The Harrowing Story Of Mary Vincent, The Teen Who Survived A Violent Attack While Hitchhiking

In September 1978, 15-year-old Mary Vincent accepted a ride from a man named Lawrence Singleton — who then kidnapped, raped, and maimed her.

Mary Vincent was a 15-year-old runaway heading to Los Angeles when she met Lawrence Singleton in September 1978, hitchhiking along the interstate after leaving her family’s home in Vegas.

He seemed friendly enough at first, but the façade didn’t last long. Not long after picking up the young Mary Vincent, Singleton would assault her, rape her multiple times, and then cut her arms off before dumping her off a 30-foot cliff into the Del Puerto Canyon.

That should have been the end for Vincent, but the teenager worried so deeply the same thing might happen to another girl that she, against all odds, pulled herself out of the ditch and found her way to the road where she was discovered and taken to the hospital.

She had survived a harrowing ordeal, but her story was just beginning.

Lawrence Singleton’s Attack On Mary Vincent

Mary Vincent was hitchhiking along the interstate headed towards Los Angeles, California. 15 years old, leaving her family’s home in Las Vegas after her parents divorced, she was young and looking for a new start.

It was on this stretch of road that Lawrence Singleton found her. He was a 50-year-old merchant mariner at the time, and apparently had a friendly face. According to Film Daily, Vincent in fact felt so comfortable when she met Singleton that she fell asleep in his van after he picked her up.

When she awoke, however, she noticed they were traveling the wrong way on the road. As uneasy feelings grew within her, Singleton decided to pull over at a rest stop to take a bathroom break. While he was gone, Vincent prepared to run away but noticed her shoe was untied.

She stopped and bent over to tie it — then Singleton hit her in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. The next time she came to, she was in the back of Singleton’s van, each of her arms bound to opposite walls. He raped her multiple times that night.

Stanislaus County Sheriff’s OfficeLawrence Singleton’s mugshot.

In the morning, she begged to be let go. Singleton looked at the young girl and told her, “If you want to be set free, I’ll set you free.” Then he took an axe and hacked each of her arms off.

As she slipped in and out of consciousness, she recalled being taken to a concrete culvert near Sacramento and thrown over the edge, nude and still bleeding from her severed arms.

“He destroyed everything about me,” she later said. “My way of thinking. My way of life. Holding onto innocence… and I’m still doing everything I can to hold on.”

Mary Vincent Is Found Walking Along The Road — And Identifies Lawrence Singleton

Naked and at the edge of consciousness, Vincent managed to crawl out of the culvert and make her way back to the edge of the road. She held what remained of her arms straight up so that the blood and muscles would stay inside.

Per the Los Angeles Times, the first car that saw her turned around and sped away, frightened by the sight of her. Fortunately, the second car stopped and drove her to a nearby hospital.

After intense surgery to save her life, she was fitted with prosthetic arms — a change which would take years of physical therapy for her to adjust, in addition to years of psychotherapy to help her cope with the trauma.

“I’d have been lead dancer at the Lido de Paris in Las Vegas,” she said. “Then Hawaii and Australia. I’m serious. I was really good on my feet… but when this happened, they had to take some parts out of my leg just to save my right arm.”

10 days after she entered the hospital, Mary Vincent was able to identify Lawrence Singleton and charge him with his crimes.

California, however, had extremely lenient criminal laws at the time. Singleton was found guilty of rape, attempted murder, and sex offenses and sentenced to the maximum number of years allowed at the time — a measly 14.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesMary Vincent and Lawrence Singleton in a San Diego courtroom.

What’s more, Singleton was released from prison early on good behavior, after serving just over half of his sentence, SF Gate reported, despite his psychiatrist saying, “Because he is so out of touch with his hostility and anger, he remains an elevated threat to others’ safety inside and outside prison.”

Vincent, then, received no comfort from Singleton’s brief stint in prison. In fact, upon his release, she was more afraid than ever before — and with good reason.

While Singleton and Vincent were in court, she had to walk past him as she left. Before she could leave, however, he stopped her and whispered something in her ear. She ran out of court, the only person who ever knew what he said.

Years later, she revealed what he told her: “I’ll finish the job if it takes me the rest of my life.”

The Murder Of Roxanne Hayes

Vincent lived her life in fear, worried that Singleton would follow through on his promise one day.

She struggled, got married and then divorced, opened a small bike repair store with her second husband, had two children, and eventually founded the Mary Vincent Foundation to help victims of traumatic crime.

But Singleton was still out there. And as long as he was free, Vincent could never feel secure.

By the late 1990s, Singleton had moved to Florida after nearly every town in California refused to house him upon his release from prison. Everywhere he tried to parole, angry citizens gathered to make it abundantly clear that he was not welcome.

So instead, he was living in a trailer in Florida, an overweight alcoholic rapidly losing his hair. He’d had a brief stint in a psychiatric ward for attempting suicide, and had been home for just over a week when he hired a young sex worker named Roxanne Hayes.

Roxanne Hayes, the 31-year-old mother of three who Lawrence Singleton murdered inside his trailer home.

Hayes was a 31-year-old mother of three, doing what she had to do to provide for her children, but unfortunately her life came to an untimely end when she entered Singleton’s trailer — and her fate might have remained unknown if not for a house painter working next door who observed the scene through the trailer’s window.

While the details of their conversation are still a mystery, whatever happened apparently caused Singleton to fly into a murderous rage. The house painter called the police, and when deputies arrived at Singleton’s door, they found him wearing a blood-spattered shirt and Hayes’ body on the floor nearby.

The End Of Lawrence Singleton’s Life

Per Criminally Intrigued, Mary Vincent flew from California to Florida when she learned of Singleton’s arrest to testify on Roxanne Hayes’ behalf.

In court, she detailed her own story to highlight just how depraved a man Lawrence Singleton was — and why he should be sentenced to death.

“I was raped,” she told the jury. “I had my arms cut off. He used a hatchet. He left me to die.”

Singleton was sentenced to death on April 14, 1998. He spent three years in prison awaiting his death, which greeted him early at the tail end of 2001 when he died of cancer at age 74.

Karen T. Borchers/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty ImagesMary Vincent circa 1997, displaying a charcoal sketch she drew.

And, finally, Mary Vincent was given some peace, which she has found in her home of all places, caring for her family and no longer living in fear that Singleton may one day return.

“I’m a Hobbit at home,” she said. “Always wanting to serve, looking after everybody, cooking things, that’s my therapy. As well as knowing everything has a way of working itself out.”

After reading about Mary Vincent’s amazing survival, learn about Kevin Hines’ miraculous survival after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Or, read the story of Beck Weathers and how he survived being left on Mount Everest.</em<