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On September 29th, 1978, Mary Vincent was hitchhiking and accepted a ride from Larry Singleton. She survived a violent attack where he cut her arms off and Larry served eight years of his fourteen-year sentence. He later murdered Roxanne Hayes on February 19th, 1997 and was sentenced to death, but he died in prison in 2001.
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RECAP: Larry Singleton brutally attacked 15-year-old Mary Vincent and chopped her arms off in September 1978. In March of 1979, the trial began, and he was found guilty on seven counts, but the state had recently passed new sentencing laws, so the most he could be sentenced to was 14 years in prison. The judge gave him the maximum sentence and as Mary left the courtroom, Larry threatened her by saying, if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll finish the job. Larry only served 8 years before he was paroled, and no community would accept him, so he had to live in a trailer on prison grounds at San Quentin. Once he was officially released, he bounced around between family members until they brought him to Gibsonton to live with carnival people. His brother Herb bought him a house so he could start over, but he started getting in trouble for stealing small items from stores. We will circle back to talk more about Mary’s story, but first, we have another woman to talk about.
Roxanne “Roxie” Hayes was one of the most popular sex workers in her area. She had been there a long time, and everyone knew her. When she was pregnant with her first son in 1989, she was locked up on a prostitution charge when her water broke, so she went into labor, shackled to her hospital bed. She had her second son in 1993 when she was under house arrest. The father was a guy named Tyson and he was a trucker, but he got injured in a car accident, which jacked up his left knee and he had to walk with a cane afterwards. This put more pressure on Roxie to bring money in and take care of the family. Tyson would drive his wife to the bus stop and drop her off so she could do her sex work and he would stay home with the kids.
Roxie was trying to support her family, but she was also supporting her cocaine addiction. One night, a white van pulled up while she was working, and she stuck her head in to talk to the driver. She knew him. This was a guy named Bill aka Larry and they had been together twice before. He told her to come over to his house, they agreed on a price and Roxie got in the van. A few hours later, Gene Reynolds, a painter who had recently painted Larry’s home came by to do some touch-up work. He knocked on the door, but no one answered. He peeked in the living room window to see if anyone was home and he saw Larry. it looked like he was repeatedly punching a woman in the chest, so he ran to call 911 and that’s the call that we discussed at the very beginning of the story.
Larry had just put a condom on when there was a disagreement. The street price of cocaine was increasing, so Roxie allegedly asked for more money than last time. Larry had been drinking, he got angry, and they started arguing. He walked into the kitchen and came back with a knife. Roxie screamed and he began stabbing her. The painter thought the woman was being punched, but she was actually being stabbed repeatedly. Larry stabbed her a dozen times with a boning knife. This is a type of kitchen knife with a sharp point and narrow blade. They are typically used for stripping meat off the bone.
Once Larry was done attacking her, she was still alive and managed to crawl to the couch. I don’t personally believe this, but Larry claims that she whispered to him, asking him to hold her. He dropped the knife and grabbed her, rocking her like a child. The police searched his home and found a bloody knife and confirmed through forensic testing that it was the murder weapon. He was hauled downtown and shouted at the reporters, “I did it, I did it.” The next day, during his arraignment, he pleaded not guilty to all charges, and he was held without bail.
When Mary Vincent heard about Roxanne Hayes’ murder she said, “I’m distraught. For the last three days, I’ve lost all sense of time. I haven’t been able to eat, I haven’t been able to sleep.” She said the memories of her attack came flooding back, stronger than ever. She struggles, but she said her children keep her alive because she can’t stop being a mother. Even though she had won a judgement of over two million dollars against Larry years prior, she didn’t really get anything, because he didn’t have anything. She decided to try to sell her story, not for herself, but for her children. She wanted to set up a trust fund for her two sons. She said she had just started to feel glimpses of happiness, now everything was in her mind again and Larry was “nothing but pure evil.”
