Ep 28: She Survived. He Served 8 Years and Killed Again. | The Mary Vincent Case — Lawrence Singleton | California True Crime 1978

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual violence and extreme violence.September 29th, 1978. Central California. The valley south of San Francisco.A fifteen-year-old girl named Mary Vincent needed to get to Los Angeles.She'd been staying at her uncle's place in Berkeley, trying to get some ground back under her feet after a rough few months. She stuck out her thumb on Highway 5. A man in his fifties pulled over. He seemed normal enough. Said he could detour, drop her at the freeway. No trouble at all.She climbed in.What Lawrence Singleton did to Mary Vincent in Del Puerto Canyon that night is one of the most violent crimes ever committed against a surviving victim in American criminal history. He raped her. He hacked off both of her forearms with a hatchet. He threw her into a ravine and left her for dead.Mary Vincent did not die.With both arms ending at the elbow, she fashioned makeshift tourniquets from her own clothing, climbed out of the canyon, and walked — barefoot, bleeding, fifteen years old — until she reached a road and flagged down help. She survived six hours in that ravine. She survived the surgery. She survived the trial. She sat in court and pointed at Lawrence Singleton and told a jury exactly what he did.He was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years. He served eight. California law, at the time, could not keep him longer.When he was released in 1987, communities across California refused to have him. He ended up housed on state prison grounds because nowhere else would take him. He was supposed to be monitored. He was supposed to never be able to do it again.In 1997, Lawrence Singleton murdered a woman in Tampa, Florida. Her name was Roxanne Hayes.This week on You're Killing Me, Shawnee covers the full story of Mary Vincent — her survival, her testimony, the sentence that failed her, and the killing that followed when the system let Singleton walk. This is a story about one of the most extraordinary acts of human resilience ever documented, and one of the most catastrophic failures of a criminal justice system to protect the people it exists to serve.Mary Vincent's strength deserves to be known. This case deserves to be talked about.Topics: Mary Vincent | Lawrence Singleton | California true crime | 1978 | sexual violence survivor | criminal justice failure | Del Puerto Canyon | Roxanne Hayes | survivor testimony | American true crime | YKMNew episodes every Monday. Follow so you never miss one.