RedHanded - Episode 73 - Mary Vincent: Survivor

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

Mary was just 15 and desperately looking for a way to get home to her family when she accepted a ride from a kindly old looking man. What transpired that night however is the stuff of nightmares. The man, Lawrence Singleton, abducted, raped and maimed Mary with an axe, leaving her for dead at the bottom of a 30ft ravine.  But Mary survived.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti.

And welcome to Red Handed. If this one doesn't put you off hitchhiking, nothing will. In 1978, 15-year-old Mary Vincent was having a tough time. She'd grown up in Las Vegas. Her mum, Lucy, was a croupier, and her dad, Herb, repaired slot machines. Mary, keen to carry on the family tradition of casino culture, wanted to be a dancer. Her dream was to dance in the Lido di Pari in Las Vegas. Lido di Pari, I believe, was a show hailed as one of the greatest that Vegas had ever seen. Mary didn't have too much time for school.

She skived a lot and eventually she left her parents' house at the beginning of summer 1978 to live in her boyfriend's car. The young couple ended up living out of his car in Sausalito, California. A Californian summer in a car does not sound pleasant. No, it does not. Maybe when you're 15, you're just much more accepting of such hardships. Of the heat. The heat in particular. But it didn't last long anyway.

Police apprehended Mary Vincent's boyfriend on rape charges and Mary was left on her own. In September 1978, Mary had had enough and decided that she needed to head home. She left Berkeley, California on the 29th of September 1978. And I say home, but there are a lot of conflicting reports of where she was actually headed. Some claim that she was headed back to Las Vegas. Others claim that she was on her way to her granddad's house in Corona, California, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, 419 miles away from Berkeley. But whether she was headed back to Vegas or to Corona, what's important is that Mary was headed south. Mary was a confident hitchhiker. Although she may never have taken this particular cross-Californian route before, she had successfully managed many others. And before Cerruti's head explodes, hitchhiking was much more common in the 70s in the United States in particular. Much more common than it is now and certainly a lot less frowned upon. But when I was reading about this, I was like, fucking hell, everyone's at it. Like, it just sounds like there were about 10 people on the side of the road at any one time. I think that is basically what was

happening I mean it's really similar when we covered the Colleen Stan case I think during that time period it was just like bit more hippy dippy fewer people had cars but they still had a drive to get across the country and explore and all that and live much more of like a transient lifestyle I'm gonna hit the road and find my fortune or whatever. More like Dick Whittington. With like a stick and a dotted handkerchief. Handkerchief hanging off the back. Yeah, I think it's important to put that into context because, yes, I know everybody's looking

at me when they're talking about hitchhiking. I have only ever done it when it's absolutely necessary. That is such a lie. How can you say that with a straight face? I stand by the fact that I've only ever done it when I've absolutely had to. But I think it's important to put into context that me having hitchhiked considerably during the noughties is very, very different to someone like Mary Vincent or Colleen Stan having hitchhiked during the seventies. It just wasn't a thing. I think you have to understand this as far as they were concerned, because it was so common, would have just been as risky as walking down the road.

It was just the done thing. That's what it feels like. I sort of semi agree with you. What I absolutely agree with is you hitchhiking now and them hitchhiking then are two very different things. I think hitchhiking is a very ugly word to describe what I have done. Fine. After having done this case, I did know this case before, but after having just gone through it in this much detail,

I promise you, everyone listening and Hannah, I will never, ever hitchhike again. You're such a liar. How can you look in my face and lie to me like that? I'm at your ship. Give me a chance, Hannah. Give me a chance. Okay, okay, okay. Because what happens next is, as you said at the beginning, an absolute hitchhiking horror story slash mildly put cautionary tale. But I think it's important that we have to stay again. In my opinion, I think in our opinion, this was not Mary Vincent's fault. She wasn't

a daredevil. She just wanted to get home and she had no other option. She couldn't face being out on the streets on her own anymore. She needed to get out. She was tired. So Mary stood on the side of the road with a sign saying that she was headed south. And again, as we said, she wasn't alone. There were two other hitchhikers on the ramp holding up signs saying that they were going in the same direction. After a while, a blue van pulled up to where the hitchhikers were standing with their signs. Inside the van was a man who looked to be in his 60s. He was a definite grandfather type. He was wearing overalls like the kind that a mechanic would wear,

and he told Mary that he could drive her to Interstate 5, where she would have to hitch another ride further south. This was the quickest way for Mary to get where she needed to go, and the overall-clad man explained that he was actually on his way to Reno, which is not south at all from Berkeley. It's east. But he said that he would happily make a diversion to drop Mary off at Interstate 5. But he was clear. Only Mary. This immediately is terrifying. And the other nameless hitchhikers on the side of the road with Mary warned her not to take the ride, despite it being offered from this seemingly well-meaning old guy. And I say old, but Mary was like 15, so anyone over 30 probably looks old to her.

The other two hitchhikers warned Mary not to take the ride. They were wary of the man. They were all going the same way, so it was a big red flag that he wouldn't take all of them when he clearly had space. Mary Vincent took the ride. She got in the van with the granddad type overall wearing man and they drove off. The man's name was Lawrence Singleton. Sometimes people call him Larry Singleton, but it feels weird because I don't want to use a nickname for someone who is just so horrendous. So I'm going to call him Lawrence. The day he picked up Mary Vincent, he was 51 years old. He told Mary that she didn't need to be afraid of him and that he had a daughter about her age.

