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Mary Vincent, a teenager from Las Vegas, ran away from home in 1978. She hitchhiked and got into a van with Lawrence Singleton, who brutally attacked her, severing her arms. Despite the horrific ordeal, Mary showed incredible resilience, surviving and seeking help. The story highlights the dangers of hitchhiking and the strength of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity. Lawrence Singleton's background and Mary's courageous actions are key elements in understanding this harrowing event. Welcome to Serials and Schemes. I'm Sam and I'm Sandy. This is a True Crime and Conspiracy Podcast. Our podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Hi and welcome back to Serials and Schemes. If you're new here, hi, I'm Sandy. And I'm Sam. And today we're delving into the story of Mary Vincent, a tale of unimaginable horror, resilience, and the fight for justice. But before we get into the events that changed her life forever, let's understand who Mary was before that fateful day. Mary Vincent was born in 1963 in Las Vegas, Nevada, as one of seven children. Her father, Herb, but I'm sure his name is pronounced Herb because that's how Americans say it. I'm going to say Herb the way Kiwis say it, was a mechanic. And her mother, Lucy, worked as a blackjack dealer. I mean, Vegas. Are there any other jobs other than mechanics? They had met while Herb was serving in the military. Growing up in like the casino town, that's been crazy. Yeah. I mean, I assume they lived out in the suburbs, but then that is an assumption to make. But were you in Vegas when you were American traveling? Not with my children, but I have been to Vegas. You have been to Vegas, yeah. Matt and I went when we turned 30, because our birthdays are two months apart, so we went in the middle for our 30th, and we went to Vegas. And we spent most of that time in Vegas, what you know as Vegas, but we went out to suburbs because we wanted to go to some outlets. Out, I don't know, maybe like a 20-minute drive? Yes. So different. You know, you've got Vegas, which you know of, and then Vegas suburbs are so nice, pristine. You're not allowed to drink on the streets. I'm like, do you guys know that you're part of Vegas? Because it is allowed, isn't it? Yeah. But in the suburbs, no. In the suburbs, no. It's super clean, super tidy, like pristine lawns. Yeah. When I picture Vegas, I picture like when you're walking down the street, for example, first of all, loads of like impersonators, like Spiderman, and those type of people. And then I see showgirls. Yeah. There's definitely showgirls, less of the Spiderman stuff. That's more of a New York thing. More of a New York thing. Yeah, and a bit in LA as well. There is a little bit in Vegas, but it's not really the scene. The scene is showgirls. Lots of girls that are half Spiderman. Actually, I think I'm getting it because there's like Hollywood as well. Yeah, yeah, and there's heaps of that in Hollywood. I feel like there's probably more in New York to be honest than Times Square. Yeah. And they're quite nasty. They're aggressive, though. I mean, it is New York, right? We watched this group of tourists, and they were just like some kids, get a photo with Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, and Donald, and maybe a couple of others. And they wanted $20 tip per character. No. Who has won photo costumes. And then they'll just chase you. If you don't give it to them, they'll chase you. And that's where you beat them all over the world. Yeah. I'm like, Brin's like, can I have a photo with Elsa? Absolutely not. No. No, you cannot. It's not the real Elsa. It won't let you go to Disney. Oh, dear. So Mary's early life was marked by the bustling environment of Las Vegas and the dynamics of a large household. However, as she entered her teenage years, her parents' marriage began to deteriorate, leading to a contentious divorce. And all that love. Yeah. Growing up with that fucking love. Yeah. And then you've got seven other siblings or six other siblings, and you're dealing with that. Yeah. It's, you know, one of seven. Yeah. That's hard. That's wild. The turmoil at home deeply affected Mary. Seeking solace in a change of scenery, she decided to run away from home in 1978. For a time, she lived on the streets and in unlocked cars, navigating the uncertainties of life on her own. In 1978, Mary was a 15-year-old girl with big dreams, a dancer's heart, and a strength most of us could only imagine. She survived something so brutal it almost defies belief, and she didn't just survive, she fought back. So what's a 15-year-old like? Like unimaginable, really. Yeah. Eventually, Mary made her way down to her grandfather's home in Berkeley, California, and she stayed there for a while. But soon, homesickness set in, and she resolved to return to Las Vegas. Without any means of transportation, she turned to hitchhiking, albeit risky mode of travel during that era. That's where the stars aligned when she met Lawrence Singleton. Yes, on September 29, 1978. While hitchhiking near Berkeley, Mary accepted a ride from Singleton, a decision that would lead to a life-altering ordeal. I feel like it's also crucial to remember that Mary at this point was just a teenager, trying to find her way amidst all of the personal and familial challenges. Yeah, exactly. Understanding her background provides context to her resilience and the strength she displayed in the face of unimaginable adversity. Before we delve into the harrowing events of 1978, it's