Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia podcast. I am your co-host, Hank Sinatra, here with my co-host. Investigators later. And again, we have a special guest in the studio. Cash Money, say what's up. Breathe into the microphone.
Yeah, all right. I think we got it. We got it. This dog provides just a soothing, calming sense of security, really. My dogs do not do that at all. They're a liability if someone breaks into the house because then I have to find them and get them and make sure they're not in trouble with the perpetrator or the burglar. Like my dogs are of no use when it comes to... They're also 10 pounds. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, soaking wet. And my one dog, the new one, if you go to give her a treat...
She acts as if you're trying to kick her across the room. I know because I tried to pet her today and she pissed on me. So God forbid somebody actually had broken into our house and
She's of no use. Your dog, super useful. He is like a bazooka. He is, but he's just so sweet. Yeah, but he's like 85, 90, 110 pounds. How much does he weigh? He's 80 pounds. 80 pounds. All muscle. Solid. But you want to know what the biggest muscle in his body is? His heart. His heart. Wow, I did not see that coming.
I did. I did. Super corny. It's all right, though, because I'm sure you have a horrible case for me to listen to today. I really do. I think Cash may make it better for you. Well, I'm glad he's here. We also have a little boy Bonanza going on outside. So if you hear fun being had, it is what it is. I don't know how to... Our sons are hanging out outside and we told them to keep it down, but there's only so much we can do from inside the studio. I'm not going to tell them not to have fun. No. That's not going to happen. So listen, we took a little break from reading reviews because I didn't want to bore anybody, but...
I mean, they just, they come in and again, we've said it a million times. It's just very exciting for us. So this one is from Yao 1969 and just the name alone is like you win. Okay. And the title is LOLing all over the office. So if you wrote this review on Apple iTunes, um,
We just want to talk, right? We just want to be friends. With this person who wrote the review? Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, we're not looking to be weird about it or anything like just... No, just come hang out with us, maybe move in. Yeah. And you can be like my kid's godparent. That's what I was alluding to. I'm not going to go too strong. But we're not going to make it weird. Yeah. So this person said, I love you guys. And just before I read the rest, I want to say we love you too.
A great deal. Absolutely. Unequivocally, this person's vocabulary is obviously stacked. She listens or he listens to a lot of psychopedia. So the vocabulary is increasing. I listened to a lot of podcasts and you were the only one that has me laughing out loud. I'll take that compliment inappropriately and yet hysterically with my headphones on at work, which is a great image.
I looked deranged and I love it. So thank you so much for the incredible episodes. Amazing work. Congratulations. And it goes without saying that there is no jokes to be made if investigator Slater does not choose the cases that she chooses and put the effort in that she puts in. Right. What you did there. You didn't want me to feel left out of that review. Thank you. No, because all the other reviews mentioned you. So this is the one that I wanted to read.
I think it's equal parts. Humor and crime. Okay. I'm making a joke. You're messing with me. Got it. Yeah. She does not have her sense of humor hat on today. She did have the ears on again, which we'll probably post to the Instagram. We definitely will. It can't happen. It absolutely can and will. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. We're looking into doing some video. So if you're into that, I don't know, maybe let us know. Give us a push in the right direction because...
It's a big step to get video done. Yeah, it's a commitment, but we're ready. Yeah, I think so. If it's wanted, we will provide. Of course. So without, again, I just like saying it, without further ado. I'm going to get some merch with that written on it. That and this case is a doozy. I will not say that ever again. I'm not saying it anymore. Not every case can be a doozy, but the problem is,
They obviously all are. Agreed. But the problem is I feel like an 85-year-old when I say doozy. I mean, it's cute. It's endearing. Watch that step. It's a doozy. You know? It's like a half-inch step and they fall down because they're 85. So, yeah, let's just get into the case because that's what the people want. They don't want to hear us talk about our kids and your dog. It's fine. It is what it is. But we do shoehorn it in every time.
But we try and keep it under five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Just so we don't like, you know, it's our fluffer stage. We got to warm up. Listen, we're not like other podcasts out there doing 20 minutes of nonsense before we get to the, uh, yeah, that for me, that's not my style. That's not what I like to listen to. And that's not what I like to create.
Imagine just, we will, we're going to the case, two seconds, but imagine you watched a Netflix documentary about true crime and the first 20 minutes was just like behind the scenes nonsense bullshit. Yeah, it wouldn't be for me. No, it wouldn't be for anybody. So I don't know how people miss that with doing podcasts, but it's fine. We're going to jump right into it head first and buckle up.
In 1978, a man named Sal Benedetto decided to go fishing in the early morning hours near the Golden Gate Bridge in California. Oh. It was a weekday and relatively quiet, and Sal found an isolated spot along his favorite shoreline under the bridge. He reached back and cast his line into the water as he'd done hundreds of times before and waited for that unmistakable pull and snag at the end of the rod. Interjection?
It's the best. Yeah, I knew you were going to like that intro as a fellow fisherman. Wait, what did you say? The unmistakable hook and... Pull and snag at the end of the rod. I'll be honest with you. When I go fishing...
Sorry, I'm cutting you off. One of two things were going to happen with that comment. You were going to dive into a fishing story or you were going to make some kind of inappropriate joke. Very happy that you chose the former. You know me well. I don't even care if the hook is dragging along the bottom of the ocean and hooking rocks. It just is exciting. The adrenaline just shoots.
It's something primal. You're like, I'm about to eat. Even though you went to 7-Eleven before and you're going to the bagel place after, it's like, you're catching a fish, you're going to be fine. Yeah. I don't fish anymore because I just feel so bad about it. Yeah. Well, in the other episode when you told me that fish scream when they're being hooked. Think about that. It's given me pause. So he's on the bridge, San Francisco. He's
He's got a hook. As Sal waited for the fish to bite, he found comfort in the usual chugging and passing fishing boats going back to the harbor with their catches for the nearby markets. Peacefully enjoying these familiar surroundings, Sal was suddenly struck by something unfamiliar that gave him pause. What am I seeing? Sal wondered as his pulse began to quicken. Oh no. He suspected his eyes were deceiving him as he slowly moved closer to the object to get a better look. Sal,
Sal wedged his fishing pole between two rocks and trepidatiously approached the object of his curiosity, making sure, though, to keep a bit of distance given the fact that what he thought he was looking at seemed too incredible to be true.
But now that he was standing closer, there was no mistaking what lie beneath the baking hot sun. Oh, God. Before him was a decomposing, severed human hand with a red manicure. Oh, wow. Just a hand and he saw it? Yep. Wow. Good eye, Sal. I mean, Tank, it's a human hand in the middle of a shoreline.
Yeah, but like, you know... With a red manicure. I know, but good eye anyway. A good eye, good eye. Why are you trying to take away his... I mean, you were so impressed by that and I just... I was. I couldn't let it go. I was perhaps overly impressed by him spotting a human hand on a rock in the middle of the shoreline. This is the absolutely devastating yet remarkable story of Mary Vincent and one of the most vile human creatures to ever walk among us...