He wasn't lying. Lawrence Singleton did have a young teenage daughter. He neglected to tell Mary that he had not spoken to his daughter in months. Singleton was a violent alcoholic. His abusive behaviour had led to his wife divorcing him and his daughter despising him. After she got in the van, Mary lit a cigarette. Then she sneezed. Singleton put a hand on the back of Mary's neck and tried to pull her close to him. He told Mary that he wanted to find out

if she was sick. This physical contact put Mary on edge. She pulled herself away from his hand and huddled as far away from him as she could get, which in the front seat of a van is not very far at all. So leaning against the van door, trying to keep as much distance between her and Singleton as possible, Mary Vincent fell asleep. When she woke up, she wasn't sure how much time had passed, but she was sure of one thing. They were going the wrong way. After looking at the road signs, Mary realised that they weren't driving south anymore. They were heading east, towards Reno.

She said to Singleton, Look, you're going the wrong way, and you know you're going the wrong way. Alarmed, Mary felt under her seat for anything she might be able to defend herself with, and she felt something long and metal. Perfect. Mary pulled out what turned out

to be a long surveying stick and threatened Larry Singleton with it. I say threatened, but she is 15 years old. I really don't think it can have been that intimidating. She demanded that he turn the van around and take her to where she had asked to go. Singleton didn't seem overly phased by the metal rod wielding teen and calmly apologised to Mary, explaining that he was just an honest man who made an honest mistake. He told her, I'm not going to hurt you. Singleton turned the van around and Mary accepted his apology and his reasoning to believe that he had just made a mistake. Perhaps he had taken a wrong turn. She couldn't hold that against him. In her eyes, he's just made a mistake. Perhaps he had taken a wrong turn. She couldn't hold that against him. In her eyes, he's just an old man.

But Mary wasn't totally at ease. Her gut instinct was nagging at her. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong. This feeling was not eased when Singleton started to drink liquor out of a milk carton that he kept in his van.

Why is it a milk carton? Isn't that just so grim? That is so disgusting. A milk carton that he kept in his van. Oh. Why is it a milk carton? Like, isn't that just so grim? That is so disgusting. A milk carton. He's emptied it out and then filled it with liquor. Like, why? I can smell it. I can smell the milk just talking about it.

It's like those disgusting hard shakes they sell everywhere now. Oh, what, milkshakes with booze in it? I'm fully lactose intolerant. I cannot stand milk. I can't even stand people being near me if they've just had a milky coffee. I just, I can't, I can't. And I can understand totally how menacing this is.

No, no, thank you. Absolutely not. Though, did you see? Scientists recently found a spider that feeds its babies milk. Shut up. Really? With its spider boobs?

I think so. I'll check. I'm pretty sure. If I'm wrong, we'll just cut this out. I'm just, I'm a big oat milk drinker. Hopefully that is not unethical or something in some way. I think I'm okay. So yes, he's drinking his disgusting fake hard shake out of his milk carton that he kept in his fucking disgusting van. And things got even worse when Singleton told Mary that he needed to relieve himself and pulled the blue van off the main road. Singleton then drove the van onto a deserted side road near the

Del Puerto Canyon. Singleton got out of the van and so did an uneasy Mary. Mary steeled herself. If something goes wrong, she thought, if he tries to hurt me, I can definitely outrun him. Singleton was a middle-aged, overweight man who had just like been necking fucking booze in his truck. She was confident that if he tried anything, she would be able to run away unscathed just because she was younger and faster. I'd probably look at this guy and think I could run away. But there was something Mary noticed. She couldn't run away if her shoes were untied. And they were. It's like a horror movie cut. It really is. Where you realize you have to run. You look down and your shoes are untied. So Mary knew that if she was going to stand any chance

in a potential tussle, she needed to tie her shoes. So Mary bent down to tie her shoelace and then everything went dark. Singleton had cracked her over the head with a sledgehammer. When Mary regained consciousness, Singleton forced his penis into her mouth and told her that he would kill her unless she did everything he told her to. Darkness fell as Lawrence Singleton dragged the 15-year-old Mary Vincent back to the van, where he bound her hands behind her back. He then drove her and the van further into the desert. After a while, Singleton stopped the van and untied Mary's hands. He then forced her to drink from a plastic jug. It's not clear what this mixture was, but according to Mary, it was definitely alcoholic.

Singleton then raped Mary in the back of the van all through the night. Eventually she passed out, and when she came back round, Singleton was still next to her, and the sun was coming up. He dragged her out of the van and made her lie on the side of the road. Mary begged him to set her free. She pleaded with him that she would never tell anyone, to which he replied, you want to be free? I'll set you free. He went back to the van and pulled out a toolbox, from which he took out a hatchet and brought it down on Mary. In an attempt to

stop him, Mary grabbed his arm as he struck. But despite having grabbed onto him, she felt like she was falling. And she couldn't figure out why until she looked down and realised that her left arm was no longer attached to her body. It was gripping Singleton's arm, but it had been cut clean off by his hatchet. Mary started to kick and scream, but that didn't stop him. It just slowed him down. It took three strikes for Singleton to cut off Mary's right arm. After this attack, Mary recalls watching her attacker flicking his arm wildly. It seemed like a really odd thing to do until she realised that her severed left arm was still attached to him, still gripping his arm tight, even though it was no longer attached to her body. What an image. No words. When describing this unimaginable attack, Mary said, I felt all the pain, the sharpness, the burning, and as the blood

was leaking out of my body, I felt the hot ooze just flowing out of me. I felt everything. I was aware of everything. After Singleton had shaken Mary's severed arms death grip loose, he picked her up and threw her over a railing, down a 30-foot ravine. Mary broke four ribs on the way down, but she didn't make a sound. She was limp, and Singleton was sure that she must be dead. That's why he'd cut her arms off. He didn't want her corpse to be identified by fingerprint analysis. But he still had the problem of what to do with her body. So Singleton climbed down into the ravine after Mary and stuffed her body into a nearby concrete pipe. He told her, okay, now you're free. Then he left Mary in the desert, returned to his