In December 1997, the cameras were allowed into the courtroom and the jury pool had been narrowed to 48 prospective jurors, but one of the jurors saw herself on TV because the courtroom camera had inadvertently captured her in the jury box. This violated the anonymity of the jurors, so Judge Mitcham was forced to declare a mistrial and retrial was set for February. Trial began on February 16th, 1998, for the single count of murder in the first degree.
Pretrial motions prevented the prosecution from discussing the attack of Mary Vincent from years prior. However, during the sentencing phase, if Larry was convicted on murder one, there would be a separate sentencing phase where they could discuss the mutilation history. Prosecutor Michelle Peden was concerned that jurors might feel sympathetic towards Larry because he looked like a grandpa, someone could perceive him as looking harmless. She pointed out that he confessed to the crime, to a paramedic at the scene. She said the murder was very premeditated.
The defense said that’s not true. “It was a spontaneous eruption of emotion. There was no premeditation. Larry Singleton never thought about it, never considered killing Roxanne Hayes.” The defense lawyer claimed that after he was released from the psychiatric facility, he was drunk and depressed, plus he was taking a new medication. He was desperate for companionship, so he picked Roxie up. They claimed that Larry was a gentleman, and he wouldn’t have sex before dinner, so he cooked dinner for the two of them, then they had consensual sex, but Roxanne wanted more money than they agreed upon.
She became agitated and demanded more money. She grabbed Larry’s wallet to take the money herself and they began struggling. Roxanne grabbed the knife and kneed Larry in the groin. Larry grabbed the knife and felt it accidentally go into Roxie’s body, it was an accident. So, it was all her fault, it wasn’t premeditated, it was self-defense. So, does that mean the knife accidentally plunged into her body a dozen times?
The painter, Gene Reynolds testified, and he explained that when he looked in the window, he saw Larry and Roxie, naked. She was gurgling help, and her voice was weak or muffled. He said it was like everything was in slow motion and he ran from the house, grabbed a shovel and was about to go in the house, but his uncle stopped him. They looked in the window again and Larry was standing over Roxie with his hands on her neck. Gene Reynolds kicked the door and Larry looked in that direction, then yelled at Roxie, “Shut up, bitch!” He saw Larry’s arm rise up and down, pounding on her head, neck and chest. He said, “It sounded like bones crushing, like chicken bones breaking.” He and his uncle drove to a nearby gas station and called for help. They drove around for 10-15 minutes, then went back to the house and realized the cops hadn’t arrived yet. They left and went back to the house for the third time and that’s when they saw a sheriff’s deputy there. On the stand, he admitted that he never saw a knife and he through Larry was beating the woman with his fist.
Deputy Paul Robbins was the first one on the scene at 6:23 PM. He said Larry was naked when he answered the door. He appeared nervous, but said he and his girlfriend got in a fight, everything was fine now, and he insisted that they didn’t need help and he could leave. Robbins asked Larry why he was naked and covered in blood and he said he cut himself chopping turnips. When the phone rang inside the home, Larry went to answer it, Robbins followed him inside and he saw Roxanne lying on the floor, covered in blood.
Lee Miller testified that he conducted more than 5,000 autopsies and he said there were seven stab wounds to Roxanne’s chest and abdomen and a two-inch wound pierced her heart and caused her to bleed to death, but she probably remained conscious for about 5 to 20 minutes before dying. Two other wounds perforated her liver, and one was 6 to 7 inches deep and she had deep wounds on her hands. This would be from her grabbing the knife blade, trying to defend herself. Lee Miller said that the wounds are consistent with her attacker standing over her and stabbing as she struggled.
Larry Singleton had said he was the one defending himself from Roxanne, but the police had taken photos of him at the scene, and he didn’t have a mark on him. How could she have been the one going after him with a knife, yet he didn’t have any wounds? Not even a bruise? Roxanne did have cocaine in her system when she died, but Dr. Miller said there was no telling if she did cocaine an hour before her death, or several days. She did have food in her stomach, which matched the dinner Larry had made.
