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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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On February 9th, 1997, a 911 call was placed at 6:07 PM. The frantic caller said, “He’s beating a woman, he’s beating a woman.”
Operator: “Where is this, sir, and....
Caller: “Listen, we just went up to the house and there was this guy inside and he was beating this woman.”
Operator: “What’s your name, sir?”
Caller: “My name’s Gene Reynolds. And it’s that guy, that guy....
Operator: “What guy sir? Take your time, just calm down.”
Caller: “Okay, Okay. Okay, now I don’t know what the deal is, but the person that lives in that house is the same guy that cut that girl’s arms off, that fifteen-year-old in California.”
The operator wasn’t sure what the caller was talking about, but she got the address and assured him that the police were on their way. It took 34 minutes for the first police car with one Hillsborough County deputy to arrive. The cops later explained that the call happened during a “shift-change time and it was rush-hour traffic.” The officer headed towards the house and spotted a Rottweiler guarding the door. The dog wasn’t on a leash and was barking like crazy. A neighbor that lived across the street saw the dog barking and the police parked in front of the house, so he ran over and said he would tie the dog up.
Officer Robbins said there was a report of a domestic disturbance, so the neighbor knocked on the front door of the home and said, “Bill, the law’s here.” He continued knocking and suddenly, the door swung open, and a naked man was standing there, covered in blood, wearing a condom. He was staggering around, and the phone started ringing. The naked man didn’t react to the noise and the neighbor gently told him, “Bill, the phone’s ringing.”
The man went back into his house to answer it and Officer Robbins placed his hand on his weapon and followed him inside. On the other side of a narrow room, the deputy saw a woman’s body lying on the couch. He went over to look and saw that she was covered in blood, and she was dead. The naked man was standing over him now, with a sad look, but he said nothing. Robbins asked him what happened, but he didn’t get a response. He quickly cuffed the naked man and told him he was under arrest for murder. This happened in 1997, to understand the full story, we have to go back 19 years.
In 1978, there was a corner near The University of California at Berkeley that the students referred to as “Hitchiker’s Corner” on University Avenue. You could go there and hitch a ride anywhere in the state and many times, it would be a student who would pick you up. On September 29th, 1978, 15-year-old Mary Vincent was hitchhiking. She grew up in Las Vegas where her father was a mechanic and her mother was a blackjack dealer, but they were going through a messy divorce. As Mary got into her teenage years, she began rebelling against her strict parents’ rules, often skipped school, and would leave town with her boyfriend. They even lived out of her boyfriend’s car for a summer in Sausalito, CA, until the authorities apprehended him on charges of raping another 15-year-old girl. She traveled to see his lawyer at the Marin County Civic Center, but she wasn’t able to resolve anything. After the arrest, Mary headed south and briefly lived with her uncle in Soquel (So-Kel), CA, then she headed towards Corona, CA, a city just outside of Los Angeles, where her grandfather lived.
When her parents were going through the divorce, Mary needed more attention, and she just wasn't getting this at home. In the fall of 1978, she hitched a few rides to Northern California where she thought she could find other artists like her. She stayed in the Bay Area, homeless and living on the streets, until she got too homesick. She did apply for emergency public housing, but she wasn’t able to get anything. She wasn’t ready to go back to her parents, but she wanted to be around family.
As she started her journey, she was picked up by a man who was alone in his car and he drove her a little way, but when he dropped her off, he gave her written directions to follow. In most of the articles I read, the stories were saying that Mary was heading to her grandfather’s place in California, but other articles said she was leaving her grandfathers to head home. It was stated that she was travelling over 400 miles. Berkeley to Corona is 419 miles, so I do believe she was travelling to her grandpa’s place.
Next, she was picked up by a woman who had two men and a dog with her. They travelled for about 15 miles, then the woman dropped her off at Hitchhiker’s Corner in downtown Berkeley. Mary was wearing a light pink top, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, carrying a green backpack and a reddish-purple knit purse. She was standing with a group of other people waiting for a ride and she was holding a sign that said she was going South. There were two other people behind her, holding the same sign, going in the same general direction. A guy in a blue 1974 Ford Econoline van pulled up and said he could give her a ride, but in return, he needed her to help him load some things into his van at his house. He didn’t say where the house was, but he said it was nearby.