van and drove away. But despite having her arms chopped off, being hurled over a ledge, falling 30 feet, breaking four ribs and being stuffed into a concrete tube, Mary Vincent wasn't dead. She was, however, obviously in a really bad way. She had lost an enormous amount of blood and she was totally naked and alone. While lying inside the concrete tube, Mary recalls hearing a distant voice telling her that she couldn't go to sleep. She needed to stay awake and she needed to stay alive. Mary thought, he's going to do this to somebody else and I can't let that happen. This was not the day she was going to die and she crawled out of the concrete pipe. She realised that she did have the strength to stand and to walk. In the distance, she could hear cars,

she could hear the freeway. She knew that she just had to get back to the main road and there surely someone would help her. How could Mary climb back up the 30-foot drop that Singleton had thrown her over without any hands? This was a serious problem. If Mary couldn't get back to the side road at the top of the ravine, she knew she would die. She's in the middle of the desert. She's in the middle of nowhere, totally on her own.

There's no people for miles. So Mary did the unthinkable. She drove the stumps where her forearms had once been into the ground in an attempt to staunch the bleeding with mud, giving herself a better chance of climbing back up to the road. The climb took hours, but she did it. Just to have the presence of mind to be like, I've got to stop this bleeding. She's 15.

It's one of the most unbelievable things I've ever heard and read about. And to be thinking through everything that she was going through, through that blood she must have been losing, that she needed to climb back up to the road. It's nothing short of unbelievable. Once back on the side road, Mary started to walk back towards the freeway, following the sound of the cars. She was naked, barefoot, and covered in blood. Mary held her arms in the air, which she would later describe in court as an attempt to stop the blood and muscles from falling out. Mary kept walking. She saw a red convertible with two men inside speeding towards her. This was it, she thought. She was saved.

And you would. You would think, fuck, finally. Civilization, I've seen another person. They're gonna save me. But no. The car just drove straight past her. In later interviews, Mary explained that she holds no ill feelings towards these men. She admits that she must have looked like something out of a Fright Night movie. Still though, I find it really difficult. I can't imagine the despair

of watching them drive away. When you watch horror films and you see that person escape from the psycho killer, run out into the road and desperately wave their arms for somebody to save them. And that feeling of relief you get just as a viewer of something you know is not real, of that person being rescued and being driven away. I would really, really like to think that I would stop. I would really like to think that I would stop. And I'm sure that those men, I hope that those men do carry that feeling with them forever. I'm sure that they must do.

I mean, it's such a famous case. Like, it must have been days before they realised what happened. She does survive, but you'd still, knowing you could have helped her and you didn't, must be tough. How soul-destroying would this be? This horrific attack has happened to you. You've had your arms cut off, thrown down a ravine,

you've climbed back up them, you're doing everything you can to save yourself. But to think, I'm going to die out here because people are too afraid of me to stop. But salvation came in the next car, which was a couple on their honeymoon. They had taken a wrong turn and ended up on the side road that Mary was walking along. This couple stopped. They wrapped Mary in towels and drove to the nearest public phone where they called 911.

All Mary Vincent could manage to say to her rescuers was, he raped me. Mary was airlifted to hospital where it was discovered that she had lost half of the blood in her body. But despite her trauma and poisoned blood, Mary was determined not to let Singleton get away with it. Just days after she was attacked, Mary gave her statement to the police and gave a description for a composite sketch. And we've spoken before on the show about how composite sketches usually turn out looking like Playmobil people, but not this one. Singleton was quite a distinctive looking guy with a big bobbly nose. Like it's gross. It's really gross. Like we'll put pictures of him on the Instagram, but he is a gross man. Mary was able to describe him so accurately that once the composite sketch was circulated by police,

Singleton's neighbour, a San Pablo, California housewife and apparently a bowling aficionado, recognised his face instantly and rang the police. I think that's the only time I have ever come across a composite sketch leading to someone being like I know this guy seems like a very miraculous part of the story that this this neighbor is immediately able to recognize him I think usually it's just a tool and why we do laugh at it and be like they look like fucking not real people but generic white man number one generic faces I think it is like with most things even including like profiling it's just another tool to help you narrow down who it could be. And if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. If it was a total waste of time, they wouldn't do it. It's just remarkable that in this case, it was like

immediately that led to a direct link to who this person was. Mary also picked Singleton out from a lineup of six photographs in front of a grand jury. Mary made a slow recovery in hospital. Muscle from her right leg had to be used to reconstruct one of her arms. This procedure left Mary's leg permanently weakened and her dreams of dancing in tatters. Mary was fitted with two prosthetic arms with pinches on the ends and returned to Las Vegas and her family. Singleton was tracked down by the police and apprehended. He told the police a very different story, however, to the one they had heard from Mary Vincent. According to Singleton, he had picked up Mary and two other hitchhikers

that day in Berkeley. The other two hitchhikers were apparently called Pedro and also Larry. So here is what Lawrence, or to his friends as we said, Larry Singleton, told the police and later the jury at his trial. He picked up the three hitchhikers, Pedro, Mary and other Larry. And why he's chosen that particular name is a total fucking mystery. Like this is how stupid this guy is. You can't even think of another name. It's a last minute panic made up name. It's like, oh, shit.

No, that's my name. Or is a double bluff. He's also called Larry. Oh, maybe. You think there's slim chance of that happening. But his name is also Larry. The other guy was called Pedro. maybe. You think there's slim chance of that happening, but his name was also Larry. The other guy was called Pedro. I don't think he's smart enough for that.

I think he was like, oh yeah, Pedro, good one. Next. Ah, shit. Need some diversity in there. Yeah. Have a Pedro, have a woman, and then have a Larry. Good. So we'll call him Lawrence to not confuse him with fake Larry.