During the trial, they played a tape. After Larry’s arrest, reporters asked him if he killed Roxanne Hayes and he said, “Yep, I done it.” A reporter asked why, and he said he didn’t know. The defense decided to put Larry on the stand and asked him if he deliberately killed Roxie and he said, “Ma’am, it was an accident, I swear on the Bible it was.” He said he met her at a KFC, and they joked around, so he took her home and paid $20 for oral sex and he gave her his number. She called three weeks later, and they met up again. He said that on the day of her murder, he was really depressed and mixed fortified wine with a sleeping pill, an antidepressant, and an antihistamine. He brought Roxie to his house and things got out of hand.
He claimed that she was in a terrible mood and kept complaining about the increase in cocaine prices, so she needed more money. He got angry when she grabbed his wallet and stuffed the money in her mouth. They began fighting and she grabbed a kitchen knife off the table. He said he was afraid for his life, and she threatened to cut his head off. He managed to grab the knife, but there was still another one sitting on the table. The gashes on her hands weren’t defensive wounds he said, it was because she gripped the knife so tightly and the blade cut down to the bone when he pulled it out of her grip.
He said “The knife went over my head and probably went right into her face. Probably each time that I pushed her, the knife would go in. I was just trying to get it down.” He thought the struggle lasted about 30 seconds and he put his finger in her mouth to get the money, but she bit him, and he screamed. He said that he didn’t mean to kill her, and he was going to call 911, but he got confused and grabbed the TV remote instead. He gripped her around the shoulders and walked her to the door, but she collapsed when they got to the dining room, and he fell down beside her crying. He managed to get her to the couch, she put her arms around him and asked him to hold her, so he did.
-He claimed he wanted to call for help, but when the officer arrived, he said they were fine, they didn’t need help
-We know his phone worked just fine because it rang when the officer arrived
During cross examination, they asked Larry why the cut to Roxie’s stomach was so deep, it went straight through to her spine. Larry said that one happened after she kneed him in the groin, and he fell directly into her.
During the closing arguments, his defense attorney said that Larry was responsible for what happened, but he wasn’t in his right mind or in control of his actions due to the deadly combination of antidepressants, alcohol, and an antihistamine that he took. So, they’re saying he’s responsible, but he’s not responsible. They said this was a spontaneous act, not premeditated, so the verdict should be not guilty on murder one. The jury deliberated for 2 hours and 40 minutes. The court clerk read the following, “On the sole count, murder in the first degree, we find the defendant guilty.”
Roxie’s fiancé, Tyson, was there with their children. They were dressed in black since they were mourning, but they all hugged when the verdict was announced. The oldest child, Akiena, was 12 and she had saved a letter to the editor from of the local papers where they had criticized Roxie and victim blamed her and called her children “illegitimate.” Akiena was an ambitious kid with dreams of winning a scholarship to a private school and said she would save the letter until she graduated and became valedictorian. Larry Singleton had tried to paint Roxie as a thief, an attacker, and he tried to cut her down by calling her a prostitute.
Roxanne Hayes was a mother and a human. She took her children on trips to the park, they swam at the Y, and she dressed them up on Halloween. Did she have a cocaine addiction? Yes. She was able to stop when she got pregnant and her children were not born addicted to drugs. After her murder, Ricker and the kids began going to church and he decided he wanted to become a preacher. He and his children forgave Larry for what he had done.
It was time for the sentencing phase and Mary Vincent had been invited to testify. This time, she wasn’t the 15-year-old girl that he had attacked, she was now a 35-year-old woman. When she was sworn in, she had to use her hook to lift her arm because she couldn’t afford the repairs on her prosthetic arm, so she had fixed it with yarn. She got a chance to tell her story and point to Larry Singleton to identify the man who had attacked her. She spoke about the experience and said, “If I didn’t come forward, he could’ve been let go and I would be his next victim. I wanted him stopped, and I was angrier at the legal system at that point.”
