Unseen - The Hatchet Killer: Teen Girl Gets Kidnapped, Has Both Her Arms Cut Off, and SURVIVES | The Disturbing Case of Mary Vincent | UNSEEN

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

"He's gonna do this to somebody else, and I can’t let that happen" -- When 14 year old Mary decides to hitchhike back home, a large van slows down and offers her a ride, with a driver looking like nothing but an old harmless "grand-father". As the car begins to drive in the wrong direction, she knows something is wrong, and a few hours later, Mary Vincent is fighting for her life, trying to crawl out of a 30 foot cliff, missing both arms, while the hatchet killer runs away and looks for his next victim, planning his next attack that would happen 19 years later. External Footage From: American Journal (King World Productions, Inc.), The John Walsh Show (NBC), I Survived (A&E Television Network LLC), Vanished with Beth Holloway (A&E Television Network LLC). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

911, what is your emergency? On the night of February 19, 1997, the 911 operator for the small town of Sulfur Springs, Florida, received the most disturbing phone call. The anonymous caller claimed he saw a neighbor attacking a woman before dragging her inside his home. When the caller gave the address, no one suspected whose house the police would break into, a man named Lawrence Singleton. Almost 20 years earlier, near Del Porto Canyon, California, a couple of times, driving to their honeymoon stopped to help a young girl walking in the middle of the road.

In horror, the couple noticed that both her arms were missing. When she was brought to a nearby hospital, the 14-year-old girl told police about the man who had done this to her, Lawrence Singleton. I was just telling him, please, just set me free, let me go. And he said, you want to be set free? I'll set you free. And pulled out a hatchet. But when he was convicted, after his victim had bravely testified,

in front of him in court, Lauren Singleton whispered words to her no one else heard. Just inches away, I heard him say, if it's the last thing I do, I will finish the job. Eight years later, Singleton was released from prison. The reason, good behavior. I knew that if he were to do this to somebody else, they wouldn't survive it. 911, what is your emergency? Listen, we just went up to this house, and there was this guy inside the house, and he was reading up this woman. He's going to do this to somebody else.

I can't let that happen. September 30th, 1978, a couple is driving down a deserted highway near Del Porto Canyon in California. They are actually not supposed to be on this road at all. They're actually on their honeymoon, and they took a wrong turn and ended up on this desolate, deserted road. This road is so out in, like, the middle of nowhere that there's not even streetlights. So the only thing illuminating their path is the headlights of their car and also moonlight as well. So they're driving along and it's so quiet, it's so dark, when all of a sudden they see a figure walking in the middle of the road. And as they get closer, they realize that it's actually a young girl and she has her arms up in the air weirdly.

And as they get closer again, they see that she's actually covered in blood and her forearms are made. She's yelling at them to stop to help her. They pull over and they help her into their truck. They speed off and they find a nearby telephone and they call for help. The girl is actually airlifted to a nearby hospital. They don't know if she's going to make it to the hospital because she's already lost more than half the blood in her body.

Once they land, they rush her into the emergency room. Doctors had never seen anything like this before. before. They work tirelessly to try and save what's left of both of her arms. They go to the extent of removing part of her leg in order to save her right arm. The girl she miraculously survives, and she's in her hospital room recovering, and that's when police are finally able to come in and talk to her and figure out, like, what happened to her. Like, they don't know if this was a horrible accident, if this was some kind of attack. They don't know anything. And so the girl tells them that her name is Mary Vincent and a man had tried to murder her.

Instead of sleeping, this 14-year-old girl works tirelessly with a police sketch artist to create a composite sketch that's as close to her attacker as possible. And so the police go to the crime scene where Mary had told them that her attack took place when they are unable to fathom the horror that she went through. when they see her trail of blood going up a cliff. The detectives told me they traced the blood going back up. They're trying to piece together, like, what exactly happened here and, like, who could do this to a 14-year-old girl? Mary finishes her sketch, and they release it to the public. And when the public finds out what happened to Mary,

they are absolutely horrified and outraged that there is someone out there, living in their community that could do this. It was an act that was brutal and heartless. Beyond belief, it was a miracle Mary survived. But Mary's hard work on her composite paid off because it was so detailed that it only took police 10 days to receive a call from this woman saying that the man in the composite sketch was actually her neighbor.