So Lawrence says that he then drove them all to a bar where they all got drunk and smoked weed together, provided by Mary Vincent. Yeah, I really believe that three, like, young hitchhikers you picked up on the side of the road want to hang out with a gross old man and get drunk with you and smoke weed with you. Yeah, exactly. Fuck off.

It gets better. He says that they all paid Mary for sex because Singleton told the courtroom in his trial that Mary Vincent was a quote, $10 a night whore. Hmm. Okay. She was 15 and just trying to get home. But apparently now she's, she's a $10 a night whore. So after Pedro and the other Larry were finished up having sex with Mary, Singleton said he fell asleep in his van. And when he woke up, the other Larry was driving the van towards San Francisco and Mary Vincent was gone. Right. So he's just like, gave these people a ride, wake up and then one of them's

driving my van. One of them's driving my van. The other one's gone. I don't know. I passed out. I didn't see anything. Not guilty. So according to Singleton, anything that had happened to Mary Vincent after he fell asleep must have been at the hands of Pedro and other Larry. It's almost like he's trying to have like a split personality, like disassociative personality. One of them's Larry, then there's Lawrence, then there's Pedro. That wasn't me. It was Larry. This charming Pedro. And then there's like gross, weird Larry. And then there's just somber, little, old, simple Lawrence. What I think about Lawrence Singleton is I do genuinely think he just lives on a different planet to everyone else.

He really doesn't have that strong of a grip on reality, I don't think. So Singleton claimed that he dropped the pair near San Francisco and never saw them again. One of Mary Vincent's arms was found near the Golden Gate Bridge, 90 miles away from where it was amputated in Del Puerto Canyon. But I think we can safely say that it wasn't there because of fictitious Pedro and little fake Larry. When Lawrence Singleton's home was searched, a lot of Mary's possessions were found, including her cigarettes and her clothes that Singleton had obviously attempted to burn.

Why take them back to your house? Trophies? Why would he burn a trophy, though? But then he doesn't throw them away. He doesn't get rid of them. He keeps her cigarettes, though. I think the cigarettes are the trophy, I think. Because the thing is, like, obviously attempted to burn. So was it just like the remnants were left? So he had just taken them home in order to dispose of them. Or was he keeping them as a trophy? Also, whichever of those things you're doing, why are you taking them back to your house? I don't know. That is then directly linking it to you if they find it.

And he has at least 10 days to sort himself out. I'm pretty sure they arrest him on the 10th day. So he's got, it's not like he is home for 48 hours and is like scrambling to get everything sorted. He's got 10 days to get rid of it all. That's what I find really strange. I just don't think he thinks like a normal person, honestly. And I think probably by that point as well, you know,

he's done this to Mary Vincent. He's chucked her over that ravine. He's discarded of her arms miles and miles and miles away from where he did it. He probably thinks that they're never going to be able to link it to him. It's a complete stranger attack. Yeah, and I also think he splits himself between his home in California and he's got another one in Nevada. He has another home in Reno.

So he must be pretty familiar with crossing state lines and knowing that that generally throws people off. I don't know whether it's arrogance. I think he might just be stupid, I think. It's just the thing, it's hard to tell with him whether it's arrogance and like complacency and a feeling that he's above suspicion, above the law and, you know, no one will ever link this crime to him or whether he is just plain stupid. So in his other house, in his Nevada house in Reno, he'd asked his neighbour to help him clean his van in the days after the attack. A few days after the van cleaning, Larry Singleton attempted to commit suicide by taking an overdose

of sleeping pills. A few days later, he was taken in by police. He was adamant that Mary Vincent had been in his van, but nothing that had happened to her was his fault. Five months after leaving hospital, Mary Vincent took the stand in Larry's trial and told the judge and jury what he had done to her, referring, she referred to him only as my attacker. She never uses his name. Singleton's unlikely story and Mary's testimony, coupled with Mary's cigarettes and belongings being found at Lawrence Singleton's house meant that the jury had a pretty easy job. In March 1979, the San Diego jury convicted Lawrence Singleton of kidnapping, mayhem, attempted murder, forcible rape, sodomy and forced oral copulation. I have two questions I would like to ask here. What is non-forcible rape? I think it's not so much defined as non-forcible rape. I think what it is, is you have forcible rape and that potentially,

this is what I think it means. It excludes people that are convicted of things like statutory rape, because in a lot of states, statutory rape is just defined as sex with a minor. And then obviously, you can have the arguments around that minor can't consent, therefore it is still forcible. But I think it's just to provide that differentiation between statutory rape and forcible rape. And my second thing, what's the first thing you think of when you hear the word mayhem? I was so excited to learn this. This has been such a good learning week for me. What do you think of? I don't know, I thought it was something, it reminded me of like when you say bedlam or something like that. I would think if someone's convicted of mayhem, it's like... Rioting.

Like a disturbance of the peace kind of thing. Yeah. I thought it was like rioting or like... Yeah. The purge behaviour. But it turns out mayhem, as well as its colloquial connotations, carries actual legal meaning. In legalese, mayhem means the intentional maiming of another person. And the term stems from the law of England and Wales where mayhem is defined as removal of a body part that would put a person at a disadvantage during combat.

That is really interesting. I didn't know that. Isn't that such a good fact? Yeah. Not at all what I thought it was. How interesting. Chopping someone's arms off. Mayhem.

