Crime Gives Victim’s Fortunes Unexpected Lift Outpouring Of Support Renews Woman’s Faith In People

Larry Singleton’s alleged homicidal rage against a Florida prostitute last month has brought an ironic, unexpected blessing to the woman he raped, mutilated and left for dead in 1978 - her first new set of artificial arms in nearly 19 years.

Mary Bell Vincent, a 33-year-old single mother of two boys in Tacoma, said Friday she’s been overwhelmed by a national outpouring of caring notes and contributions - as small as two single dollar bills and as large as a new $15,000 set of limbs.

Hundreds of donors have sent more than $30,000 to a trust fund after learning Vincent was scrimping by and unable to repair her cable-controlled pincers - her arms since Singleton savagely hacked off her limbs - even as her attacker was living comfortably in Florida.

Now, the man whose memory still haunts her has, in “a blood-curdling irony,” as her attorney puts it, given her fortunes an unexpected lift.

“I’m overwhelmed by the love that’s out there,” Vincent said in a telephone interview Friday. “I had no idea there were so many nice people out there. I’d started having my doubts, seriously.”

On Monday, experts from NovaCare, a Pennsylvania artificial-limb company specializing in arms and hands, flew to Tacoma to fit Vincent with a free pair of arms. Her ill-fitting, broken and cracked originals had left her stumps “literally black and blue,” a company expert said.

After a 10-day process of measuring, molding, building and fitting the replacements, Vincent should get her new arms by Friday, said John Miguelez, a company vice president. The arms should last three to seven years, he said.

Singleton is accused of plunging a 6-inch boning knife repeatedly into Roxanne Hayes, 31, a prostitute whose naked, blood-stained body was found in his cottage. A grand jury in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday formally charged him with first-degree murder. He has yet to enter a plea.

The 69-year-old former merchant seaman had become a symbol of a lax criminal justice system, after spending only 8 years, 4 months in a California prison for his crimes against Vincent. Angered lawmakers toughened sentencing as a result of his case.

But as public anger faded, so did the memory of Vincent, who’d fallen on hard times, sleeping sometimes last year in a car with her son to keep warm. She’d been living day-to-day, always dreading her attacker, always working to get by.

Singleton’s arrest last month, she said, reawakened her many fears and again thrust her story - the brutalized teenager who will always suffer and the unrepentant attacker who got off easy - onto the public stage. News stories rallied help.

“It’s a blood-curdling irony that, God forbid, a woman had to pay with her life (to rekindle interest in Vincent’s plight),” said Mark Edwards, her attorney and friend.

Although she had the option of choosing from fancier models of arms - including high-tech versions that sense pressure and heat - Vincent chose an updated version of the hook-like limbs she’s used to eat, fold laundry, drive a car, almost anything.

“Right now,” Vincent said, “I need a lot of security blankets and I’m used to these things; it’s like second nature to me.”

For a woman whose sense of safety vanished more than 18 years ago, Vincent also said her old-style hooks can be used for protection. “There have been times when I was really scared and thought I was going to get attacked,” she said Friday. “These things could be used as a weapon.”

The new pair should be “lighter, more durable and substantially more comfortable,” said Miguelez, who is helping with the fitting.

“There are a lot of people who say they need things,” he said, “but you spend an hour with Mary and it’s painfully obvious that she needs somebody to come in and help her out. … Give her a push start, and she can do the rest for herself.”

Edwards, the Santa Ana attorney administering Vincent’s trust fund, said more than 1,000 letters have poured in, some with checks, nearly all with encouragement.

The donations include a personal check from a Catholic bishop. For those who earmarked their contribution for only her arms, Edwards said the money will pay for maintenance, or for an upgrade on her new pair. Or he will contact the donor to see if it could go for her other needs - housing, transportation, or college for her boys.

While buoyed by the personal notes, she’s had to ration them.

“I’ve just read a few of them and I started to choke up, crying,” said Vincent.

An 88-year-old man and his 92-year-old wife, who get by on Social Security, wrote that they were concerned enough to enclose a contribution. Another woman - one of many with such a message - simply tried to restore Vincent’s faith in people.

“It touched my heart,” Vincent said. “The letter said, ‘I’m sorry you lost your faith in the system. The people in America are still good people. There are still good people out there.’ “

Many letter-writers also said they’d sometimes wondered about the fate of the adventurous, hitch-hiking girl who’d stepped into Larry Singleton’s van near a Berkeley freeway. Many said they’d always admired her spirit in the face of cruelty.

“Please don’t think that because he took your arms that he also took your soul,” one woman said, “because such a soul as yours could never be diminished by such a stupid and senseless act.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: DONATIONS Donations may be sent to: Mary Vincent Fund, c/o Mark E. Edwards Trust account, 1800 East 17th St., Suite 101, Santa Ana, Calif. 92705-8604. Checks should be made out to the Mary Vincent Fund.