Larry Singleton, also known as the Mad Chopper. I don't know him. I don't like him. Yeah, you just wait. I'm going to get to know him, though. You will hate him. Yeah. In 1978, 15-year-old Mary Vincent was being raised alongside six siblings in Sin City, Las Vegas. Six siblings in Sin City, Las Vegas. I nailed that. Yeah.
Mary's mom, Lucy, worked as a dealer at a casino and her dad, Herb, which I always want to pronounce as Herb. He's not a food. Worked as a slot machine repairman. So both of her parents were in the casino biz. Casino business. Mary's goal was to one day become a dancer at a casino as she was enthralled by the bright stage lights and extravagant costumes. Wow. Relatable.
She was, in fact, a competitor dancer and her instructors were confident that she would go pro one day. So it wasn't a totally outlandish, far-fetched dream. It was really within reach for Mary. She had some moves, is what you're saying. She had great moves. Yeah. But before Mary could pursue her ambition of becoming a Vegas showgirl, she needed to get through her youth during a tumultuous period caused by her parents' divorce and their strict upbringing. In
In a not-so-outlandish response to the turmoil at home, Mary started cutting class and wearing makeup and running away from home. Sounds like a bad seed. Typical, though, response, right? I'm kidding. Okay, to a difficult situation at home. She started wearing makeup. What a harlot.
That summer, Mary decided to escape her parents and their pesky rules to instead live with her boyfriend out of his car in Sausalito, California. Now, let me make something very clear here, okay? Her boyfriend, I'm doing air quotes that people can't see, was a 26-year-old man named Diego Montoyo.
Almost every source that I hit while researching this case refers to Diego as Mary's boyfriend or partner, which I find astounding. And how old is she? She's 15. He's 26. And he's 26. Yeah, that's weird. She's living on the street, essentially. She is a completely vulnerable young girl, and I'm calling him a predator. And I'm calling him Unigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
No. Oh, Scarface? No, Princess Bride. Really? Yeah. My name is Unigo Montoya. Man, I couldn't have been any more opposite. Scarface? No, Princess Bride. Montoya? Yeah, my name is Unigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. That's like his famous line. Okay. Yeah, but I'll call him a piece of shit because he's a fucking weirdo to a 26-year-old.
Well, and it wasn't long after Mary started living with Diego in his car that the police came to apprehend him on allegations of raping a high school student. Oh, okay. There you go. Which left Mary in a bit of a predicament in terms of where to go next. Rather than going back to her parents' house, which is where she was trying to flee from in the first place, Mary chose to continue with her rebellious, vagrant lifestyle and again hit the road, finding temporary shelter at times with an uncle who lived in Soquel, California.
Yeah. Now...
hitchhiking in the 1970s was not unusual. Yeah. It was not considered to be terribly irresponsible behavior. No, we don't see too much of it nowadays, though. Apparently that actually has less to do with the fact that people are making safer decisions and it has more to do with the fact that more people have cars today than they did back then, which I thought was a very interesting. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, that gives, you know, that's interesting because if you see somebody hitchhiking today, you're like, not today, psycho. I'll tell you a crazy quick story. I,
vividly remember hitchhiking with my dad. What? Yeah. We hitchhiked somewhere. When? When? How old were you? Maybe five or six. Oh my. I'm actually appalled. You're only talking about a six, seven year difference from 1978 to 1985. Wow. You're old, man. I know. My dad also used to drive my sister to go pick up his check and
15 miles on a bike that had no seat, no nothing. It had, it was like a 10 speed bikes. No, it was a 10 speed bike that had one of those little towel racks on the back. And she used to sit on the back of it and hold onto his shirt. And he would drive down Jericho turnpike up park Avenue with a five or six year old child on the back of his bike.
Just, it was a different time. I was just going to say that. And then I look back at that and I have like a big smile on my face thinking about that. Like it just kind of somehow seems like a moment in time. You just would never see that anymore. Yeah, but good. It was so dangerous. Like,
It's so funny. We're so opposite. You're telling me about the hitchhiking when you were little and I'm like appalled. And then you tell me about the bike and I'm like, oh. I'm appalled at both. Yeah. It was just different. It was not good parenting. It was just like, that's what was acceptable. Yeah. I mean, I was allowed to play in my neighborhood unsupervised, ride my bike, go to the convenience store completely by eight years old. I was doing all of that. Yeah. I have a nine-year-old now who I won't even let get the
mail out of the mailbox without me watching him like a hawk. Well, because you know how irresponsible and for lack of a better word, dumb kids are. They make bad decisions. I got myself in a lot of trouble when I was younger. I'm not pro. Let the kids go out and fucking find out who they are and, you know, walk 20 miles and like, dude,
It's okay that kids are inside more now. Like there's, I'm just, I'm for. Supervision. I'm for safety. Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, we can look through the lens of hindsight and say how, you know, irresponsible it was for Mary in this story to hitchhike. I don't think it's irresponsible. It was a different time. Well, but it. Oh, because she's going to wind up dead. No, come on. Let me get to it. Okay. But living like a transient hippie fast and loose kind of lifestyle was really not frowned upon at the time.
And in Mary's case, she really needed to get somewhere and she had no other viable option. Yeah, you got to go. So she stood on the side of the road in Berkeley, California, sticking out her thumb and holding a sign indicating that she needed to go south. Mary was wearing a light pink top, blue jeans, white sneakers, a green backpack, and a reddish purple knit purse. She looked like a quintessential hitchhiker. Yeah. Apparently, the area where she stood was actually referred to as Hitchhiker's Corner. Yeah.
And on the same road were, in fact, two other hitchhikers also holding up signs saying that they needed a ride south as well. Were they wearing the hitchhiker outfit they got on Amazon also? No, no, nope. If you type in hitchhiker outfit, that's what comes up on Amazon.
So when Mary was approached by a grandfatherly looking man driving a blue van, she felt a wave of relief and excitement. That was before vans were dangerous too. Yeah. That's the other thing. Vans, you look at vans now, for me anyway, especially the ones with the blacked out windows. Or no windows. Or no windows. Those aren't even allowed technically. And I see them everywhere. Yeah. Finally, she could get off her feet and head south towards the next part of her journey.
And while the driver of the van initially indicated that he was actually heading east to Reno, Nevada, he kindly offered to make a diversion towards Interstate 5 so that Mary could then hitch another ride the rest of the way and get to where she needed to go. Yeah. The driver of the van, who was a balding 51-year-old man in blue overalls with a generous beer paunch, a veiny, bulbous nose, and weathered skin, was none other than Larry Singleton.
And Larry Singleton made it clear to the other two hitchhikers who I mentioned were also going south that he would only be taking Mary.