At the murder trial, Mary Vincent explained that Larry had also taken her life as well. She said, “He really did. He destroyed everything about me. My way of thinking. My way of life. Holding on to innocence....and I’m still doing everything I can to hold on.” She explained that he destroyed her dreams, “I’d have been lead dancer at the Lido de Paris in Las Vegas. Then Hawaii and Australia. I’m serious. I was really good on my feet and my dance instructor had it all worked out. But when this happened, they had to take some parts out of my leg, just to save my right arm. After that, I wasn’t able to dance anymore.”
A psychologist testified that Larry suffered from dementia, he was a lifelong alcohol abuser, and he had extreme anger towards women. This time, it took the jury one hour of deliberation. By a vote of 10 to 2, the jury recommended death.
Some of the jurors agreed to a press conference afterwards where they described being in total shock. They believed the two knives on the table were placed there on purpose and they felt like his wallet never left his pocket, they didn’t believe that Roxanne tried to rob him, he hated women and knew what he was doing. They felt that Mary Vincent’s testimony was very moving and they could tell that he destroyed her. One juror mentioned that there was a small detail in one the photos that really bothered him. There was a photo of Roxanne Hayes, lying dead on the floor and there was a small piece of rope beside her. What was it for? The prosecutor believed it was to dispose of her body.
On March 30th, 1998, Larry Singleton was escorted into the courtroom. Roxanne’s fiance, Tyson, said he and his children did not want to see him executed. Judge Mitcham asked Larry if he had anything to say and he said, “I’m sorry about the death in this case, I’ll have to carry it on my conscience the rest of my life.”
Mary Vincent did an interview in New York on the Today show where she wasn’t paid for her appearance and after that, she said she wouldn’t do anymore free interviews. No one wanted to pay for her story, but there was so much publicity around Larry Singleton’s conviction. Reporters asked Lawrence Preston, an attorney who worked with Mary, where they could send contributions. He gave them an address, and finally, people began sending Mary Vincent some money. A man living on social security sent part of his benefit to her and a trust fund was set up. Attorney Lawrence Preston sent Mary money and he also contacted companies that specialized in prosthetic limbs and NovaCare in Oklahoma City, offered to help. They sent a team to repair her old arms and they provided new ones at a deep discount.
On April 14th, 1998, Judge Mitcham said, “This was an unprovoked, senseless killing of a human being, the mother of lovely children, without provocation, or justification. This killing further exemplifies that we are living in times worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.” This is a Biblical reference of two cities that were so sinful, they were destroyed by God. He said, “Roxanne Hayes fought for her life. She literally clawed for her life. She was acutely aware of her impending death. The fact that the victim was a prostitute in no way diminished her right to life or justifies the taking of her life. Mr. Singleton, you deserve no more chances. I sentence you to death for the murder of Roxanne Hayes. And may God have mercy on your soul.”
Larry was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but on December 28th, 2001, at the age of 74, he died from cancer while he was on death row. Many people believe that he was actually responsible for a dozen murders.
I want to give more information on Roxanne Hayes and Mary Vincent. I’ll start with Roxanne’s story first. She had been arrested dozens of times over the span of 11 years and most of the charges, 99 of them, were for prostitution. Unfortunately, that’s what the public latched onto, but that doesn’t define a person. Her daughter, Akiena said, “I don’t think my mom should have died and I just don’t understand why. She was a good mom to me and my two brothers and a good wife to my father. I wrote this to notify the public that my mom was not as bad as the newscast described her. She did was she had to do for us kids. No one would dance with her.”
Just hold onto that last sentence, I’ll provide more context shortly. Roxanne was the youngest of five children and things were very bad for her at a young age. She was sexually abused by her grandfather, and this started when she was 2 years old. Everyone knew about it, but no one did anything.
