Man who hacked off girl’s arms jailed

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 9

Man who hacked off girl’s arms jailed

NZPA-Reuter San Diego, (California)

A 52-year-old merchant seaman has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for kidnapping and rape of a 15-year-old girl whose arms he hacked off with an axe in the attack. The sentence was imposed by a California Superior Court judge, Earl Maas, who said: “If I had it in my power I would send him to state prisons for the rest of his natural life.”

However, the man, Lawrence Singleton, aged 52, is to serve a maximum of only years as his sentence will be reduced automatically under California law.

Two threats of bodily injury or death to Singleton have prompted prison authorities to plan special handling for him.

Judge Maas ordered that authorities wait three

weeks before taking Singleton to the reception centre at Chino state prison, about 64km east of Los Angeles. The delay was ordered to give prison officials time to plan measures to safeguard him.

“There have been specific death threats against his life. People have said they want to kill him,” said Singleton’s lawyer, Robert Grimes.

“If he is put in a normal prison setting, it would amount to a death sentence,” said Mr Grimes.

Singleton did not testify at his trial. But the defence submitted a taped interview with the police in which Singleton denied the charges.

Mary Vincent, the Nevada runaway who testified Singleton was the man who kidnapped and raped her and cut her arms off below the elbows, said

after the sentencing: “I’m glad it’s over.”

She told reporters Singleton himself would have wished a life sentence on any man who “did this to his daughter.” “I would say to boys and girls who hitchhike,” she said, looking at the hooks that now substitute for her hands, “it wouldn’t be fun having hands like these.”

Miss Vincent was found wandering near a highway last September, her arms hacked off.

Singleton was convicted of attempted murder in the first degree, rape, mayhem, two counts of forcible oral copulation, sodomy and kidnapping. He was acquitted on another charge of using a deadly weapon and bodily harm during a kidnapping, but was convicted of using a deadly weapon and bodily harm during an attempted murder.