So these other two hitchhikers warned Mary not to get in the van. Oh, really? Because the driver clearly had space to take all three of them. And the fact that he insisted on only taking Mary raised suspicion for them. They were a little bit older than her. I'm going to say a little bit more seasoned. You know, listen, maturity can take you a long way in terms of your decision-making, obviously. Yeah. And at 15 years old, she didn't see a problem with it. These other hitchhikers did.
But at the end of the day, Larry reassured Mary that she had nothing to worry about. He had a daughter that was her age, which was true, although he carefully admitted the fact that he and his daughter had been estranged for a long time. I wonder what the reasoning he gave her was that he didn't want to take the other two. Yeah, he just insisted on taking Mary. No, no, no, just her, just her. You two stay over there. I think she was also so interested in grabbing that ride that
There wasn't too much time for discussion. Like as the warnings were being shot at her from the other two hitchhikers, the door was being opened and she was in. You can make sense of some pretty bad situations if you're in a desperate spot. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Absolutely. Yeah. So young, unknowing, desperate for a ride, Mary Vincent got into Larry Singleton's van, and this decision would go on to become...
the worst decision of her life. But before I tell you exactly why, in vivid detail, let's get a glimpse into the man that Mary just got into a car with. Oh, I thought we were doing a pop quiz. Not yet.
Lawrence Bernard Singleton was born in Tampa, Florida on July 28th, 1927. Jesus. Seems like forever ago. 19 what? 27. It's almost 100 years ago. Right, but this case was 78. Yeah, but he was born... I know. 96 years ago. Yeah, I know. My Grammy was born in 1924. Wow. What?
Not too much is known about his childhood and upbringing, but given what he did, it's widely accepted that he had a hatred towards women and that we can assume that he didn't come from an entirely stable environment as a child. And he likely had some mommy issues going on that may have colored the way he related to and treated women as he matured.
Sure. After Larry finished school, he enlisted in the military and he served some time in Korea. After that, for the majority of his life, Larry worked as a merchant seaman who operated machinery on the lower decks of cargo ships that traveled around the globe. And he was actually quite an accomplished sailor and was qualified to command any U.S. merchant marine ship on the high seas, which is no small thing.
Putting his C skills aside, Larry had two failed marriages and one estranged daughter from his first marriage and was a raging alcoholic whose second wife divorced him as a result of his violent and abusive behavior towards her. Real quick, for anybody waiting for it, I'm just going to say it.
Semen Demon. Yeah. I'm sure people, they were like, what is he going to say? So yeah, just saying it, no context, don't have anything to add, but Semen Demon. He was a Semen Demon. He was a Semen Demon.
Larry's daughter, whose name is Deborah, actually at one point filed a legal complaint against Larry and asked the court to relinquish his custody rights after he aggressively slapped her and showed clear signs of advancing violence. Eventually, following the collapse of his second marriage, Larry settled down in Sparks, Nevada to live out the rest of his retirement. Larry, by the way, was also previously convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And that's all...
All that's said about it. No details. No details. I looked up what like contributing to the delinquency of a minor actually means. And it really just means that a person who's at least 18, who knowingly or intentionally encourages, aids, induces, or causes a child to commit an act of delinquency. Some sources I read said that he probably helped a minor to buy alcohol. That's what I was just thinking. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I assume. Yeah. But I don't know.
I don't necessarily like to assume unless I have valid, you know, verification. Fancy way of saying that he bought somebody alcohol or helped him cut class or whatever, contributing to a minor's delinquency. Just say the crime. Right. Fucking lawyers. Just kidding. We love lawyers. Oh, wait a minute. Back up. Listen to me.
Everybody hates a lawyer until they need one. Yes, of course. But whatever, that's besides the point. I don't want to bog down the momentum we have going on here with this semen demon. When Mary got into the semen demon's van, she immediately lit up a cigarette as she was exhausted and relieved to finally be heading towards her destination. And then Mary Vincent sneezed.
And when that happened, Larry placed his hand on the back of Mary's neck and pulled her towards him, indicating that he wanted to be sure that she wasn't sick. Mary instantly felt uncomfortable by this sudden and inappropriate physical contact. So she moved her body as far away from him as she possibly could and basically started like hugging the passenger side door. She got her head against the window and she fell asleep.
Very brave of her to fall asleep, by the way. Sorry to interrupt you, but that's wild that she just fell asleep. She's 15. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So when she awoke, she was expecting to see the bright lights of the San Francisco Bay Area, right? But she must have slept a lot longer than she realized because now it was nighttime. Yeah.
And while she wasn't sure how long she'd slept, she was sure of one thing. Larry was driving in the wrong direction. Rather than driving south towards Los Angeles, he was driving east towards Nevada. Mary's instincts were immediately on high alert. So I think at this point, Tank, she's not sleeping anymore. I didn't say she was stupid. No, no, I understand. Like just the audacity of young people to just think that everything's always going to be okay. Right. When
When she freaked out when he touched the back of her neck, he reassured her that he was just checking to make sure she was okay. I have a daughter your age, you know, and she bought it. Even if he never touched her neck. And I'm a person who falls asleep anywhere. Yeah, you do. For any reason. You and your cornaps. I slept in the car before this podcast after I got home from the gym. But yeah.
But yeah, like very trusting, I meant. Yes. So by this point, though, she wakes up. It's nighttime. They're heading in the wrong direction, coupled with that inappropriate contact he made with her. Not so trusting anymore. Right. She's beginning to think that there's something going on. And then she starts to realize he also wouldn't take the other hitchhikers in the van. She's piecing things together, right? And it's starting to make a very terrifying picture before her.
So Mary reaches beneath her seat to try to find anything she might be able to use as a weapon. When her hand grazed something long and metal, which turned out to be a ruler, she felt a bit empowered and she started to threaten Larry and to demand that he turn the van around.
Larry didn't appear too concerned by this metal ruler being wielded by a frightened 15-year-old girl. He just calmly apologized for making an honest mistake with the directions. He kept saying things like, I'm an old guy. I get a little bit confused. And he reassured Mary that he was not going to hurt her. He simply got confused and he made a wrong turn. Yeah. And Mary, 15-year-old naive Mary, bless her heart, chose to believe him. Yeah.
Though she did still have that gut feeling, which you just said right before recording, right? You're like, I always got to trust the gut. Yeah. Right? She still had that gut feeling that something was not right with the situation. Scary feeling, by the way. Very scary. And you're so helpless in that situation too. Yeah. She was made to feel even more uneasy when Larry did which of the following things next? My favorite part. Pop quiz. Pop quiz. A, stop.
Oh, boy. Okay. Ew. And I'm an alcoholic. And that, I've never heard anybody do that before. Well, which one are you going with, my friend?
So he either unzipped his pants, started menacingly sliding his tongue in and out of his mouth, his toothless grin, or drinking alcohol out of a milk container. I'm going to go with he unzipped his pants. No, sir. Okay, hold on. He did the tongue thing? Bro. Investigators later made that horrible, horrible answer up. Okay, so for once...