-Fucking disgusting
-The whole family should be ashamed of themselves
-You should always be protecting children, not the grown ass adult that knows damn well what they’re doing is wrong
One of the nights, her grandfather was in her room and he died, this was when she was about 6 or 7. So, he abused her for that many years, then he died in her room. If that’s not bad enough, her father, was an abusive drunk who physically abused her until she was 14. That year, her mother, who was a bartender, died and Roxanne left the home. She was taken in by family and friends and managed to graduate from high school.
She had an extremely difficult time in school and was overweight. I would typically shy away from bringing up someone’s weight, but I think it’s actually important to the story here. Roxanne was 6 feet tall and 380 pounds in her sophomore year. Tyson said, “She always used to complain that she had no friends, that she’d go to parties and no one would dance with her.”
Around this time, Roxanne began skipping school and smoking pot. Once she graduated, she became involved with several men, one of whom fathered her first child, Akiena. All of the men used her, and she became addicted to cocaine and got her first possession charge in 1986. When she got addicted to cocaine, she dropped a ton of weight. She went from 380 to 170 pounds. She felt better about her looks, but now she needed to support her cocaine habit. She pleaded guilty to the possession charge and was sentenced to four years of probation. She violated her probation in April 1987, and this was her first arrest for prostitution. Over the next decade, she was arrested repeatedly for prostitution.
In 1988, when she got out of prison, her daughter was almost 3 years old and she found out that her boyfriend had disappeared with the $7 to $8k she received from her mother’s life insurance. She tried working a few jobs, but it wasn’t working well. A man knew about her background and hired her as a bookkeeper, but he basically wanted a bookkeeper with benefits. He was using her. She tried applying for other jobs, such as fast food, but it would ask about her experience, and she would have to leave it blank. If she put down her charges, they wouldn’t hire her.
She actually met Tyson, on the job. He said he was a trick, but then he met the real Roxanne and they hit it off. He had just been divorced and he was released from prison in 1987 after serving half of a 4 years sentence for robbery, burglary, and grand theft. They had their son, Clifton in 1989 and Malachi in 1993 and we talked about it previously, but there were not traces of drugs in their systems when they were born. If Roxanne made a promise to do something with her kids, she made it happen. One of her daughter’s teachers said she was very supportive and attended all of Akiena’s school performances.
People did talk to Roxanne about her line of work and asked her to do something else, but she would say, what choice do I have? Tyson had been working as a trucker until his injury and she became the sole provider. She used to talk about how much she hated being a sex worker, but the money was fast and she needed that. When she was picked up on charges, Tyson’s mother would post bail, but she always wanted the money back right away. So, Roxanne would head out and get that money. On the last morning of her life, she had a court hearing for violating probation. Tyson said the family has a hard time sleeping without her there. He said, “There’s not that fifth person there to say our prayers with. There’s not that fifth person to brush their teeth with.”
Tyson put the children into new activities after Roxanne’s murder and Akiena’s father also died. Tyson hoped that Girl Scouts, the drill team, or even church would help to distract them a little bit. They also went to grief counseling to help the kids process their emotions. The family adopted an abused shepherd and Labrador mix from the Humane Society and named it Woofie.
Now, we’re going to discuss a bit about Mary Vincent. She said she actually regretted that Larry Singleton passed away in 2001 because she wanted a chance to face him. To see his eyes. She said, “Eyes are important. When he was on top of me, I was looking at the axe, trying to stay alive. I asked later if I could look him in the eye, but it didn’t happen.”
Mary became an artist who worked with chalk pastels to create “powerfully upbeat women” like “female action figures.” She also draws family and individual portraits and continues to customize her prosthetics and even created one specifically for bowling.