So Singleton was found guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to 14 years. 10 of those years were for attempted murder and the other four years were made up for the rape, the sodomy and the forced oral copulation charges. Sentences for mayhem and kidnapping were stayed pending completion of the other sentences. He was also credited with 225 days of jail time, the time served while awaiting trial. Now Mary had to walk past Singleton on her way out of the courtroom. And on this occasion, she heard him say, quote,

if it's the last thing I do, I will finish the job. 14 years was the maximum penalty for his crimes at that time in the state of California. 14 years doesn't seem like a long enough amount of time. It absolutely doesn't. And what he got for rape was one year, one year and a third or something like that. That's all he got for raping someone. Wow, that's unbelievable. You get more than that for robbing a corner shop. With her attacker behind bars, Mary tried to resume her life, but it was difficult.

She went to a special school for students with specific access needs, but she felt very isolated. Mary won a $2.56 million judgment against Lawrence Singleton in 1988, but she was unable to collect her money because Singleton only had $200 to his name. Surely that's something you should find out before you go through all the bother of suing someone. What's the point in suing someone if they've got nothing to give you? After he was sentenced, Lawrence Singleton appealed his conviction, but his grounds were brow-furrowing at best. He protested his innocence and demanded he was classed as a mentally disordered sex offender and therefore had a reduced responsibility for his actions which is an odd claim for someone who denies raping anyone anyway. Nothing he does or thinks or says is logical at all he's just like oh that could possibly get me a reduced sentence

I'm that I'm a sex offender but I've never raped anyone and I definitely didn't rape her. Like I didn't rape her. But if I did rape her. It's because I'm a sex offender. I'm insane. Yeah. It's because I'm insane. It's because I'm a crazy sex offender.

But his appeal went nowhere. His state-sanctioned medical assessment stated that he showed no signs of delusion or hallucination. And we've talked about this before. Being a psychopath or a sociopath and doing this, you know what you're doing. Someone who is mentally ill in the sense that they are having delusions or hallucinations and they don't know what's right and wrong and they're just doing, that's when you get not guilty by reason of insanity. And that is a really, really hard thing to prove and it really rarely happens. The court found that his memory and his thought processes were normal. On top of that, he had no previous record of sex crimes. So claiming that he's a mentally disordered sex offender seems odd.

How can you prove it? And he's also saying that he didn't do this. So it's very strange. His history showed pretty much from everything we could tell a normal, fairly normal sex life. The only thing out of the ordinary in Singleton were episodes of violence that were triggered by excessive consumption of alcohol. Like we said before, he was a violent alcoholic. And I think that this is a good point to discuss the four different types of rapist. Generally, experts classify sex attackers into four categories, and individuals fall somewhere along the spectrum. So you have the power-assertive rapist, the anger-retaliatory rapist, the power-reassurance rapist, and the anger-excive rapist, the anger retaliatory rapist, the power reassurance rapist and the anger excitation rapist. The power assertive rapist is the most common type of rapist, with studies showing that up to 75% of all rapes fall under this category.

This type of rapist has exaggerated beliefs about masculinity and operates on the assumption that women owe him sex. He is physically aggressive and is prepared for some type of violence, but typically he has no intention to murder. He has no issues with using drugs or alcohol as a form of control, and he generally doesn't consider what he does to be rape, but rather fierce sex. The classic entitled pieces of shit, like Brock Turner. Ugh, that man. I don't even want to call him a man. His photo, his face. Then you have the power reassurance rapist. This type of rapist's compulsive behaviour to rape is driven by deep feelings of inadequacy

and not necessarily sexual inadequacy but the feeling of somehow not being good enough. And these are the type of rapists that if they do have a partner their partner is very dominating over them. This rapist, as he's raping you, is generally pretty polite, apparently. And unlike most other rapists, he even tries to involve the victim. So he'll try to like be affectionate and hug and kiss his victim. Essentially, he fantasizes that the rape is consensual sex and the victim is or will enjoy it. Some rapists like this even ask their victim to compare their sexual performance to other men

or ask the victim if they would like to get together again, in rare cases even giving their names and phone numbers to the victim. Then you have the rarest and by far the most dangerous type of rapist, the anger excitation rapist or the sadistic rapist. Only about two percent of rapes fall under this category but almost all rapes that end in murder take place at the hands of these criminals. This type of rapist is methodical with his planning. He is usually highly intelligent and charming and derives part of his sense of power from his ability to gain trust from women

before raping them. His entire goal is to inflict as much harm on his victim as he can. He's a sexual sadist, and he gets his pleasure directly from his victim's pain. A classic example is Leo Anthony Goodloe, who until his 1994 conviction enticed sex workers and drug addicts into his company, and then brutally savage them, slicing them with broken beer bottles or sodomizing them with a knife. Then finally, you have the anger retaliatory rapist. And this is the category that I think Lawrence Singleton falls into. Of course, like we said at the start, this isn't black and white, it's a spectrum. Like these attackers fall at varying parts of this and I'm sure they can even move around. But this type of rapist is angry at the

world and often at a particular woman or women in general. So he wants to punish and humiliate them. His assaults seem spontaneous and vicious but they are fully deliberate. He is typically quite violent and his violence escalates as the victim resists. This type of killer is triggered by a perceived wrong that then ignites an attack and this type of rapist rarely plans his attack. He acts on impulse, often using debilitating force. But once his rage is spent, he may never rape again or at least not until another situation sparks that rage in him again. The impulsiveness, the rage, the overkill, the lack of sexual assaults in his past, and the way he talks about Mary Vincent, calling her a $10 a night whore.