The two guys that were standing behind Mary noticed that there was nothing in the van, so he had plenty of room for all three of them, yet the man insisted that he only had room for one. The other two warned Mary that she shouldn’t accept the ride if he couldn’t take more people and he only wanted to take a young female, it’s not safe, but she was desperate and she didn’t want to be alone any longer. The man offering the ride appeared to be a little older and Mary felt like he was a grandfather type, so she accepted the ride.
The driver said his name was Larry and they drove north for a while, until they reached his house. Mary helped him load some stuff into the van and they headed back out. He told her that he had a daughter, but failed to mention that he didn’t see her anymore because he had been accused of beating her. He said he had a second home in Nevada, and he talked about himself until they hit the freeway and Mary fell asleep.
When she opened her eyes, she would have expected to see the lights of the San Francisco Bay area, but they had passed Sacramento and were on their way east to Nevada. Mary shouted that they were going the wrong way and Larry said they weren’t. Mary said she knew Los Angeles was in the other direction. He stopped the van and forced Mary into the back. She picked up a stick from the floor of the van and hit Larry, so he backed off. He apologized for his behavior and promised to take her wherever she wanted to go.
As Larry drove, he reached under the seat and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and began drinking. He headed into Del Puerto Canyon, which was very isolated, and he said he was pulling over so they could both go to the bathroom. Mary was going to run. She knew something was wrong, she wasn’t safe, but she noticed that her shoe was untied. As she was bent over, tying her shoe, Larry hit her in the head with a sledgehammer and she blacked out. When she came to, she was tied up in the back of the van and **TW he repeatedly raped her. He said if she didn’t scream, she could live, then Larry fell asleep, but Mary couldn’t get herself untied.
When he woke up, he pulled her out of the van and raped her again, but this time he started squeezing her throat. He put her back in the van and drove farther into the canyon, then stopped beside a drainage pipe which ran under the two-lane road. Mary begged him to set her free and she promised she wouldn’t tell anyone. He said, you want to be set free? I’ll set you free. He pulled her out of the van, untied her, grabbed a hatchet from the tool box and cut her left arm off. Mary said she reached out and gripped his arm, really tight, but she couldn’t understand why she was falling backwards. When she looked down, she realized her arm was gone and blood was gushing. Then he chopped her right arm off, while she was kicking and screaming. She was aware of everything, the pain was excruciating, and she felt the hot blood pumping out of her body.
She was lying on the ground, and she saw him off in the distance shaking his arm several times and she didn’t know why. Then she realized that her severed arm was still grasping his and he was trying to get it off. He came back and started dragging Mary’s body. He scooped her up and tossed her over the embankment, which was a 30-foot cliff and this broke 4 of her ribs and the massive blood loss sent her body into shock. Then Larry climbed down and pulled her into the ditch and started kicking and shoving her into the drainage pipe to hide her body. He grabbed her bloody hands, tossed them in the van, and drove off.
At some point, Mary regained consciousness and tried crawling out of the drainage pipe, but she collapsed and lost consciousness again. Larry was gone, heading back west through the San Joaquin Valley, through the San Joaquin Pass, until he got to the Oakland Bay Bridge. There wasn’t much traffic because it was so early in the morning. As he drove on the bridge’s lower deck, he rolled his window down all the way and tossed Mary’s arms out the window.
When Mary woke up again, she was tired and cold. All she wanted was sleep, but she heard a voice saying she couldn’t sleep because he would do this to someone else and she couldn't let that happen. She opened her eyes and stuck her arms into the dirt to pack it into the wounds to stop some of the bleeding and managed to pull her naked body out of the pipe and she began walking out of the canyon. She remembered seeing Larry’s itinerary in his van, she knew where he was going next. She said, “I just kept locked in on him because he was on his way to his next victim, which was so gross to think about.” Mary remembered when she was younger, “I was told that if you’re bleeding and you don’t have anything to cauterize it, stick your wound in the dirt until the blood congeals.” She said she doesn’t know how she got up a 30-foot ravine, but she did. “I remember God said to just keep walking. I’ll get you to safety. And I listened.”
She could hear the sound of cars and by the time she reached the road, night had fallen. She saw a car, it was sporty and there were two guys. She shouted, help me, but the driver got scared and sped away. She had walked two miles in her condition and another vehicle was finally approaching. She stood in the middle of the road, naked, covered in blood, holding what was left of her arms toward the sky. A couple on their honeymoon had made a wrong turn, but they stopped when they saw her. Mary said, “They were scared that whoever did this was still out there. The first thing I did was tell them they needed to get me to a cop so I could tell him where to go, how to stop him. As they were wheeling me into the hospital, I grabbed a cop and told them to get a paper and a pen. I started spilling my guts. I wanted to make damn certain they knew who he was when they saw his face. I described him like you would describe someone to a blind person.”