essential to understand who Lawrence Singleton was. Born on July 28, 1927 in Tampa, Florida, Singleton... That's always Florida. And also Tampa. Tampa Bay, Tampa this, Tampa that. Fuck off. Type in your birthday, your birth date, and Florida, and a crime would have happened that day. There is a crime every day. You can type it into Google. That's so false. Born on July 28, 1927 in Tampa, Florida, Singleton's early life remains largely obscure. However, records indicate that he dropped out of school at 16 to work on the railroad and later at a shipyard. By 17, he had joined the Merchant Marine, a career that took him across the globe. So it seems like he had a life filled with travel and discipline. Did he have a family? Yes, he married Shirley Ann Powles in 1958 and they remained together until her death in 1977. They had a daughter, Deborah Ann, who later became a psychiatric nurse in Seattle. It's so, like, so young to think that someone with such a seemingly normal, ordinary life could commit such disgusting heinous acts. I know. You just don't know. You know, people trust people so quickly, especially, like, you just don't know what someone's like. And especially nowadays, which is obviously not what we're talking about, but social media and stuff, you can create a facade so easily and you can be something completely different. It's the same back then, you just didn't have social media broadcasting it. So, Mary, with homesickness, tugging at her, she decided to head back to Las Vegas. No money, no car. She did what so many people did in the 70s and she stuck out her thumb. Yes, it was so common then, but so fucking dangerous. I always think, like, how many people were picked up by someone with terrible intentions and just never knew. Never to be heard of or seen again. Yeah, exactly. And back in the 70s, hitchhiking wasn't seen with the same level of fear we associate it with today. It was common for young people to travel this way, especially those with limited resources. There was almost a cultural innocence about it until stories like Mary's shattered that illusion. Yeah, it's eerie to think about how normalised it actually was. That moment, sticking out your thumb, could literally be the last choice you ever made. That's exactly it. Mary was standing near the side of the road holding a sign that read simply, Heading South. Two other hitchhikers waited nearby when a battered blue van pulled up. Inside was a 50-year-old man named Lawrence Singleton. He said he could only take Mary, just her. The others told her not to go. Something about him didn't feel right, but she was tired. She just wanted to go home, so she got in. But also, teenagers, they don't see fear in anything. No, they don't think that the bad things are going to happen to them. No. They know that kids are more aware of them. Yeah. Yeah, it's that moment, isn't it? The kind of choice anyone could make. You're young, you're trusting. Yeah, it's sad. Yeah, Mary soon realised Singleton wasn't taking the agreed-upon route. When she tried to point it out, he seemed flustered, turned the van around and told her it was just a mistake. After driving for a while, Singleton stopped to use the bathroom. Mary stepped out to stretch her legs, but when she bent over to tie her shoe, Singleton struck her in the back of the head with a hammer-like tool. He dragged her into the van, where he tied her up and repeatedly raped her. When she begged to be let go, he said chillingly, You want to be free? I'll set you free. And that's when he took out a hatchet. Oh, that's mean. Yeah. He took her out of the van, dragged her into a concrete drainage culvert in Tapuero Canyon. He severed her forearms. First one, then the other, with a hatchet. Mary would later describe how she watched her own arm fall to the ground, still touching his shirt. She later said, I felt everything. I heard the crunch. I heard the splat. I heard every sound. Yeah. That made me feel sick. Yeah. The fact that she was, oh, so aware. I just can't. I actually just can't. Oh, they're going to cut me into pieces. Can you knock me out? Can you, like, put my throat in, then do the weird shit that you want to fucking do? Like, put me out of misery. Lawrence later claimed in court he believed she was dead. But before leaving, he shoved her body down the 30-foot embankment, and he drove away. Mary was 15 years old, bleeding out, alone, with no hands. Oh, my God. It's the part of the story that, like, breaks your heart. Yeah. Part of me is like, please tell me she's alive, Liz, you know? Yeah. So, bleeding profusely, with her arms gone, Mary didn't pass out. You'd just want her, right? Just lay there and just take me. 15 years old. Like, literally. Instead, she packed mud into her open wounds to slow the bleeding. I'm 36. Yep. Still 36. I'm 36 years old, and I would not think to do that. No, me neither. There's absolutely no sense in my mind that would go, let's put dirt in that. I'd be like, ah, my fucking head. I wouldn't even be like, okay, how can we, I need to get to safety. I don't even know that I would try to survive it. I mean, I just don't. I think I would just lay there and die. Like, honestly, and we've done other cases before where I've said that. We've both been like, just do it. Just fucking end it. I just, I, yeah. And who knows? We haven't been in that situation. Yeah. But. I actually do think that naturally your survival instinct's kicking. I think we have put this in the podcast before as well, and I've told you how I was having this conversation with my trainer. Yes. And