You can tell what Lawrence Singleton thinks of women. I do think he has a little sort of spattering of the sadistic rapist, though, because he really enjoys, I think, they're like, oh, I'm just a little old man I'm not going to hurt you like it's not he's not doing the like Bateman American psycho suave charm he's like oh I'm I'm just an old man I'm just a granddad there's no way I'm gonna hurt you it's like Ed Kemper you know when it was just like oh I'll just I'm just nobody I'm not anyone that could hurt you definitely I think if you're gonna put Lawrence Singleton anywhere it would just like, oh, I'll just, I'm just nobody. I'm not anyone that could hurt you. Definitely. I think if you're going to put Lawrence Singleton anywhere, it would be like between that sort of anger retaliatory and sexual sadist rapist. The reason that I was more towards the anger

retaliatory was because he doesn't seem to have many, thing is, when we say that there were no sex attacks in his past. That we know about. That we know about. This is the key thing. I think you don't just get in your car one day, be pissed off about something, be filled with rage, like what they say that anger retaliatory rapists are, and decide to attack someone like he attacked Mary Vincent. No, exactly. He was also a merchant marine. So he's been all over the world. You don't rape a 15 year old girl all night, cut her arms off with a hatchet, throw her down a ravine, maybe that's the way he's presenting it. He knew when he picked her up on the side of the road what he was going to do to her. Like, I don't think the alcohol comes into it at all, but he knew otherwise he would have

taken the others. The fact he just took her, he's singling her out. Absolutely. I think he straddles between anger retaliatory and anger excitation rapists because the anger excitation rapists generally plan a lot they're super methodical they like put together a plan they stalk their victims then they attack it's like a btk or like a what's his name david parker ray you know they've got the kit they're gonna do it they they've got a plan that they want to they have a fantasy that they want to live out whereas the anger retaliatory it's like grab do it out of the blue but very deliberate like exactly what you mean he knew that he wanted to pick her up for that purpose but it's almost completely spontaneous but you know it's just something

interesting i've wanted to talk about it for a while you know the different types of rapists and like i said it is a spectrum it is it's not sort of black and white. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Block of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up.

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I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago,

I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors

that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. When Singleton's appeal on the grounds of insanity

didn't go anywhere, he tried a different tact. He disputed his sentencing based on the attempted murder charge. He argued that cutting off someone's arms doesn't amount to attempted murder. Therefore, he deserved a lighter sentence than the 14 years he got. Because yeah, I guess this is a good tact for him to take. The four years was for all the rape and the sodomy and the mayhem and all that. The ten years was for attempted murder. But the state, as you can imagine, weren't having any of this.

They quite rightly pointed out that the attempted murder charge was much more to do with Lawrence Singleton stuffing Mary Vincent's body into a concrete tube in the middle of the desert and leaving her there than it was to do with the removal of her upper limbs. But any piece Mary Vincent may have found via the dismissal of Singleton's appeals wouldn't last, because just eight years after he was sentenced, Lawrence Singleton was released from San Quentin. He was given time off his sentence for good behaviour,

but he never admitted guilt, and he most certainly never exhibited any remorse. His psychiatric evaluation read, because he is so out of touch with his hostility and anger, he remains an elevated threat to others' safety inside and outside prison. Also, while he was still inside, Singleton had written several letters to Vincent's lawyers, in which he threatened her. But he was released anyway.

Singleton's release from prison was far from smooth sailing though. Every time the state attempted to relocate him to a neighbourhood where he could live out his probationary period, the community would riot, literally. According to Time magazine, authorities attempted to settle him in one Bay Area town after another. Angry crowds led protests, screamed, picketed and eventually prevailed.

In Rodeo, which is about 25 miles northeast of San Francisco, a crowd of approximately 500 local protesters were up in arms and forced officers to move Lawrence Singleton under an armed guard from the hotel that he had been placed in. And then again, Singleton was removed from one apartment in Contra Costa County in a bulletproof vest after 400 residents surrounded the building he had been housed in. Protesters held signs that said,

Drop dead, Larry, and get the maniac out. I think this shows just how high profile this case was. Everyone in California knew about it. It's a horror movie. It's like fucking Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Like when that girl is running away and gets into the back of the truck. Like, absolutely. That's what it reminds me of. But worse. And finally, the governor of California at the time, George Dukmajan, decided that the only viable option was to put Singleton in a trailer on the grounds of

San Quentin for the entirety of his one year parole period, after which he would be able to leave the state of California. I think the condition of his, you can't leave the state if you're on parole. So they have to put him somewhere in California, but nowhere wants him. So they literally have to buy him a caravan and put it in a prison because no one would take him. Wow. Isn't that a big fucking sign to the authorities? Maybe don't release this man even on probation yet maybe just keep him in prison for a bit longer this is the thing i would understand if he'd done i mean obviously his sentencing seems light if he had done the full 14 years i would understand why they were under pressure to house him but they've let him out early that's on them like they have approved that and at what point did he because he, because they're letting him go on parole, right?

At what point did he show remorse for what he did? This is what I don't understand. Isn't that a big condition of parole? He was still denying that he even did this. Did he say, I'm so sorry? He was still writing fucking letters to her, to Mary Vincent's lawyers, threatening her. At what point did he show remorse? Like, how is he rehabilitated?

It's outrageous. It's crazy. And on April 25th, 1988, Singleton finally left his San Quentin caravan. And as expected, he left California. When his daughter Deborah learned of his release, she went into hiding. She asked law enforcement if they could keep him locked up for longer, but they just told her to get a restraining order. And if you think that sounds a bit light, Deborah totally agrees with you.

