On September 29, 1978, Singleton picked up 15-year-old
Mary Vincent of
Las Vegas,
Nevada, while she was hitchhiking to her grandfather's house in
Berkeley, California, after running away from her abusive step-father at home in Las Vegas. He 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. 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. She 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. She walked for 3.9 miles, naked, covered in blood, and armless, before finding and alerting a passing couple who took her to a hospital. By the time of Singleton's arrest, Vincent wore
prosthetic arms. Six months after the assault, Vincent faced Singleton at his trial, where her testimony helped to convict him. Singleton was sentenced to fourteen years in prison, the maximum allowed by law in California at that time. While Vincent won a $2.56 million civil judgment against Singleton, she was unable to collect it as Singleton was unemployed, in poor health, and had only $200 in savings. Along with the particularly gruesome and callous aspects of the crime, the case became even more notorious after Singleton was
paroled having served only eight years in prison. He reduced his time through good behavior and working as a
teaching assistant in a prison classroom. In
Rodeo, about 25 miles northeast of
San Francisco, a crowd of approximately 500 local protestors forced officers to move him under armed guard from a hotel room. Authorities tried housing him across the street from
Concord's City Hall, but that was met with protests and failed too. He 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 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, Singleton's parole led to passage of California's "Singleton bill", which carries a 25-years-to-life sentence. (Harrower, 1998). The leniency of the legal system shocked and outraged many. One journalist who interviewed him remarked, "What was most surprising to me, however, was not his sentence. Larry Singleton had worked his crimes around in his mind so completely that they did not warrant punishment at all." Right before Singleton's parole ended, Donald Stahl, the
Stanislaus County prosecutor at Singleton's trial, said, "I think, if anything, he's worse now. He has not taken responsibility. He lives in a bizarre fantasy land and acquits himself each day. He doesn't accept his guilt and won't resolve never to do it again." ==Return to Florida==