ran out that I didn't know it was him. Yeah. And I did just freeze. And I just said to her that I have got no fight or flight. I will just lay down and die. And it sounds terrible, and my family hate it when I say it. But they only hate it because I think they know it's true. I just, they're like, I'm not going to fight you. If you're going to kill me, just kill me. Yeah. Just do it. Get it over with. Yeah. It sounds horrible. And it's not like I'm. Yeah. I think I would like, I would just be crazy and be like, oh my God, thank you so much, my savior. How did you know I wanted to die? Yeah. It's either a vertical or a horizontal. It's either way. You have to do something. There's, in some aspect, you're going to try to fight for your life. Yeah. Whether it's physically fighting or just talking your way out of it. You're going to try. Sure. Yeah. A hundred percent. So she packed mud into her open wounds to slow the bleeding. And then she crawled up a steep 30-foot embankment naked and mutilated. Bruh. 30 feet with no fucking hands. Like, I just, yeah, that kind of resilience is insane to me. I just can't even imagine. Yeah. She would have just had the adrenaline just, how do you even have adrenaline at that point when you've just been, it's not just that he just come along and cut her up. He had been raping her. Who knows how long that went on for. She would have had no energy, but then the adrenaline kicked in and she was like, I'm going to fight this. That's insane. She held what remained of her arms above her head to keep her blood from draining out faster and walked for nearly three miles along Interstate 5. That's so clever though, at 15. Honestly. Like, just, like, I see it as this, like, late twenties, mid thirties. Yeah, exactly. I just can't fathom this child, like, fighting like this. Exactly. And so smart. That's like, she's 90s age, yeah? Yes. 90s, 60s, yeah. Yeah. That's why I keep bringing up the fact that she's 15. Yeah. Because like, I'm just, I constantly want to remind myself that she's only a child. Yeah. And the, like, the image of her, a 15-year-old girl walking alone down a highway, like something out of a nightmare. But also a miracle, like, the fact that she is surviving this. Fucking hands, I can't even do this for an exercise, bro. Keep your hands up for like five minutes. Yeah. This girl is walking up 30 feet in basements with her arms up, mud packed in that she thought of on the fly. I'm sorry, but that's insane. Did someone stop for her? Yes. So a couple who had gotten lost by a side road saw her and stopped. They wrapped her in linens from their car and sped her to a nearby airport where a helicopter flew her to hospital. And incredibly, Mary was able to give police enough details to create a composite sketch. That sketch led directly to Lawrence Singleton's arrest at his ex-wife's home in Nevada. In March 1979, a San Diego jury convicted Singleton of kidnapping, rape, attempted murder, and mayhem. What? Sorry. I can't believe it. What's a mayhem charge for? Can you Google a mayhem charge, please? That is so funny. It's not funny, but the title of the charge is funny. A mayhem charge is a serious criminal offense in Anglo-American law that involves the intentional infliction of bodily harm, specifically dismemberment or disabling a body part, making the victim less able to defend themselves. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was never laughing at what was happening. Exactly. It's what they call it. It's not funny. The name of the charge is funny. Yes. Because mayhem just sounds really weird. The term is almost fun. Like the actual word seems like, I don't know, but obviously it's not. Yeah, I hear you. So, Singleton was sentenced to 14 years, the maximum allowed under California law at the time. 14? It couldn't have been that serious if you didn't have 14 fucking years. Don't tell me mayhem is a serious crime, Sam. Take a Google and drown it. Because 14 years is bullshit for doing that sort of thing. Bullshit, bro. And it's not just mayhem, you know. It's mayhem. Attempted murder. Rape. Kidnapping. It's fucking ridiculous. To a baby. That's literally a child. So, yeah, the 14 years sparked outrage. Understandable. I'm outraged. I'm outraged as well. Millions of years, but I'm outraged. And the nightmare didn't end there. Singleton served only eight years before being released on parole in 1987 for good behavior. What? I'm sorry. I don't care how good your behavior is later on. No. There is no amount of good behavior that makes up for fucking doing that to a child, cutting their hand off and all of that shit. The presence of him makes no sense to me. Wouldn't you start going, oh yeah, for good behavior. I'm sorry. So that just negates everything he actually did. Were you not familiar with the 1970s and these days? I'm sure it would be. Oh, yeah. It would. Yeah. It would be much more expensive. Yeah. No community would accept him, though. Good. Slave community. Yeah. People protested. He was housed in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin State Prison because nowhere else is safe. Good. Good. I'm glad he didn't feel safe. I'm glad he fed for his life, to be honest. I actually, like, what, in eight years? I'm pissed. I am pissed that, like, first of all, that he was in charge of 14 years, but then, but then to be out in eight? Yeah. It's pathetic. And it's laughable. Like, that is... What was the point? The saddest thing is, though, we're actually like, yes, it has progressed since then, but like... Not in New Zealand. Well, not in New