Mary had lost over half the blood in her body and the blood that was left was at a toxic level. The surgeon amputated more of each forearm so she could be fitted with prosthetic arms in the future. As Mary was recovering in nthe hospital, the police knew they had to get as much information as possible to find who attacked her.
-His name is Larry
-He was a Merchant Seaman
-He talked a lot
-He had a home near the north bay area and there was a first aid kit that he had placed in the front window by the door. She was able to provide very detailed information about the house and Larry’s dog.
-He had another home around Reno
She described Larry, but she couldn’t remember the exact location that he had picked her up from. There wasn’t a lot to go on, but law enforcement received an A.P.B. (All-Points Bulletin) on Larry and the press was calling him “The Mad Chopper”. The information was sent over to Tom Mack, a sketch artist for the San Jose Police Department. Tom Mack spoke with Mary Vincent, and he drew up a picture of Larry based on her description, and she said the sketch looked just like him. The story went national, but they had to keep Mary’s identity a secret because she was underage, so the media identified her under the pseudonym of Maria.
A woman named Sondra Ruben picked up her morning paper and was surprised to see a sketch of her former neighbor, Lawrence Singleton on the front page. She looked again......The nose was broader, the eyes were closer to the nose, the lips were thicker, and the hairline was farther back.... but it really looked like him. She didn’t want to accuse someone of something unless, she was sure. She decided to think things over for a while.
Detective Breshears had been trained in forensic hypnosis and he was ordered by his boss to hypnotize Mary. This could help her recall details of the attack to see if they could get anything else that could help them find Larry. He explained to her that he would have her remember things in the third person, as if it happened to someone else, so she could distance herself from the event. She provided information about hitchhiking and the different people she interacted with that day. She also talked about going to Larry’s house and said they had to pass over twin highway bridges. When the detective looked at a map, that meant they would have headed into a town called Vallejo. He and his partner spent 5 days looking at every house in the town, trying to find one that matched Mary’s description. While they were trying to find the house, the Modesto police department was getting thousands of tips and there was one caller that provided something interesting. Sondra Ruben couldn’t get that sketch out of her head, so she told them about her old neighbor, Larry Singleton, who had a blue van.
Sondra said she had moved a few years ago, but when the police checked, they saw that Larry Singleton still lived in the same house, he was a merchant seaman, and he had a daughter who lived in a house in Sparks, Nevada. Detective Breshears and his partner, Reese, traveled to Larry Singleton’s home. No one was there, but sitting in the front window, was the first aid kit, just like Mary had described.
Breshears and Reese went to the local convenience store to call the information in and once they got their warrant, they went back to the house. They knocked, no one answered, and they broke the door down. They were hit with the smell of dogs, which is another thing Mary had described. When Larry brought her to his house, they had loaded several bags of dog food into the van. She had given a very accurate description of the inside of the house, especially the fireplace.
In the charcoal debris, Breshears found cloth remnants. Mary had been naked after her attack. Larry had stashed her body in a drainage pipe, removed her arms to get rid of fingerprints, and burned her clothing. Larry was later arrested at the home of his estranged wife, Celia Johnson, in Sparks, Nevada. A neighbor said, “He was a peach of a guy.” He said that Larry’s hobby was making macrame plant hangers and he was described as quiet. Most of the people that knew him said they just couldn’t believe it.
Larry Singleton had a police record of minor violations involving alcohol and his most recent was a drunk driving arrest on April 30th, but he didn’t have a record of violent sex crimes. Larry was sent back to Modesto for questioning, and he politely referred to the cops as “sir”. The interview began and he was asked to describe what he did on September 29th. He said he left San Franciso and went to Berkeley, he picked up a young lady who was hitchhiking and offered her a ride, if she agreed to help him load some stuff into his van. He said they picked up dirty clothes and dog food. So, he admitted to picking up Mary, but here’s where he started changing things. Mary wanted to get to her grandfather’s house, but Larry said the lady he picked up was on her way to her sister’s house in Reno. He said he stopped for gas in Auburn, and he went to the bathroom. When he got back, Mary had a stick, beat him in the head, and told him he was driving her to LA instead.
