15 Facts About Lawrence Singleton

Lawrence Singleton managed to hike to safety and later acted as a critical witness against Singleton.

On September 29,1978, Singleton picked up 15-year-old Mary Vincent of Las Vegas, Nevada, while she was hitchhiking from her grandfather's house in Berkeley, California, back home to Las Vegas.

Lawrence Singleton picked her up outside of Modesto, California, after which he knocked her unconscious with a sledgehammer, spent the night raping her, and tortured her by severing both her forearms with a hatchet.

Lawrence Singleton figured she was dead or near death, and he threw her off a 30-foot cliff on Interstate 5 near Del Puerto Canyon, leaving her naked and bleeding out.

Lawrence Singleton mitigated the bleeding from her forearms by shoving them into mud, which suppressed her bleeding while she managed to pull herself back up the cliff.

Lawrence Singleton walked for three miles, naked, covered in blood, and armless, before finding and alerting a passing couple who took her to a hospital.

Lawrence Singleton was sentenced to fourteen years in prison, the maximum allowed by law in California at that time.

Lawrence Singleton reduced his time through good behavior and working as a teaching assistant in a prison classroom.

Lawrence Singleton was removed from one apartment in Contra Costa County in a bullet-proof vest after 400 residents surrounded the building to protest a decision to place him there permanently.

Governor George Deukmejian ordered that Lawrence Singleton be placed in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin for the duration of his one-year parole.

The outrage at this sentence resulted in legislation, supported by Mary Vincent, which prevents the early release of offenders who have committed a crime in which torture is used: in 1987, Lawrence Singleton's parole led to passage of California's "Lawrence Singleton bill", which carries a 25-years-to-life sentence.

Larry Lawrence Singleton had worked his crimes around in his mind so completely that they did not warrant punishment at all.

Lawrence Singleton doesn't accept his guilt and won't resolve never to do it again.

Lawrence Singleton served a 60-day sentence for stealing a $10 disposable camera in the spring of 1990 and, in the winter, received a two-year prison term for stealing a $3 hat.

Lawrence Singleton died in 2001 of cancer in a prison hospital at the North Florida Reception Center in Starke, Florida.