Zealand, but even in America, it's progressed quite a bit, but even then, like, some people are getting off, yeah, getting lesser charges than they deserve. Yeah. But wait, there's more. It got worse. So, in 1997, ten years after his release, Singleton was living in Florida, and that's when he met 31-year-old Roxanne Hayes, a sex worker and mother of three. He stabbed her multiple times in his home. He was caught at the scene, covered in blood. Exhibit A. Mm-hmm. Exactly. The way that he just, like, went back to violence. Yeah. You've actually gone off lightly. Not even that, oh, my gosh, I can't believe, you know, I got out in eight years, like, that's all, now I'll be on my best behavior. No, that shit was ingrained in that man. But how, like, you know how Bob was there? He was, like, I'm going back to what I said before, but, like, the fact that he was, like, so normal with his family and all this shit. What the fuck? Yeah. Where the fuck did Bob come from? Something must have happened. Surely, I mean, he can't have been born like this if he went all those years not being like this, unless he was and he just wasn't caught, but I feel like, I don't think that's true. I mean, I think that if there was an active situation where there was a serial killer at the time, surely they would still have believed that. Yeah. So, when Singleton stood trial for Roxanne Hayes' murder, Mary Vincent, now in her 30s, testified against him, so she faced him again. Yes. Yes. And she said, he did this to me. He cut off my arms, raped me, left me to die. I was 15 years old. Honestly, go off Mary Vincent, okay? She fucking went back to the courtroom, looked the motherfucker in the eyes, and said, fuck you, you are not getting out. Yeah. Good. Like, gal had more than bravery and courage. Yeah. She had balls of steel as well. Not only from the attack and everything she did, but she still was like, oh. You want to do this again? Okay. Fuck you. Let me look you deep in the eye and cut you. Yeah. Love that. Good girl. Singleton's crimes had a profound impact on legislation. California's Singleton Bill was enacted, imposing harsher penalties for crimes involving torture. So that's, then, that's why it's tougher these days, and that's why people are getting more than eight fucking years. That's insane. And, like, obviously Mary Vincent's resilience played a significant role in bringing about this change. Like, her testimony during Singleton's 98 trial for the murder of Roxanne Hayes was instrumental in securing the death sentence. Thank goodness. Yeah. So, he died of cancer on December 28, 2001, while on death row in Florida. So, after Roxanne's court case, he was put away for life and died of cancer while he was incarcerated. Yes. My only, the only regret I hold from that is that he made it to Christmas 2001. That pisses me off. But, I like that he was on death row. Yeah. So, what I told you before about- And he probably didn't get, like, a, and he didn't get, like, a, like, what do you want for your last meal? Because- I hope someone doesn't shit on the planet. Honestly, like, like, I'm, I'm with the Indians. Like, cause this, actually, this reminds me of the whole, like, Lisa McVeigh case. Yeah. And, I said it before and I'll say it again. I love it when they send you motherfucking death row because the not knowing of when it's your time- Yep. Fuck you. Yep. You know what I mean? You deserve that shit. Yeah, for sure. So, Mary didn't just survive. She rebuilt. She became an artist, creating powerful emotional sculptures, many of them about trauma, survival, and the body. She uses custom prosthetics to sculpt, paint, and live her life. Yes, girl. She also founded the Mary Vincent Foundation, which helps victims of violent crime. She became a voice in the movement to change parole laws. Her case helped pass California's Singleton Bill, which imposed longer sentences for crimes involving torture. So, like, literally as a fucking horror movie, she built something that could help other people. Yeah. And that's her legacy. That's what justice should really be about. Yeah. Mary once said, I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor. The world didn't break me. I'm still standing. Go off. And honestly, if you're in a bad place in your life, remember this statement. Yeah. Be a survivor. You know? This is insane shit. This is insane shit to survive. Yeah. And to go on to help other people because of it is fucking insane. And the world can't break you. Like, if it couldn't break Mary Vincent lying in a ditch with no hands. Yeah. It can't break us. Put that mud on your cuts and get up and go off. Mary Vincent's story is one of the most powerful we've ever told. Yeah. It reminds us that the justice system doesn't always protect the vulnerable. But people like Mary push the system to do better. And sometimes courage looks like a girl walking down a highway with no hands, refusing to die. Iconic. Iconic. I got tears just saying that. That is fucking iconic. Yeah. Well, yeah. That's it for today's episode of Seriousness Games. If the story moved you, and we know it did, consider supporting victims advocacy groups in your area. And don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review. We'll be back next week with another true story that needs to be heard. Until next week, stay safe. See you later. Bye. We'd appreciate any support. And we'll have a new case next week. But until then, catch us on our socials at SeriousnessGamesPod. See you next time. See ya. Bye.
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