She said, quote, I've changed my name multiple times and I'm moving across state lines. And you will suggest a piece of paper that will tell him exactly where I am, what my name is, and just not to come within, say, 300 feet of me. Great. I read an interesting article with her where basically the theme of the article is like what to do if one of your parents is a monster. Like how do you live your life knowing that half of you is this person and the way she describes him is just this savage hatred of women just all women which is pretty classic when he was in prison for attacking mary vincent she wrote him a letter saying this is the termination of our relationship. I never

want to see you again. So when he gets out, she's just terrified that he's going to come and find her and he's going to kill her. Of course, that would be the natural inclination. Clearly, the police don't think it's a big fucking deal, though. And in a bizarre twist, and perhaps the clearest exhibition of his total lack of grip on reality, Lawrence Singleton attempted to file a complaint against Mary Vincent. Yes, you heard right. He claimed that Mary threatened to accuse him of rape while brandishing the surveyor stick at him. So that metal pole that she found under the seat. Unsurprisingly, this lawsuit was dismissed by the courts because what happened to her arms? Exactly. He's literally like, oh, she threatened threatened me so i had to rape her for eight hours straight and i had to cut off her arms and throw them under

the golden gate bridge like this is what i mean he just thinks how can i get out of this situation and makes up a story he doesn't live on this planet yeah and why he did this is as you say explained by psychologist and expert on forensics and victimization, Dr. Chris Hatcher. He argues that Singleton is so detached from reality that he has created a scenario where he was the victim, not Mary. And this kind of fits into that idea of like that intense hatred that we were talking about with anger retaliatory rapists, where they hate a woman or hate women. And this idea that he thinks in his mind, maybe he's been victimized by women his whole life. And now there's just another bitch trying to victimize him. Yeah.

But he tried to convince himself that he did all of those things to her because she threatened him with a stick. A 15-year-old girl in your van threatened you with a stick. After he was arrested, he is recorded wondering, quote, how did the blood get on my clothes and hatchet what is he playing at insanity or does he really think that i think he's making up i think he's trying to find a way of like okay i'm probably i'm gonna go down for this how do i reduce my responsibility and i think he's doing that by saying i was drunk i don't remember or i'm mentally unstable and i don't

remember yeah because he also says that he felt quote revulsion when he considered that he might I was drunk, I don't remember, or I'm mentally unstable and I don't remember. Because he also says that he felt, quote, revulsion when he considered that he might have attacked the girl in an alcoholic stupor. I mean, I don't believe, I really, really just don't believe that you could be drunk and do a crime like this. You'd have to be on like fucking PCP or some shit to be out of your mind enough to do a violent crime like this. I just don't believe that alcohol leads to a crime like this. No. And to be honest, whether Singleton is guilty or not isn't really a question. In my opinion, he definitely raped and maimed 15-year-old Mary Vincent. Is it possible that he was so drunk he didn't remember doing it?

Probably not. I really just don't think so. I just don't buy that, no. And also, it sort of fits into him, the sort of, I'm just a little old man thing that he does all the time. It's like, oh, it wasn't my fault. I was drunk. I've got a drinking problem. Or I'm a violent sex offender. It's not my fault. Blah, blah, blah. It's all about reduced responsibility with this guy. He's just trying to minimize what he did in one of the most extreme cases I've come across in a while.

So, according to Dr Hatcher, Singleton claimed to have been agitated by Mary's threat to accuse him of rape, and he claimed that her threats, rather than his own desires and actions, were the reason he spent the whole night raping Mary Vincent and cutting her arms off. This idea that he was the victim and not Mary was magnified when he was in prison. And we have a quote from him here. He said, I wouldn't be a normal human being if I didn't work myself into a rage when I think about how I was treated in the courts and also in the media. I have spent 10 years of my life in prison, each day being taunted and threatened. Oh dear, Mary Vincent hasn't got any fucking arms. Wow. You've spent 10 years of your life being taunted and threatened.

Classic narcissism. Everything happens to me. Nothing is my fault. And then this really makes me fucking sick. He goes on to say, I have compassion for the girl. Doesn't use her name. Note that. I have compassion for her family. I almost vomited three times and I couldn't sleep for several nights. Almost vomited. Yeah. Almost vomited. He's not talking about the guilt of the attack making him ill here. He's talking about how he felt after he filed the complaint against Mary Vincent. But no matter how bad he felt for Mary and her family,

he claimed that he had to file the suit because it was the only way he could clear his name. So what, saying I only raped and maimed her because she made me doesn't sound particularly name clearing to me. Except in the mind of someone who is completely fucking detached, delusional. Exactly. But according to Dr. Hatcher, this isn't uncommon. It's the sort of extreme denial that says it is really the victim's fault. Absolutely. And we see this time and time again, the type of killers that go after, that give themselves those allowances. They'll say, if this woman, and this isn't what I'm saying Mary did, if this woman will take money off me to have sex,

I can kill her because she's a bad person. If this girl will get into my car, it's fine for me to kill her. It's fair game. It's like a rationalization of this is fine now. This woman deserves it. And I think that ultimate form of the victim blaming and going even further than that and subverting it into I am actually the victim because this whore did it to me. This whore made me do it that went nowhere, his short sentence and the outrage surrounding his early release resulted in new legislation being passed. In 1987, the Singleton bill passed in California. This bill ensured that any offender convicted of a crime, which included torture, carried a minimum term of 25 years and prevented the possibility of early release. Had this bill been in place when Singleton was initially arrested and imprisoned for the vicious attacks on Mary Vincent, it would have saved another life. Having bills passed in her name was not really helping the real Mary Vincent with her real life. She was struggling. She was unable

to find a job and was supporting her two sons on disability benefit alone until she was in a car accident which was not her fault. She was paid $2,000 in damages after the accident which the state counted as income so her benefit payments were stopped. Mary was in such dire financial straits that she couldn't even afford to have her prosthetic arms fixed. She had no option but to file for bankruptcy. Once his parole was up and he was allowed to leave his San Quentin caravan abode, Lawrence Singleton moved back to his hometown of Tampa, Florida. But the threats followed him all the way from California. He was offered $5,000 by a local to move somewhere else and the house he was living in was firebombed. Predictably, it didn't take very long before Lawrence Singleton got bored of behaving himself and got into trouble in tampa in 1990 he was convicted of theft twice he served a 60-day