The police immediately arrest him for the assault and attempted murder of Mary, but he denies it. He says that she was a sex worker. and that there was three of them. It was him and Mary and this other guy, his friend, and that it was actually his friend who did this to Mary. But police aren't buying it, and Mary decides she is going to testify against him herself to make sure that this man can never hurt anyone else the way that he hurt her.

Mary faced her attacker in court. She was determined to see him punished. And then she pointed to him, and she did it with the prosthetic. prosthetic devices and she did it so directly, I think everybody's heart stopped. And for the first time, Mary tells her story of what happened that night. Mary's story starts the day before she was found on September 29th, 1978. She decides to hitchhike from where she is in Modesto, California, to where her grandfather lives in Berkeley, which is about an 83-mile drive or about like an hour and a half.

And at this time, hitchhiking was a very common way for people to get around. And so Mary actually isn't alone as she waits for a ride. She's actually surrounded by a group of hitchhikers. When all of a sudden, this man in a blue van pulls up and stops in front of Mary. There were two other people behind me. And when the man pulled up, they noticed he had an empty van. there was nothing in the back but he said he only had room for one person

and he points to Mary and says I'll take you the other two people behind me said he shouldn't go in there I wanted to go home that's the only thing that was in my mind is that I wanted to go home I was tired and he seemed like a grandfather

Mary gets in the car with the man and they drive off exhausted from hitchhiking Mary soon falls asleep and when she wakes up she realizes that they're going in the wrong direction. I noticed that the signs were different and they were heading in the opposite direction. And I said, look, you're going the wrong way and you know you're going the wrong way. And the man tells her that he is, quote, just an honest man who made an honest mistake and he turns the car around. And so they drive for a bit longer when he says he needs to use the

bathroom. And so he pulls over in this deserted, secluded road, and he gets out to use the bathroom. I then thought, well, I'm in trouble. And I looked down and noticed my tennis shoe was untied. Now, if I'm going to be able to outrun this person because I'm young, he's old, I better tie my shoe. So I opened up the passenger door, got out to tie my shoe. That's when a sledgehammer hit me on the head, and I blacked out. When I came to, I was tied up in the back of his van. He repeatedly assaults Mary the entire night into the early hours of the next morning. He was attacking me, he was telling me that I'm going to be his good little girl. He was talking as though I was one of his kids.

And he fell asleep, but I couldn't get away because I was completely tied. That was the worst feeling I've ever felt. Out of respect for Mary, I won't be going into all the details about her assault, as they are extremely graphic. But just to understand the magnitude of what she had to overcome in order to survive, I will be getting into some graphic details, graphic details, so please be warned. And he pulls me out.

We're still in the middle of nowhere. The whole time I was just telling him, please, just set me free. Let me go. Just set me free. He said, you want to be set free? I'll set you free. He pulled out a hatchet from his toolbox

and took my left arm. I looked down. my arm, and there was nothing. I tried fighting him off. He then took my right arm. I started kicking and screaming, hoping someone would hear me. He severs both of Mary's arms right below her elbow. Mary falls to the ground.

She's losing blood fast. And I think he thought I was dead because I just lay still and didn't move. And he threw me off a 30-foot cliff. And as Mary is falling down, she breaks four of her ribs. And the man just leaves her there for dead. But little does he know that Mary is still alive. She lays at the bottom of the cliff. I didn't know if he was waiting or what, but I just laid there, bleeding to death.

All I'm going to do is go to sleep. But all I heard was a voice saying that I can't go to sleep. he's going to do this to somebody else. I can't let that happen. I knew that if he were to do this to somebody else, they wouldn't survive it. And I don't know if I'm going to survive this. So I had to get up as quickly as I could to get help.

So Mary gets herself up, and she actually has the thought to place her wounds in the dirt so that it creates a mud pack over them, so it actually will slow the bleeding. I crawled back up the cliff. It was dark. It was very, very dark. And I could barely see.

But I could hear the faint sound of traffic. While she's climbing, she's falling in and out of consciousness due to the lack of blood. Each time she falls unconscious, she doesn't know if she's going to wake up again. And it takes her all day, but she reaches the top. She realizes she has to walk and agonizing, three miles to get to the highway. That's been her only hope this entire time. And while she's

walking, she actually remembers her mother telling her as a little girl when she cut her finger to hold it above her heart to stop the bleeding. And so she holds her arms up in the air, hoping that it'll do the same thing. She finally reaches the highway, and with all the strength that she has left, she starts walking in the middle of the road, hoping that someone will find her. when all of a sudden she sees headlights in the distance. Mary remembers a Corvette convertible coming toward her. And I screamed to stop to help me. And I was thinking, gosh, I must look a mess.