So far, the truth is worse than the ones that you made up. Drinking alcohol out of a milk carton is worse than somebody tooth fucking himself with his tongue. Come on. It's just less likely. Okay. Because I, listen, I don't know if people know this or not. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I've been sober for 20 years. I've gone to thousands of meetings, thousands.
And literally have never, ever, ever heard anybody say it got so bad. I was drinking alcohol out of a milk container. Wow. Ever. There's one story in the book that talks about a guy mixing whiskey with milk. Isn't that like a white Russian? But yeah, no, never. I'm going to bring that up to my friends. Okay. I'm going to tell them about this case. So Larry starts swigging alcohol out of a milk carton. You said he was a raging alcoholic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense.
Next up, Larry informs Mary that he needs to relieve himself, and he pulls the van off the main road that they were driving on and onto an abandoned side road near the Del Puerto Canyon in California. This area was so isolated and so deserted that all you could hear were the distant sounds of cicadas clicking in the darkness. The sky was like a pitch black velvet blanket, and the moon's light barely touched the deserted landscape.
Both Larry and Mary got out of the van, Larry to presumably relieve himself and Mary to stretch her legs. She got out too? Yeah. Listen, she'd been in the car for hours. Now, she gets out of the van, but she still has this gut feeling that something was wrong. But she felt confident and she actually had this thought process go through her brain. She felt confident that if need be, she could easily outrun this middle-aged overachiever
overweight, likely intoxicated man. Yeah, sure. So I feel like the threat radar went from like the red zone down when she like assessed the situation. So she does something smart at this point and she looks down at her sneakers and she sees that her laces are untied. And she's like, you know what? In case I need to make a run for it, let me tie these puppies up. And that's the last thing she remembers before her world went dark. Yeah.
Because when she bent over to tie her laces, Larry cracked Mary over the head with a sledgehammer. Oh my God. When she regained consciousness, Larry forced his penis into Mary's mouth and threatened to kill her if she refused to comply with all of his demands. Larry then dragged Mary back to the van and bound her hands behind her back.
Then he drove her even further into the darkness of the desert while forcing her to drink an unknown liquid out of a jug. Now, the contents of that jug remain unclear, but Mary is certain that it contained alcohol, perhaps among other things. It may have been some kind of cocktail. Some milk? Milk, perhaps. Definitely alcohol and maybe some type of drug. Larry untied Mary's hands, forced
forced her into the back of the van, and raped her repeatedly all through the night. What a fucking piece of shit. Beyond. Mary recalls wishing that he'd just kill her.
As the assaults were so vicious and so unrelenting that she just could not see how she'd be able to survive. That's like, like the fat old guy with the veiny nose and no teeth is like monstrous. Yeah. Not that it would be better if he was hot. No, no, certainly not. But,
I have to imagine there's an element of, an added element of... Horror. Horror. I think just to piggyback off that, for me, what would be the extra element of horror is the fact that he looked so trustworthy and harmless on the surface. Now, I know you're saying he looked like a monster. Yeah. But she describes him as looking like a grandfather. Exactly. Like just overweighted overalls on, you know what I mean? Like a harmless kind of...
out of shape dad. So I'm just realizing something right now. Self-serving is what it is. This is why people listen to true crime and watch true crime. What do you mean? In
In 1978, there was no true crime documentaries, podcasts. Obviously, there was no podcasts at all, but people were just a little bit more in the dark about how sick people could be. The whole thing of just him not wanting to take the other two girls, I'm good. That's enough. I don't need to hear anything else. Obviously, I don't know what it is. I don't know if you're going to kill me. I don't know if you're going to hit me with a sledgehammer or rape or whatever, but I just don't want to get in the vehicle with someone who's obviously trying to pull something off.
Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? I do. Like people are... I don't know if they're more scared or fearful, but I think a little bit of healthy dose of skepticism...
is good. A hundred percent. And again, I think a lot of that comes with age and maturity. Like the other two hitchhikers did have that. True. Yeah. You know, they were skeptical and they were hesitant and they were trying to get married to not get in the van. Yeah. And we've talked about this before, right? Like a 15 year old's brain quite literally is not developed to the point of being able to have that sense of thought. Yeah. Right. And seeing what the next step is, seeing cause and effect. If I do this, this might happen. Yeah. Right. Right.
So when the sexual assaults finally ended, Larry left Mary on the floor of the van, heaved his stark, naked, fat ass into the driver's seat, and drove a few miles down the canyon before stopping again. He drove naked? Yeah. Weirdo. That's a fucker, man. During that small drive, Mary passed out, and when she awoke, the sun was rising.
But the dawn of the new day did not bring an end to this nightmare for poor Mary. Instead, it presented a fresh new horror and one that would change the course of the rest of Mary's young life. Larry dragged Mary to the side of the road and forced her to lie down. She begged him to let her free and promised she wouldn't tell anyone about what he'd done to her. Yeah. But Larry didn't oblige. Instead, he looked at Mary and said...
You want to be free? I'll set you free. He then went back to his van and took out a toolbox from which he removed a hatchet. Then he swung.
Mary attempted to fight Larry off and to block the hatchet from slicing through her body. She reached out and grabbed Larry's arm with her left arm, but somehow felt herself simultaneously falling as she gripped him. How could that be? She wondered. I've grabbed onto him, yet I'm falling backwards. It was then that she realized to her horror that
that the hand she had used to grab onto Larry was connected to an arm that was no longer attached to her body. Yeah. Her left arm had been sliced clean off.
Horrible. Then, after wielding his hatchet an additional three times, Larry cut off Mary's right arm as well. Ugh. And in the midst of all her pain and shock and fear, Mary recalls looking over at Larry and seeing a very, very confusing sight. He was flailing around the desert wildly in this bizarre, frantic sort of manner.
It was then that she realized that he was trying to flick off her left arm, which was still tightly gripping his arm. She's a fucking beast. Oh my God. I have so much time for Mary Vincent. Yeah. Oh, Mary was conscious for every brutal moment of her dismemberment. Oh my God. She felt every nerve ending sharply firing off every shot of pain, every burning sensation, every,
She recounted feeling the hot ooze of her own blood gushing out of the holes left behind on her body where her limbs had once been. Cash does not like this. No, no. Our listeners can't see what just happened, but cash just got up and walked out.
Then Larry picked up the severely wounded girl and tossed her naked body over a railing and off a 30 foot cliff into a ravine. Sorry, say that one more time. So she's being dismembered. So her, her two arms have been dismembered. Two arms are definitely gone. Did he cut anything else? No. Okay. So arms are gone. Horrific, horrible. Then he throws her. She's completely naked from the assaults and,
and now without her arms. And he throws her off of a 30-foot cliff into a ravine. Mary broke four ribs on her way down and lay limp by the time her body hit the ground. Larry was certain she was dead. What a fucking piece of shit.
I don't know why I'm so angry at this guy. He's deplorable. Yeah. I mean, normally there's like, you know, I don't know, like I've like fucking people are crazy and they're tortured or whatever. This guy, I got no time for him. I don't give a fuck. I hope he is absolutely dead in the worst way possible. You'll find everything out. Oh, good. Okay. We'll get there.
