Singleton Guilty of 1st-Degree Murder

MIAMI —  Notorious California rapist Lawrence Singleton was found guilty Friday of the first-degree murder of a Tampa prostitute, setting the stage for a dramatic courtroom appearance by the woman whose forearms he chopped off 20 years ago.

Mary Bell Vincent, who was 15 when she was abducted near Berkeley, raped and left for dead, is expected to testify in Tampa next week when prosecutors ask jurors to recommend that Singleton, 70, be sentenced to death in Florida’s electric chair.

A face-to-face meeting between Singleton and Vincent is likely to be a wrenching emotional ordeal for the divorced mother of two, who now lives in Seattle. In an interview with The Times last February, Vincent, now 35, said she has been tortured by nightmares about Singleton and that even hearing his name has made her panic.

But prosecutors said that Vincent, who is fitted with hook-like prosthetic hands, will be called to testify about Singleton’s attack on her as the state makes a case for his execution.

“She has been deposed as a second-phase witness,” said Assistant State Atty. Jay Pruner. “We expect her to testify.”

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Jurors heard no testimony about Singleton’s past crimes before finding him guilty of first-degree murder in the brutal stabbing death of Roxanne Hayes, 31, who had agreed to come to his suburban Tampa home last February and perform a sex act in exchange for $20 and a meal.

The burly Singleton showed no reaction when he heard the verdict, which came after less than four hours of deliberation.

From the witness stand Thursday, Singleton explained that he had stabbed Hayes accidentally seven times in the face, chest and abdomen as they struggled over a boning knife. “I wasn’t aware the knife was going in and out” of Hayes, he said.

In an effort to avoid a conviction for first-degree murder, which demands premeditation, Singleton’s lawyer told jurors that the former merchant marine tussled with Hayes over the knife after she tried to grab his wallet, triggering a “spontaneous eruption of emotion.” Moreover, said public defender Jill Menadier, Singleton was drunk, depressed and over-medicated that night.

A house painter who stopped by Singleton’s house on Feb. 19, 1997, testified that he saw Singleton, who was naked, repeatedly plunge the knife into the woman’s body as she lay sprawled on the couch. Paul Hitson said that he heard “bones crushing, like chicken bones breaking.”

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Deputy Walter Brown told the jury that as Singleton was led from the house he commented: “I guess that makes me a murderer, so you’ve got me now.”

Before the trial began, each of the nine men and three women chosen to serve on the jury were asked questions to determine that they did not know about Singleton’s California crimes and the uproar over his parole. The parole controversy had helped pushed state legislators to pass tougher sentencing laws.

After Singleton picked up the hitchhiking Vincent in 1978, he drove her in his van to an isolated spot near Modesto, where he raped her, hacked off her forearms with an ax and abandoned her in a remote area.

Vincent testified at Singleton’s 1979 trial on charges of rape, attempted murder and sex offenses. Although convicted, Singleton served a little more than eight years of the maximum 14-year sentence he received before being paroled. His sentence was reduced because he worked while behind bars and his behavior was good.

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But his release triggered an outpouring of protest and--when community after community objected to his presence--Singleton served out the end of his parole while living in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin Prison.

Singleton was unwelcome in his native Florida. After his arrival in 1988, neighbors protested and a local car dealer offered to give him $5,000 cash and pay his air fare if he would leave.

According to trial testimony, Hayes, a mother of three children, was a longtime prostitute and cocaine user. Singleton testified that he had paid her for sex twice before.

After she was stabbed, Singleton said, Hayes reached out her arms and asked him to hold her. “I held her tight,” he said. “We were embracing.”