Then it gets scared, and they did get scared, and they drove off. So all I could think of was, I'm going to die out here. So I kept walking in the middle of the road. and that's when the second person came. It's the couple on their honeymoon, and they see Mary, and they immediately pull over and help get her to a hospital, and as Mary finishes reliving her horrific attack in front of the courtroom,

she hopes that by doing so, she's going to make sure that he will never hurt anyone else ever again. But her attacker is only sentenced to 14 years, which in the 70s was, the maximum time. The judge is actually says, like, if I had the power to sentence you to more time, I would do so, but he couldn't. So he only got 14 years. And I was leaving the courthouse. I had to pass him just inches away. And I heard him say, if it's the last thing I do, I will finish the job. So not only could he be released from prison, but he threatens to kill.

her when he does. She tries to move on with her life, but she struggles with PTSD and depression because of her attack. He took away my life. I mean, this isn't living. This is existing. I have to work ten times harder than the average person with hands to do anything. Mary struggles to earn enough money because of her injuries, and she's actually supposed to upgrade her prosthetics every year, but because the cost is so high and she can't afford it, she actually learns to tinker on them and modify them herself. But Mary's life starts to get better when she finds love and she gets married and she has two kids that she loves so much. But Mary rarely ever talks about her attack and what happened to her because, quote,

by never talking about past horrors, she could concentrate on future happiness. But this would change when after less than eight years, eight years. Her attacker is released on good behavior, on good behavior. I don't understand how a man who could sever both the arms of a 14-year-old girl could ever be released on something like good behavior. And Mary is horrified when she learns this because she is scared he's going to make good on the promise that he threatened to kill her. she'll be tracked down by Singleton. Mary is always looking over her shoulder.

How many times have you moved in the last 15 years? Too many to remember. And so to protect herself and her family, she's constantly moving, constantly living in this fear all over again. She even removes all traces of herself from the internet, making it almost impossible to find her. When on February 19th, 1997 at 5.49 p.m., almost 20,

after he attacked Mary, police get a disturbing call from a concerned citizen saying that they hear screaming coming from inside the home of Mary's attacker. They actually saw him assaulting this woman and immediately ran to a gas station to call 911. And police arrive at 6.23 p.m. It takes them 30 minutes to get there. And when they do, they knock on the door and Singleton opens it and they immediately can tell that he seems a bit nervous when all. all of a sudden his phone starts ringing in his house, and he goes to answer it and the police follow him in when they find the dead body of a woman.

She had been stabbed to death. They immediately arrest Singleton and bring him in for questioning. Some of the officers start to interview neighbors to try and understand what happened, and they find out that he had actually lured Roxanne Hayes, mother of three, to his home, where he then. murdered her. When Mary learns this, she is devastated.

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the court again on behalf of Roxanne to make sure this man never gets out of prison ever again. But she doesn't know if she can. She'll be putting herself and her family in danger all over again. Mary has worked really hard to make sure her attacker could never find her. And now she's being asked to be in the same room with him again after he had threatened to kill her. And we know just because you're in a courtroom full of people doesn't mean you're safe from your attacker. In the Mary Stafford case we previously covered, her attacker smuggled a knife into the courtroom and ended up slicing her face. But Mary realizes that if she doesn't face her past and talk about it, her attacker could get out again. Even though Mary hasn't spoken about her attack in almost

20 years, she knows she has to come forward. Not for herself, but for Roxanne and all of her attackers possible future victims. And so she decides to testify. What was it like to see his face again? I saw that just pure hate, pure evil. By facing her past, Mary shows that she is a true survivor. And because of her bravery, her attacker is sentenced to death row. What comforts you? My children. I don't have to worry about my son's lives anymore. It's God and my sons that keep me going. They keep me loving life. She doesn't let what happened define her. She goes on to live a full and happy life the way that she wants.

She bowls, she plays pool, she runs with her dogs. Today, Mary is an artist, she's a victim's advocate, she's a motivational speaker, and she's the founder of the Mary Vincent Foundation. Their goal is to help children and adolescent survivors of sexual violence. I'm just glad that I'm given another chance. given another chance at life. I'm a survivor.