So he felt she was dead by this point. And he thinks to himself, well, I got to conceal her body so that no one ever finds her remains. So Larry carefully climbs down the 30-foot cliff into the ravine, picks up Mary's broken body, and stuffs her into a concrete pipe. Then he whispered to her, okay, now you're free.
I'm going to fuck this guy up just in my mind's eye. Have you ever? No, terrible. Really, really bad. So he returned to his van, drove away, and left 15-year-old Mary for dead. He actually thought she was dead. Oh my God. I see you piecing things together. This is why we need to have video because I want our listeners to see your face right now.
I'm wondering how are all these details about the case out there? Yes. And it was only the hand that washed up. Yeah. Oh, fucking tell me more. She is a beast. Oh, yeah. So Larry made his way back through the San Joaquin Valley. It was the very early hours of the morning and hardly any people were out. He opened up his window and chucked Mary's severed limbs out of his moving car. Lorena Bobbitt style. Lorena Bobbitt style. That's right.
Mary was, as I said, completely naked, had broken ribs, was partially dismembered. Stuffed into a concrete pipe. Stuffed into a concrete pipe, rapidly losing blood. 15. And in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere. 15. 15. But guess what? She was not dead, nor was she alone.
Because Mary recalls hearing a distant voice in her mind urging her to stay awake and to stay alive. Wow. The voice told her that Larry would do this to someone else if she didn't get up, get out, and stop him. Wow. And this is when Mary thought, this is not the day I'm going to die. Not today, Larry. Well, what does this remind you of?
Peyton Lutner from the Slender Man stabbing case that we covered. Yeah. How she said not today and she fucking fought and she survived. Wow. And Peyton Lutner was a child as well. I am so emotional thinking about these young girls, these warriors. Yeah. Right? So Mary slowly slithered her way out of the concrete pipe using her core strength to move her along in the absence of having arms. Yeah.
She pulled herself up and started to walk towards the sound of traffic, which she could hear in like the very, very far distance. But how was she going to get over the 30-foot drop without having any hands or arms? And more urgently, how was she going to stop herself from profusely bleeding out of the stumps? Amazingly, she had the foresight, forethought? Wherewithal. Wherewithal, thank you.
To rub her, the stumps of where her arms used to be, into the ground. And she used the mud as a sort of coagulant to slow down the bleeding. Unbelievable. Then she began the painstaking climb back up the top of the ravine, which took her hours. Naked? Naked.
A whole other element. Absolutely. Obviously, listen, she's probably not thinking about whether or not she doesn't care. She's in survival mode. But as like an outsider, it's like that's just another... Element to contend with. Yeah. This determined, strong, epic child did it. Yeah. Once she was back on that abandoned road, she started to walk towards the highway or the freeway, as they call it out west.
Now, remember, she's barefoot. She's absolutely covered in blood. She's naked. And she has severed body parts. And probably not totally in shock because then she would die, but like shaken up for sure. Yeah. And also, this reminds me of the Toy Box Killer case, right? Remember when we talked about Cynthia Vigil running naked, completely bloody in the street and just praying that somebody pulls over? Yeah. Same scenario here. Yeah.
Oh.
The first car she saw was a red convertible containing two men inside. She thought this was her ticket to safety, but incredibly, crushingly, the car drove right past her. Probably terrified. Absolutely. Again, we've had this conversation before in our coverage of the Toy Box Killer case, which was our first and to date only two-parter.
And we had a discussion then, which we can have again a little bit here. Do we blame that car for not stopping? Listen, they're probably answering to their own conscience to this day if they're still alive about that. But in the moment, I mean, listen, I always think of Kitty Genovese, the woman who was murdered while everyone listened to her scream in the city. Do you know about that? No. You don't know the case of Kitty Genovese? No.
It was, I think it's when they coined the term bystander syndrome, which is when basically when you see something that needs doing, the more people that are around, the less likely it is that it'll be done. Yeah. Because you think, oh, fucking this person will. But whatever, if you're in the middle of the desert driving and you see somebody covered in blood, I personally think I would stop. But I understand why people would not. I will tell you that Mary...
never blamed them for not stopping. Yeah. In later interviews, she says that she completely understands why they didn't stop for her. She said that it must have looked like a scene out of a slasher film. Yeah. You know, I'd like to think that I would stop. Yeah. But I don't think I hold judgment against those who wouldn't. Yeah. But for those who wouldn't have stopped and these people who didn't stop, I really fucking hope that they would get to a phone and call the police. Like you can't just do like nothing either. You know?
But the next car that came by did stop. And it was a couple on their honeymoon who were driving around lost when they happened upon a brutalized girl on the side of the road. Yeah. Call it bad directions, call it fate. But whatever the reason for that couple being at that place at that time, it was miraculous. They immediately bundled Mary into their car, attended to her wounds with towels that they had, and drove to the nearest telephone to call for emergency services.
All Mary was able to say by that point to her rescuers was, he raped me. Mary was airlifted to the nearest hospital. By the time she arrived, she lost half of the blood in her body. Wow. And the blood that remained was filled with toxins by that point. From the dirt or from the whatever? I would say probably from the elements, from the dirt, from who knows how clean that hatchet was. Yeah.
But she survived. Wow, what an amazing person. Yeah. And a few days after getting to the hospital, she was able to provide a statement to the police complete with other useful information that they were able to use in their search for Larry Singleton. Pop quiz. What information did Mary provide to the police that helped them in their search for Larry?
A, the name of a grocery store in Nevada that Mary saw on a receipt for a milk carton in his van. B, a license plate number that was traced back to Larry's van. Okay. Or C, a detailed physical description that was used to create a composite sketch. Okay.
A detailed physical conscription, whatever. Excellent job, my friend. Yeah. She was able to describe Larry's face so accurately that a very, very detailed composite sketch was created and shared on all the news platforms. The media dubbed the man in the composite the Mad Chopper.
Incredibly, and almost immediately, Larry's neighbor, a 43-year-old housewife named Sandra Rubin... Another hero? Another hero recognized and identified him based on the composite sketch. Now, the use of composites or suspect sketches to aid in criminal investigations has been a law enforcement tool for centuries, literally. It was, I think, originated in France.
Wow. And the process involves, as I'm sure we all know, a forensic artist interviewing a witness to collect descriptions of the perpetrator's facial traits and characteristics.
The artist then sketches the facial image, which is later utilized by law enforcement to generate potential investigative leads, right? They show it in newspapers, TV, and nowadays social media. Do they ask specific... Obviously, they ask different types of questions than, like, what does he look like? Right. So in a forensic interview, you have to be careful not to lead the witness, and that's why it has to be done by...
a forensic artist versus like a street artist, for example, right? Even the way we interview our clients at the law firm, there has to be forensic interviewing because you have to be very, very careful not to lead, not to plant ideas that you may harbor. Yeah. Right. So it's done in a very, very careful way. There's different tools that they use when describing, say, the eyes and the distance of the eyes from the nose and the, you know. I don't think I could describe any
anybody's face. Really? If I ever get, you know, attacked or robbed or whatever, like the face that comes out of my interview is just going to be a ghost blob. Yeah.