He said he told her that he could just take her over to a ramp where she could find a ride with someone else, but she refused this and said he better take her to LA or she would stick him in the eyes and the stomach, so he agreed to take her anywhere she wanted to go.
I’ll warn you, his version of events is wildly ridiculous, but I still want to go through it. He said that she told him that if he was bullshitting her, she would say he assaulted her. The two of them ate at an A&W, then he drove to a store to grab some cigarettes. When they got back on the freeway, there were two guys hitchhiking and Mary said they should pick them up, so he did. One guy was almost Larry’s size with blond hair and a weather-beaten beard, maybe about 35 years old, wearing a denim jacket, denim pants, and a grayish sweater. The other guy was Mexican, 5’6”, heavy set, and it was hard to tell his age. He could have been 30 to 40, or maybe 25. He was wearing an old military wool coat or a leather one, it looked like an Eisenhower jacket that was faded brown, with a sweater and heavy gray pants.
He said Mary started complaining about how terrible he was and talked to the other hitchhikers about him. Larry Singleton said that one of the hitchhikers was named Larry and the other one was Pedro. Larry Singleton was drinking while he was driving. He pours himself another drink and Mary suggests that hitchhiker Larry should take over and drive for a while. Larry Singleton didn’t want the other Larry to drive, but he went along with it because Mary had a knife. Where did she supposedly get this knife? Who knows, but he claims she has it.
Next, he says that Mary announced that she wanted to get stoned, so Larry handed the hitchhikers some money and told them to make it happen and the hitchhikers all got high together. At the next stop, hitchhiker Larry and Pedro went to a pickup truck, got two packages and Larry Singleton assumed they were doing cocaine because they were both sniffing when they got back in. Soon, all three hitchhikers were drinking and sniffing. They’re all partying and feeling good, and Larry Singleton asked Mary how much she would charge to make love to everybody. He was only kidding, but she laughed and laughed. He gave her $80, and she said you know what, I really like to suck cocks.
She gave hitchhiker Larry a blow job, then Larry Singleton got one too, but she refused to give one to Pedro. Detective Breshears knew that Larry Singleton was lying. There was no evidence of the two male hitchhikers he described, and Mary was adamant that she was in the van with one other person, and that was Larry Singleton, they didn’t pick up anyone else.
Larry Singleton said they had all been drinking heavily and Pedro started driving, while Mary and hitchhiker Larry were having sex and Larry Singleton was sleeping. When he woke up, they were almost to the area there the highway splits in San Francisco. He said Pedro was driving erratically, so he told him he could take over and that’s when he realized Mary wasn’t in the van anymore, so he asked where she was and he was told that she’s already got her hands in the till, she’s no good, so they sent her to LA. I believe that phrase means he’s accusing her of stealing money.
Detective Breshears stopped Larry and said, what about her clothes? What did you think when you found out her clothes were still in the van? Larry was surprised and said her clothes weren’t in the van. He dropped off the male hitchhikers in San Francico and he headed to his house to get some sleep. The detectives started poking holes in the story and pointing out inconsistencies to him.
-He said he was wearing blue coveralls, and they were in the trunk of his T-Bird, but they weren’t there
-He said he owned a small hatchet located in his blue toolbox, but it wasn’t there
-He switched back a fourth a few times on who was actually driving the van during the story.
-He was asked if there would be any blood found on the coveralls and he said no, then he later said there could be because they were all horsing around and Mary got a bloody nose. Larry said that the lady that rents the house from him washed his clothing and someone else helped him clean his van.
-He said he burned some old rags and papers in his fireplace. The detectives asked where the rags came from, and he said work and they were all different colors. Ok, so they should all be the same material then? Larry said no, they were supplied by a linen shop, so they just got a bundle of rags made of different materials.
They pressed harder. Were there any female clothes in there? Larry said no. What about your daughters' clothes? Larry said, yea, she left a white blouse. Breshears said, what about the bras and underwear? How did that end up in your dirty clothes? Larry said his ex-wife passed away and her clothes were still in the house. Breshears said no, the bras were for a small person, this wouldn’t fit your deceased wife. Larry said, then they’re my daughters.
Larry’s daughter had already been interviewed and she hadn’t been in that house since the beginning of the summer. The interview was starting to get to him. He was tripping up on some of his answers and the detectives noticed the sweat, so they asked him again about that hatchet. He described it and said there’s a little piece of rope attached to it. Breshears said he noticed that the rope had been cut and he asked why that is. Larry said he was moving furniture and cut it with a knife. Interesting. Breshears said, “You’re a seaman. You don’t cut the knots. You tie them. You wouldn’t cut them with a knife, would you?” That’s when he told Larry that he spoke with Mary several times and she was awake when he cut her arms off.