sentence for stealing a ten dollar disposable camera in spring 1990 and in the winter received a two-year prison term for stealing a three dollar hat before his sentencing for the latter crime he described himself to the judge as a confused, muddle-headed old man, not unlike him telling Mary Vincent that he was just an honest man who had made an honest mistake. He served just a fraction of the two years and was again free in no time. In January 1997, Singleton was discovered by his neighbour trying to kill himself in his car. He was rescued. He spent a week in a psychiatric facility, which he signed himself out of. And just three weeks after he walked out of the psychiatric hospital,

a local man heard a noise that he described as bones crushing, like chicken bones breaking, coming from Singleton's house. This man looked through the window of Singleton's house to see a naked Singleton choking and punching a naked woman. The onlooker called the police. The police went round to Singleton's Tampa home and knocked on the door. Singleton opened the door, covered head to toe in blood. When asked what was going on, Singleton said that he had cut himself while chopping vegetables.

Good one. And then the phone rang. Singleton left the door wide open and went to answer the phone. I cannot imagine any situation, let alone if I've just killed someone in the living room, I cannot imagine any situation in which the police are on my doorstep and I leave them there to go and answer the phone and leave the door wide open. But that is exactly what he did. Police officers took this opportunity to peek inside the house

and saw a naked woman covered in, lying on the living room floor. The woman was Roxanne Hayes. She was a mother of three and local to Singleton's neighborhood. Roxanne was known to engage in sex work, and it is assumed that she was at Singleton's house to have sex with him for money. It does, however, seem unlikely that a sex worker would go to a client's house, especially if they didn't know them. But Singleton was in his 70s at this stage, and it wouldn't be the first time he had lulled someone into a false sense of security by pretending to be a harmless, doddery old man. Yeah, like who thinks a 70-year-old is going to stab them to death? Exactly. You think you probably can't even get it up.

Like, let's just go and get the money and I can leave. But as we all know, that's not who Lawrence Singleton was. He stabbed Roxanne Hayes multiple times in the head and torso. He was arrested for her murder. As he was being arrested, Singleton said, they framed me the first time, but this time I did it. But when it came to his trial, he pled not guilty. Does he think he is a supervillain? This is what I wonder, because some of the stuff he says is so dramatic. It's like he's going to start doing a monologue about the injustices of the world and

how men aren't men anymore. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, yeah. At their trial for Roxanne Hayes' murder, Mary Vincent took the stand again. She told the court, I was raped. I had my arms cut off. He used a hatchet. He left me to die. Assistant State Attorney Jay Pruner recommended that Singleton be given the death penalty on account of the brutality of Singleton's attack on both Mary Vincent and Roxanne Hayes. Lawrence Singleton was found guilty and sentenced to death, but he was never executed. He died of cancer on death row in 2001. Mary Vincent has said in interviews that when she heard of his death, she was relieved for her sons, but she still felt cheated. Mary no longer lives in California or Nevada. She lives in the Northwest, where people who see her on the street tend to think that she was born with a disability and therefore don't ask questions. The thing that really struck me reading about Mary Vincent is

what happened to her is so visible constantly for the rest of her life. And I think that must be so hard. I don't want to in any way discredit people who are carrying invisible scars. But every time someone asks, where are your arms? She has to, well, she doesn't have to do anything. But it's saying a maniac raped me and he chopped my arms off. Although her dancing dreams were dashed, Mary has now discovered a new talent for art. It never interested her as a child and she claims that before her accident, she couldn't even draw a straight line with a ruler. According to Mary, her artistic ability is something she

woke up with after her attack and it has helped endlessly with her self-esteem. In the late 90s, Mary set up the Mary Vincent Foundation which helped victims of traumatic crime but the foundation has had its exempt status revoked by the IRS due to failure to file the correct forms for three years running and it doesn't appear to exist as a foundation anymore. Mary credits God and her sons for making her stay alive and she told the press that she's thankful that she's been given a second chance at life. That is the relentlessly brutal story of Mary Vincent. I think why it is so relentless is after she is released from hospital, she tries to go back to life and she can't because of what he did to her. She can't get a job. She can't be a dancer. She can't do any of the things she wanted to do.

It's not, she hasn't just lost her arms. She's lost the life that she wanted. Mary Vincent, we can't give her enough credit for even after the attack, the way she crawled out of that ravine and got herself back on the road to find someone to save her is almost the same attitude with which she tried to rebuild her life after the attack but just like that red convertible that drove past and didn't stop she wasn't able to get the job that she wanted she wasn't able to live the life that she wanted it was all taken away from her by this man and this man also didn't just get sentenced to life or the death penalty and then just disappear into the recesses of history. He keeps coming back. He's

sending threatening letters. He gets out on parole. It's all being dragged through the news every time there's a protest that they don't want him to move into that town. Yeah, and he murdered Roxanne Hayes. Yeah, and then goes on to murder another woman. And then she's again called to take the stand at that trial and retell her story. And then this piece of shit finally dies in 2001 of cancer. Of course she feels cheated and seemingly got away with it to some extent. So as always, follow us on the Twitter and on the Instagram. Buy your tickets for the live show. And if you maybe can't make it to the live show and would like to support us in another way,

you can go to patreon.com forward slash red handed to donate some money to the show. And it really helps keep us going. And here are some people who have done that. Kathleen Towers, Kelsey Carroll, Katty Lanera, Lauren Bartley, Mildy, Laura Roman, Margot Price, Linnea MacDonald, Tegan McGeer, Marlena, Kimberly A. Choney Megan Garrett Rona Gray and Terry Orr and yeah I think that's everything we need to say for once

so yeah bye I felt like I needed to start saying more things but no so yeah we'll just see you guys next time see you next week

bye bye You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey.

I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs,

a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.