It's going to be like, what was the sketch that we shared with each other years ago? Yes. It's going to be like the leprechaun. Yes. They're sharing a sketch of the leprechaun. Just the worst. Oh my God. You know what? We're definitely going to post that on our socials when this episode comes out. You know what we should do is get a forensic artist to interview me to describe the
Anyone. My wife. Right, right. And see how far off it is. I'm totally for that. Okay. And I apologize in advance to your wife. Oh, she's going to look terrible. Now, hard statistics are actually difficult to come by with respect to how successful composites are. But estimates range anywhere from 8% to 20% successful, meaning that the vast majority of the time that composite sketches are used, they
they don't prove to be beneficial. Yeah, because it's so hard to describe somebody's face. I mean, nowadays it's like computer generated, so it's different, but it's still, you know, it renders a lot of time and effort creating these sketches and typically it doesn't prove fruitful. Well, the way they do it now where they're like, here's nine noses, which one do you think is closest to it? Here's nine cheekbones, here's nine eyes, here's nine lips, like...
you could get closer with that. And they're obviously not completely worthless investigative tools or A, they would stop doing it and B, we see success cases and this is one of them, right? So like Mary understandably endured
like a very slow recovery from her significant injuries, but she was clearly able to describe her attacker. He may have also had a very specific face. He did. So when I described his veiny bulbous nose, that is very characteristic of people who struggle with alcoholism. So it wasn't just he had a big nose. It was characteristic of somebody with an alcohol abuse problem. Drinking milk, alcohol out of milk containers. Right.
muscle from Mary's right leg had to be used to reconstruct part of one of her arms, which in turn left her leg permanently weakened. She was fitted with two prosthetic arms with pinchers on the ends, and she had no choice really but to return back to her family in Las Vegas, who she was fleeing from when this whole nightmare began. Only this time when she returned, it was with a shattered dream of becoming a Las Vegas dancer.
Larry was indeed tracked down and apprehended by police. Of course, the story he told law enforcement and later told a jury was vastly different from the one told by Mary Vincent. Of course. According to Larry, he picked up Mary along with two other hitchhikers in Berkeley, California, whose names were Pedro and coincidentally, Larry. What was the other guy's name? Uh, Larry? I'm a fucking idiot. I can only think of one name. Like, Larry.
other name bro like any other fucking name it was uh it was uh it was uh Larry and uh it was uh Lawrence
He claims that he and all of the hitchhikers went to a bar together, got drunk, smoked weed that 15-year-old Mary provided, and then all paid Mary to have sex with them. And cut her arms off. Larry even referred to Mary during trial as a $10-a-night whore. What a fucking piece of shit. Yeah.
I'm going to say, I just said it again. I know, because it just sums it up. After these alleged men all had sex with 15-year-old Mary, Larry Singleton fell asleep in the back of his van. Remember, everyone, this is his version of events. Yeah. And when he woke up, the other Larry was driving the van towards San Francisco. He was naked too. And Mary Vincent was gone. According to Larry Singleton, anything that happened to Mary in terms of her...
her having her arms brutally hacked off must have happened while he was asleep, which meant that Pedro and the other Larry were the culprits. Yeah. He then dropped Pedro and Larry number two off near San Francisco and never saw them again. And they must have done it very quietly because he was sleeping. He slept through these sexual assaults. Like a rock. Right. Although I guess he claims that they all paid her for sex and he slept through them hacking her to pieces. Yeah. Crazy. Come on the fuck on, do better. What a great sleeper.
One of Mary Vincent's hands, as mentioned earlier, was found near the Golden Gate Bridge, 90 miles away from where it had been amputated in Del Puerto Canyon. Holy crap. Ten days later, all of Mary's clothing that she'd been wearing during the attack, as well as a pack of her cigarettes, were in fact discovered in Larry's home. Oh, I thought you were going to say they floated down too. Nope.
He had attempted to burn all of these items, but they were still recoverable. So he obviously didn't try very hard. Man, for someone who didn't do anything. Right. Well, you have to read the police interviews. I mean, they're almost comical. Because when he's trying to obviously... Well, he does more than just suggest that he didn't do it. He actually plays the victim card himself. Yeah. And the response of investigators is exactly how you just said it. Like...
So all of her clothes that we found partially burned, coincidence. So the bloody hatchet we found in the back of your van, not yours. You know what I mean? Like they just fuck with him. And it's really actually entertaining to read that.
He probably felt that they'd never be able to connect it all back to him. With the arm being found in California and her clothing being found in his house in Nevada, it had been discovered several days following the brutal rapes, dismemberment, and attempted murder of Mary Vincent that something else happened that further pointed to his guilt.
Pop quiz. What happened several days after Mary's attack? A. Larry contacted his estranged daughter, drunk, and repeatedly apologized for causing so much pain to her and the world. B. Larry stalked a 13-year-old girl outside of a roller rink until the girl's father found him lurking in the shadows and called the police. Oh my God. C. Larry attempted to commit suicide by swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills.
D, all of the above. Oh, it's D. No, it isn't. Oh, I knew that. I knew that. No, I didn't. B.
He stalked a 13-year-old? Yeah. No. Called his daughter? Nope. Wow, I'm really crushing this one. So he attempted suicide by taking a bunch of sleeping pills? Yeah. And what does that mean in terms of the case? So he was professing his innocence, and then days after his interview, he tries to kill himself. It just sheds light on his conscience, perhaps if you want to even say he has a conscience. Didn't look good, Larry. Didn't look great, and he knew it. Yeah.
A few days after the suicide attempt is when Larry was actually arrested. And that's when he, you know, went on to give all of these... Oh, he was just questioned before that? He was just questioned before. So he claims that he had no idea why Mary was falsely accusing him of committing such awful acts of brutality. During his police interview, Larry said...
Now, what did I do to make her mad is what I'm trying to figure out. What is he fucking from? He reminds me of a character from I Think You Should Leave. Oh, you love that show. What did I do to make her mad? Right. Well, you fucking cut her arms off, dude, and raped her. Well, the detective responded with, she wasn't mad. She was in pain. Yeah. She was barely conscious. She described you and continued to describe you all the way along.
All the way through. And let me tell you, Mr. Singleton, she's not mad at you. She feels sorry for you. Oh, man. Her arms can be replaced with other devices, but your mind can't. Wow. Burned. That's a fucking sick burn. I mean, the cops in this case, respect. Yeah.
Five months after leaving the hospital, Mary Vincent took the stand for three hours and 20 minutes before the county grand jury to testify against Larry Singleton at his trial. A few times she came very close to breaking down, but she kept going.