He of course, denied any involvement and said he would swear on a Bible that he didn’t cut her arms off, he said he didn’t have the guts to do something like that. He claimed that Mary was racist, and she was a sex worker.
-Neither of these things are relevant, but ok, Larry
SAL BENEDETTO
Sal Benedetto got up early one morning, did some chores and headed out fishing around noon. It was a weekday, so no one was around, and he headed to his favorite shoreline, under the bridge. He was all set up for a relaxing day and he caught something with his eyes. He couldn’t quite tell what it was, but he thought the sun was messing with his vision. He got closer and realized he was looking at a right hand. Mary Vincent’s hand was lying on the rocks. It had been 10 days since the attack, so there was plenty of decomposition, but there was a reddish brown nail polish on the tip of the right thumb nail. Mary had been wearing red nail polish on the day of the attack. Doctors in Modesto sent fragments of bone taken during her surgery and it was compared to the bones in the right hand, and it was a match.
What are the odds? Her hand had been tossed into the San Francisco Bay and somehow, it was swept up on the rocks, intact. The author explained that the natural gas builds up in decomposing human tissue. The gas had kept the hand afloat, allowing it to sail across the water like a piece of driftwood. If the bloating hadn’t occurred, it would have sunk to the bottom of the bay and been eaten.
While Mary was recovering in the hospital, people were trying to figure out how to help her and things got tricky. California had a state program that helped victims of violent crimes, but Mary wasn’t actually a resident of California. She had been living with her boyfriend, Diego, in California, but she was a minor, so her place of residence was determined by where her parents lived and that was Nevada. This meant that California couldn’t help, her parents would need to file for assistance. Private contributions were sent to the family to help and while any amount is certainly generous, they only received a total of $300 and her medical costs were going to be over $10k and she still needed help getting new arms paid for.
On October 27th, 1978, Mary had to testify before the Stanislaus County grand jury about the details of the crime. It was difficult for her to get through her story, and it was difficult for the jurors to hear it. Mary said, “At that moment, there was no fear, just anger. I wanted to kill him. I don’t ever want to feel that angry again. It was horrible.” District Attorney Donald Stahl said, “I think she displayed a lot of courage. I think she showed a lot of courage throughout this whole damn thing.” He also said there was no credence to the charge that Larry Singleton had levelled against Mary saying that she accepted money from him for sex and there wasn’t any evidence that he picked up two other hitchhikers, Larry and Pedro.
Todd Meadows, one of the honeymooners that picked Mary up after the attack and got her help, had also testified and Detective Reese read the statement Larry Singleton had made at the time of his arrest. Larry did not appear since it wasn’t required. The Stanislaus County grand jury reached its conclusion and Larry Singleton was brought in for the formal reading of the indictment in front of Superior Court Judge Frances W Halley. The clerk read, “Lawrence Singleton, you are charged with one count of forcible rape, two counts of forcible copulation, one count of sodomy, one count of kidnapping, one count of mayhem, and one count of attempted murder.” He had a total of 7 charges and bail was set at $200k. It was rumored that Larry had family in Florida that was paying for his legal representation.
Alcohol abuse experts were consulted by the police and prosecutors. Larry Singleton talked about consuming tons of alcohol on the day Mary was attacked, so they wondered, could a person that was in an alcoholic blackout commit this kind of crime and have no memory of it? If the answer was yes, that could mean that Larry could use a diminished capacity defense at trial. If the answer was no, he would have to convince the jury that the other hitchhikers, Larry and Pedro, actually existed and committed the crime.
The answer came back as NO. The alcohol abuse experts said that a person couldn’t hack off Mary’s arms during an alcoholic blackout and have no memory of it. They explained that alcohol would act as a triggering mechanism, releasing the pent-up rage and sadistic impulses that dwelled below the surface of a person’s consciousness. Released from his ego, he would be free to act out. Someone who drinks heavily can suffer blackouts, but it doesn’t erase their moral code. If you think it’s wrong to cut someone’s arms off when you’re sober, you would also think it’s wrong when you’re drunk. On the flipside, if he’s a violent person when he’s sober, he can be violent when drunk. Regardless, the individual is responsible for their actions and that’s what they needed to know.
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