, draw, and sketch. It has brought her joy, as well as a new direction for her life. Some of her works are valued at $2,000 or more. She is happy with the fact that she has mostly moved past the label cast on her while Singleton was still alive. As she puts it:

"Most people know me because of who I am, not just what happened to me... They just assume I was born this way."

https://www.ranker.com/…/mary-vincent-lawrence-…/laura-allan

Lawrence Bernard "Larry" Singleton (July 28, 1927 – December 28, 2001) was a suspected American serial killer known for perpetrating an infamous rape and mutilation of an adolescent hitch-hiker, Mary Vincent, in California in 1978. Released from prison after serving only eight years of his fourteen-year sentence, he went on to murder a woman in Florida, for which he was sentenced to death in 1997. He died in 2001 of natural causes before the sentence could be carried out. It is believed that he may have killed over a dozen women in his lifetime.
Contributor: Mimi (46919861)

In September 1978, 15-year-old Mary Vincent, an aspiring dancer, ran away from her Las Vegas home and began hitchhiking across the state of California en route to Corona, California, where her grandmother lived.
While hitchhiking in Berkeley, she entered the van of 50-year-old Lawrence Singleton after accepting his seemingly kind offer to drive her close to her destination.
Sometime during the ride, Lawrence made a stop to use a restroom, so Mary decided to step out of the van to stretch out her legs.
As she bent over to tie her shoes, she was suddenly being pummeled in the head by Lawrence until she fell to the ground.
He then dragged her into the back of the van and viciously raped her, threatening to kill her if she emitted a scream.
He subsequently tied her up and resumed the drive, coming to another stop eventually and untying her just so he could force her to drink from a drugged alcoholic beverage. Once again, he sexually violated her over and over again until she lost consciousness.
When the teen girl came to, her attacker ordered her to lie down on the edge of the road. As she begged to be freed, he coldly responded, You want to be free? I'll set you free, then hacked off both of her forearms with a hatchet. Afterward, he shoved the poor, unconscious girl into a concrete culvert and left her for dead.
Miraculously, Mary survived. She woke up, naked and bleeding profusely, and mustered enough strength to pull herself up and walk to the nearest freeway. A passing couple stopped when they saw her and summoned help. By the time of her attacker's arrest, Mary wore prosthetic arms. Lawrence Singleton was outrageously only sentenced to 14 years in prison, of which he served half. 19 years later, Lawrence struck again, stabbing a woman to death in Florida. Mary unflinchingly traveled all the way across the country to testify against him, describing the horrific attack and impact it had on her life. The judge sentenced him to death, and he died of cancer in 2001.
Contributor: Glenda Morrow (47481674) • [email%C2%A0protected]* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Dec 28 2023, 5:53:13 UTC