She told the judge and jury all the details of what he'd done to her in the desert and refused to refer to him as anything other than my attacker. Good for her. Mary also positively ID'd Larry in a lineup of six photographs in front of the grand jury.
In March of 1979, the jury in San Diego, California convicted Lauren Singleton of kidnapping, mayhem, attempted murder, forcible rape, sodomy, and forced oral copulation. Wow, what's mayhem?
yes, I knew you were going to go there. So there are two things in that conviction that I was fascinated by. One of them is mayhem, which I'm going to get into. And the other one was the term forcible rape because rape by definition is forcible. Yeah. So I looked into it. That's where my mind went to because there's different levels of rape, just even in modern day law. So what does that qualifier mean? Right. So,
So basically, forcible rape is an outdated legalese term that was created in 1927 and has since been changed in 2012 to drop the word forcible as well as the term female, which existed in the original definition as well. So the original definition, which applied...
here in Mary Vincent's case, given how long ago this happened, was something along the lines of forced vaginal or anal intercourse where the use of violence or the threat of violence is used against the female victim. And that was created in 1927. Right. When Larry was born. Oh, wow.
Ooh. Did it just for him. Wowee. Nice connection. Yeah. So the current term does not have the word forcible. It's rape. Yeah. And it also eliminates gender because as we well know, men can of course be raped as well. Yeah.
Now, mayhem, getting back to your earlier question, right, which Larry Singleton was also convicted of, was a term developed in the 13th century in England and Wales to mean the act of disfigurement or defacement inflicted on a person by an intentional act or in a fight with such a person. We now call it aggravated assault, basically. Wow, but mayhem is...
Pretty cool word. Yeah. It's a little like, I don't know, medieval or something, right? Yeah, yeah. All right. Now getting back to the case. So the court evaluated Larry and determined that his memory and thought processes were normal and that he wasn't delusional or experiencing any type of mental illness that may have interfered with his ability to understand right from wrong at the time of the attack.
The only thing that popped up from his past was a correlation between excess alcohol consumption and violent outbursts. In fact, alcohol abuse experts were consulted by the prosecution to determine whether a person in an alcoholic blackout could commit that type of crime that Larry was on trial for and then have no memory of it afterwards. Yeah. If the answer to that question would have come back, yes,
then Larry's defense could have argued diminished capacity. Yeah. But the answer came back as no. So while it's possible that he suffered an alcohol-induced blackout, the consumption of alcohol would not have entirely eliminated his moral code. He was, in other words, entirely responsible for his heinous actions. Yeah. I went on a field trip to jail when I was in my senior year of high school before I even got bad with the drinking. And there was a girl in there who's... I'm sorry, it was a woman who's...
new cellmate was a young girl, probably in her late teens, early twenties, who was in a blackout. She remembers two things, meeting a guy at a train station and then running through pools of his blood. However, point of me telling the story is that even back then, it never made me think or occurred to me that this person would not be responsible for their actions. You're still responsible. Maybe you can argue whether or not you're accountable if you were there mentally, whatever, like, yeah, sure you were blacked out, but your body is
And your person still did that crime. Like you have to be held accountable. Right. And in either scenario, you're held accountable. It's just different. It's treatment versus prison. And it's obviously your sentencing is impacted by what you're deemed to be, right? Mentally ill or just a bad apple. Yeah. Right. It's that bad versus mad kind of debate. Yeah. Larry Singleton was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to 14 years behind bars and
10 years for attempted murder and four years for the rape, sodomy, and forced oral copulation charges. Wait, that's it? Yeah. Another great reaction. You're totally on point. Disgustingly lenient. 28 years? 14. Oh, I thought you said 14, 10, and 4. No, no. I was breaking down what the 14-year sentence was. 14 years total? Yeah. I thought you were going to tell me he got sentenced to...
832 years of prison time. Like life plus like you're just going to die here, dude. That's what he should have received. Yeah. There was an absolute national outburst in response to this sentence. Wow. It was disgustingly lenient. But
But on the way out of the courtroom, Mary had to walk past Larry. And while walking past her attacker, piece of shit Larry Singleton whispered to Mary, if it's the last thing I do, I will finish the job. Wow. That's fucking scary. Yep.
Now, in 1988, Mary won a $2.56 million judgment against Larry, which was meaningless because Larry only had $200 to his name, which meant that Mary could not collect. So now she's left with nothing financially. And her attacker, who has just vowed to finish the job, was only sentenced to 14 years. By the way, having already served 225 of those days while waiting for trial, that's basically 13 years left. Wow.
Somehow, Mary Vincent was expected to carry on with life, having that terrifying threat lingering over her, as well as all of her new physical challenges. But the real damage was to her psyche, understandably. Nothing for her would ever be the same. She was constantly reminded of her attack and attacker, each and every time she gazed at her own reflection in the mirror or down at her own amputated limbs.
Whenever her prosthetics were removed, say at nighttime or when she was getting ready for bed, she was rendered helpless. She couldn't use the bathroom, open a door, scratch an itch. She had to finish her education at a school dedicated to children with special access needs and was deprived of a future as a professional dancer, which we mentioned was a very big deal to her. Mary's family was completely torn apart.
And she had to enter, obviously, psychotherapy, saying in a later interview the following.
He took away my pride, esteem, and childhood. I mean, this isn't living. This is existing. Yeah. I'm haunted when I wake up. I'm haunted when I'm sleeping. It won't leave. It's always there. Yeah, of course. And yet, it was Larry who constantly complained about his mental state during his time incarcerated. What a bitch. He said...
I was held in a 3G tank without any lights and cockroaches running in my ear until I finally got moved. I wasn't allowed a full night's sleep either. I don't see how I kept my sanity. They took my mind away from me. Oh, you fucking little bitch. I feel nothing for you. Yeah, no. Again, I think all of the cases we've done so far, there's been some kind of element of like,
Maybe the background story gives a little bit of context to why the people are the way they are. You know, they're just out of their minds. This guy, for some reason, I just want to,
I don't know. I think you're right. And I always like to know the full picture and I tend to reserve judgment for like anyone. I'm never on the perpetrator side ever. Yeah. But like I can typically say, oh, that's why he did it. I don't excuse it. Yeah. I don't forgive it, but I understand it. I think because his backstory is lacking in all the sources that
Like you said, doesn't provide the context. So he doesn't get the benefit of that reaction from me. Something about what he did and the way he did it. So, right. There was zero remorse and he's taunting her. He taunted her. Yeah, maybe it's the taunting. The taunting. Yeah, we're arriving at what it is here. He taunts her. He writes letters to her attorneys from behind bars, continuing to threaten her. So it's like...
Listen, I wouldn't have excused him or forgiven him, but if he stood up in trial and said to her, I am so sorry. Stick to your fucking bullshit story. I was so drunk. I don't remember whatever. Yeah. I hope you can forgive me. I will spend the rest of my life, you know, torturing myself. I'll be haunted by this. Right. Don't worry. You obviously are going to be haunted by it as well, but at least you have a person that's also suffering with you. And I'm the perpetrator and I'm wrong, obviously, but at least like,
Yeah, this guy, is he dead? Pop quiz. All right. What happens next? Is he dead or false?