One of her lifelong dreams was to become a mother and she had two sons, Luk and Alan. She said, “I didn’t have a family, so I wanted to make one. I remember being 4 years old and somebody asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, ‘I want to be a mother to the world.’ When I became a mother, I really had something big to live for.” Mary didn’t have the money to buy prosthetic arms, so she made customized arms using spare parts from old setero systems and refrigerators. She said, “I like to tinker. So did my grandfather. He was an artist, too. I guess I got it from him. I came from a family of tinkerers”
She found items around the house to help with her prosthetics. The mechanism from an old slot machine that makes the lever go up and down gave her flexibility. She used a disk from the bottom of the dishwasher to allow her hands to rotate. Her arms have parts from a bike and stereo. She can put them in lock mode and that’s from clicking a ballpoint pen. She said her prosthetics wouldn’t be what you would expect in the year 2023, but she wouldn’t change it. She said, “They’ll never make a prosthetic device that can do more than mine can. I love what they’ve done with technology. They have prosthetic arms that look like real arms and hands with fingers that move, but you can’t really lift any weight and you’d look like a Barbie doll.”
She draws, cooks, gardens, drives, carries her groceries, and she does her hair and makeup. She’s a skilled pool player and she threw the first pitch at a San Francisco Giants game in 1999. She said she doesn’t deal with cell phones or computers though, “I have so much metal in me and on me. I’ve shut down whole computer systems.” Other than that, “Anything you can do, I can do. I can probably do a lot of things with my hands you can’t do with yours.”
People like to ask her how she showers or goes to the bathroom, and she says, “I use soap and water in the show, and I use toilet paper in the bathroom. Why, how do you do it?”
She has a bad hip, stiff shoulders and knees, so she might move a little slower. If someone asks if she needs a hand, she likes to hold up her prosthetics and say she could use two.
Mary became a powerful advocate for crime victims’ rights in the 1980s and 90s, appearing on national talk shows and doing a large number of public speaking events across the country. She helped to get the law changed and to get rid of dangerous loopholes that allowed early prison release.
In 1998, she went to Washington DC and testified in favor fo the “No Second Chances for Murderers, Rapists, or Child Molesters Act”, which encourages states to give lengthy sentences to offenders of those crimes. She also helped pass California’s “Singleton Bill” which stops early releases of criminals who use torture in their crimes. She said, “I knew I could help make a change. I felt the energy around the need for harsher punishments for violent offenders, but it also took a lot of energy.”
Mary has had a terribly tough time trusting anyone, but men in particular. She met her future husband and felt like she could finally let her guard down. She said, “The first time I met him I told him he reminded me of my third husband. he asked, ‘How many times have you been married?’ I said, “Twice.”
She explained, “I held onto such hate, anguish, and sorrow for so long. The most important thing people should do is let go of their hate. You don’t have to forgive or forget, but let go of the hate long enough to realize how good it feels when it’s all gone.”
Mary couldn’t draw before the attack, it just didn’t turn out right. After she lost her hands, she could suddenly draw. One night, after a nightmare, she couldn’t sleep. She was staring at herself in the mirror and without realizing it, she was gripping a pencil with her metal prongs on her new prosthetic arms and she was drawing herself. “It looked just like me. And then I drew a horse that actually looked like a horse. It seemed to draw me out of that pit of hell, and I felt good for that moment.”
She began creating art in 1978, but it all stopped 14 years ago when she got remarried. She said, “I kid you not, I haven’t drawn a thing or read a book since I met him. With him, I’m living life instead of drawing it or reading about it.” “I wouldn’t trade my happiness for anything in the world right now. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
She likes to cook and garden now, and she said she actually can’t draw anymore. “It just doesn’t look like before. It looks like a cow took a turd on my paper. I’ve burned everything I’ve drawn recently.”
“I’m just happy with life. I try to help others see through my eyes. You shouldn’t give up hope. It’s still a good life. There’s so much out there. It’s beautiful. It’s not a matter of looking for it or making it happen, you should just accept happiness when it does come to you.”
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