What happened next in the timeline of Larry Singleton's incarceration, right? So he's incarcerated and he's whining and bitching that there are cockroaches and he can't sleep. Complaining that the meatloaf isn't hot enough. Right. A, he was given an additional five to seven years after attacking another inmate in the prison yard and cutting off two digits of his left hand. I love chopping things. B, he was released on parole for good behavior after serving just eight years. Hmm.
See, his conviction was overturned just 15 months into his sentence after his attorney found a misstep in police procedure. No. I'm just hoping that it's A. No. He got out after eight years? Yes. Yes. As if 14 years wasn't disgusting enough, was such a lack of justice, he got out after eight years. Wow. Wow.
Wild. Wild.
Because he is so out of touch with his hostility and anger, he remains an elevated threat to others' safety inside and outside prison. For sure. And then they sent him out after eight years with that. He's probably going to kill again, but we're just going to open the gates and let him walk free. Well played, Tank. You ready? Yeah.
Oh, no. Yeah. So this was an extremely high-profile case. Everyone everywhere knew about the depraved acts of Larry Singleton. Every community where Larry moved...
would riot and retaliate in protest, each one prevailing and getting him relocated. Good. Fuck this guy. Let him move around for the rest of his life. And when he'd move locations, he would require the protection of armed guards and a bulletproof vest, given the uproar and visceral contempt that society had for his existence. Yeah.
The only viable option in terms of shelter for Larry was a trailer placed on the property of the San Quentin State Prison. Wow. During the entirety of his one-year parole period. He was on parole for a year? Yep. Oh, my God. And after that parole period ended, he was allowed to leave the state of California a completely free man. Wow.
On April 25th, 1988, after his parole period ended, Larry left California. What else did Larry do upon his official release from parole? Pop quiz. A, track down his estranged daughter to borrow money. Sexually assault a teenager behind a Sears department store after shoplifting a power drill. Or C, file a legal complaint against Mary Vincent for falsely accusing him of rape. Oh my God.
Jesus. B, this sexual assault, a teenager. No. No. He, did he file a complaint against Mary? He sure did. What a fucking loser. Yep. Listen to this. He filed a complaint against Mary saying that she falsely accused him of rape while threatening him with a weapon in the van. Remember the ruler? Yeah. Yep. Yep.
He claims that she threatened to stick him in the eyes and in the stomach and that he feared for his life. So this middle-aged Korean war vet was scared of a 15-year-old helpless hitchhiker. In a hitchhiker outfit from Amazon. Right. Obviously, the court dismissed the complaint. Okay. But like the chutzpah. Yeah. Right? The balls on this guy. Yeah.
But this does provide a glimpse into Larry's psychological state, right? And we see that he continues to view himself as the victim to maintain his ridiculous story in which Mary is the lying, untrustworthy villain. In fact, he maintained that the reason why he severed Mary's arms that night in the desert was out of self-defense. Yeah, sure.
It's all about reduced responsibility for this guy. So 10 years have now passed in this case. It's February 1997, and Larry's now living in Florida. He introduces himself as Bill when he meets people, and he had a penchant for sex workers. So one night, he decides to bring a sex worker named Roxy Hayes back to his home. Right after putting on the condom, Larry and Roxy got into a disagreement regarding the price of Roxy's upcoming services. Ha ha ha.
Larry had been drinking and he was now properly angry, which as we know is not a great combination for him. He went into his kitchen and he grabbed a knife. When he returned to the bedroom, Roxy started to scream and run. But Larry caught the terrified woman before she could escape and plunged the knife into her body seven times. And then she said the saddest thing I have ever heard.
While bleeding out and dying on the bedroom floor of Larry Singleton's house, she whispered, hold me. Larry dropped the knife, wrapped his arms around Roxy and rocked her as a father might rock his child until she died.
Then he attached a rope to Roxy's ankle in an effort to drag her body out to his van so he could dispose of it. But he was too drunk, and then he was also interrupted by the doorbell. It was a cop.
It turns out that a house painter saw what was happening through his window and called the cops. Good. Larry actually immediately confessed to murdering this woman. The prosecution sought the death penalty. On February 20th, 1998, Larry was found guilty of murder in the first degree.
And guess who came to speak at his sentencing hearing to advocate that he received the death penalty? Mary. Mary Vincent. The now 35-year-old mother of two had a few things to say. Yeah. She talked about the brutal rape, mutilation, and abandonment in a concrete pipe in the middle of the desert. When the jury deliberated, they came back with a vote of 10 to 2 in favor of the death penalty by electric chair. Mm-hmm.
But in 2001, Larry died of cancer in a prison hospital in North Florida.
When people talk about the Mary Vincent case, the general vibe is complete outrage over the lenient sentencing that not only deprived Mary of true justice, but also allowed for the death of Roxy Hayes to happen. The only positive outcome that came out of this was that all of the public outrage over Larry's sentence, the initial one where he really only served eight years, resulted in legislation supported by Mary that
which prevents the early release of offenders who have committed a crime in which torture was used. This led to the passage of California's Singleton Bill, which prevents the early release of offenders who commit crimes involving torture. So now the minimum sentence for that type of crime is 25 years. Okay, good. And now we're at the end. So Mary definitely struggled a bit in her adult life.
She and her husband ended up divorcing, and she was a single mom for a bit trying to make ends meet. But more recently, she's gone down a new path, one that brings her joy and much-needed and much-deserved light. Pop quiz. What is Mary Vincent's new path in life?
A, she's become an artist. B, she's become an advocate for victims' rights. C, she's running for local office to help get policies changed in more areas of the law. She's running for local office. No, but I said that really convincingly, I feel like. Yeah, she became an artist? Yeah, she did. So she's become an artist and she portrays powerful women as female action figures who are self-assured and ready to fight.
And I'm going to leave off with something that Mary told the Los Angeles Times when she was talking about the fact that she no longer finally considers herself a victim. And she said this.
Most people, if they ever put their mind in the position where something like this happens to them, they would probably still be in the hospital now, being a vegetable. But I've accepted so much in my life. I need to share that letting them, the public, know this isn't going to get me down and nothing will.
End quote. End case. You're a champion, Mary Vincent. Yeah, she is. She's a warrior. Thank you for doing all that work. And thank you for listening to the listeners. Yes, thank you to our listeners. It was my pleasure to do the work.
Fuck Larry Singleton. And we love Mary Vincent. We're Mary Vincent stans now. I am personally. I'm going to look her up, which is very rare that I look somebody up from a case. That's the sign of a good case. Yeah. I want to know what she's doing. I want to write her a letter and say exactly the opposite of what Larry Singleton said in his letters. Good. Good for you. Yeah. All right. So thank you for listening and we'll see you next week. Bye everyone.