Hi everyone, I’m Julie Mattson, and in this episode of Pushing Up Lilies, I’m sharing the unforgettable and courageous story of Mary Vincent. Back in 1978, in California, 15-year-old Mary was just trying to get home when she accepted a ride from a man named Lawrence Singleton, a decision that would change her life forever. What followed was an unthinkable... Join me as we take a deep dive into the life of this courageous woman who not only survived a brutal attack, but found the strength to face her attacker in court and help change a California law to protect others. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey y'all, this is the week for decomposed bodies. It has been this way for I guess a couple of weeks now. I mean in Texas, it's super hot. It has not been as hot as it used to be, but I had two what we call decomps last week and they weren't there for a long time.
00:53
The crazy thing is the houses were warm, and the men were relatively small. So, there was like air or a fan blowing on them and so their skin was super dry, and it wasn't like real slimy like we do see sometimes.
01:13
There was not a lot of bug activity. I mean there was a little bit because we do see that the blowflies lay eggs pretty quick. There were some maggots and there were flies mostly on the windows, but neither one of them had a lot of insect activity.
01:29
One gentleman had left his back door cracked for his cats and a couple of them were missing. That's kind of always distressing for family because many times there are animals in the house and mostly cats hide from us.
01:47
Dogs, you know, they're going to bark, and we're going to see them and probably try to corral them into a room where we can shut the door because they tend to be very possessive and protective as their owners.
01:59
The cats are gonna hide. So this gentleman's cats there was a large one I never saw it but there was a large one apparently that hid under the bed in his bedroom and apparently according to family when we called to notify them there were two others so he had a total of three we don't know where they are I never found them.
02:20
The son said that usually they come home, so I guess in that case, the best thing to do, would be to leave the back door open although we hate to leave residences unsecured because if neighbors or someone else finds out that the person who lived there is deceased then their house could get broken into. And if we just leave the door open we just make it easier for the criminals.
02:44
Anyway, long story short a week of decomps a week of hangings I personally love going on decomps and I think that's because the puzzle pieces are a little bit harder to put together, I did get a call. I found this super funny and y'all may not appreciate it as much as I do.
03:02
But every once in a while, and I know I've told y'all this before, the story somewhat changes from the person who originally reports it. When you go back to the event that occurred that preceded the death, the stories just don't jive.
03:19
So, I got a call from our dispatch yesterday and they said, we have a drowning. I was like, okay, not unusual. It's summer in Texas. People were out in their pools. They gave me the address of an apartment complex.
03:32
I thought, okay, it's probably someone drowned in the pool in the apartments. And so, I'm expecting to go on a scene. I tell dispatch to keep the call open because I'll probably call them soon, get in my car and head that direction to take photos and do my thing.
03:49
And so anyway, long story short, I call the police officer and I'm asking him questions, and he proceeds to tell me that the person is not far from my age, which is sometimes disheartening. It's a little bit scary when you think about it, but not healthy, it has an extensive medical history.
04:08
However, she was sitting on the commode and actually became unresponsive and collapsed forward. And when she did that, her head went into the bathtub. There was no water in the bathtub, which is a very important question, as you can imagine.
04:24
And the first question that I'm going to ask, mainly because I've been told it's a drowning and I'm like, oh, okay. Was she running a bath while she was on the commode? And then when she fell forward, the tub was full and her head was submerged.
04:40
And, you know, in that case, it would be, was she already deceased? Did she take a breath? Was there water in her lungs, which are things that we would find out on autopsy. But the fact of the matter is the bathtub was dry.
04:55
It did not have water in it. It had not resettled. had water in it. No one pulled the drain to let water out. She simply toppled over as she became unresponsive, and her head went into the dry empty bathtub.
05:13
Things like that are very important for us to tell our doctors because you know if there was water and our head was submerged of course we'd have to rule out a drowning because we would have no way of knowing at the scene if she had actually swallowed water or if she was deceased at the time her head went underwater.
05:31
It's kind of interesting when you think about you know you have to ask all of those questions and the answers to all of those questions are so important. That's what we do every day you know, we think okay, how can I get my questions answered?
05:48
What kind of questions is my doctor gonna have when I tell them what happened or when I tell them about the death? What are they gonna want to know? What can I tell them that will help them put the pieces together, the puzzle pieces together to help make them decide was it a drowning?
06:07
Was it a natural death? Now this person was morbidly obese with hypertension. And so of course we take those things into consideration because we know that even though she may not have been diagnosed with a lot of medical problems, she definitely had them.
06:27
I mean, you cannot be overweight with hypertension and be the healthiest person on earth. I mean, you're not an 18-year-old with no diagnoses. You are on medications. You are followed by a physician, and you have issues that a doctor sees you for.
06:47
All of those things are important. And so that's, I think what I love about this job is being able to put all the pieces together, looking at all the different elements of health problems versus situation.
07:01
This particular person had just been seen 10 minutes ago. She wasn't in the bathroom overnight. She didn't run a bath the night before. The tub didn't have water in it. Her head was not submerged. But had I just listened to our dispatch and taken the drowning and ran with it, this case would have been autopsy or come into the medical examiner's office for an inquest when it's really not necessary.
07:32
We do like to put all those pieces of the puzzle together. That's the accuracy that is required of our job is what I think I don't think a lot of people understand. We do have to ask the right questions of the right people.
07:49
And sometimes we have to ask the same question of more than one person because many times we do get different answers. Like what if. If I had talked to the daughter who found her and the daughter told me a different story, then I'm going to have to delve a little bit deeper into perhaps talking to EMS when you got there.
08:10
Was her head submerged? Was there water in the tub? Was the tub wet? Did it appear that someone had pulled the drain plug so the water could be released? Was her face wet? Was her body wet? All of those questions, just to get definite answers so that we can let our doctors know exactly what happened prior to the death.
08:28
Just kind of a little heads up, that's kind of what we deal with on a daily basis. Many times we'll get a call from hospital staff, and what we're told happened in a motor vehicle accident is not at all what happened.
08:43
It was told by the first person who took a report when this person came in through the emergency room by EMS, and the story has changed gradually every time a report was given to a different nurse. Just a little bit was added or a little bit was subtracted to the point that the story is completely different than what actually occurred.
09:05
And it's not on purpose. It just happens because let's admit it, you nurses know, you know, we're short staffed. We have a lot to remember. We have a lot to keep up with. We have critical patients that we're trying to take care of.
09:21
And sometimes those details that seem small to us are very big to the medical examiner. I know it's a hard job. And anytime I hear another investigator make a comment about a nurse misspeaking or telling the wrong story, I know that they have never been on the other side of things.
09:41
They've never been a nurse whose main job is to save someone's life, whose main job is not to memorize the story so that they can regurgitate it to the medical examiner. These are things that we have to think about, and we have to give mercy to our caregivers who are actually taking care of these people and trying to keep them alive.
10:03
Anyway, that's my two cents that this week I want to remind y'all October 11th at Prairie House Restaurant, Crossroads, Texas, we are having our first annual Pushing Up Lilies murder mystery dinner. This dinner is going to be so much fun.
10:21
It's going to be a masquerade thing. You can wear pretty much whatever you want to. It's going to be fun. Y'all we're going to have giveaways. Again, I'm not an actor. I have paid actors who are going to play out this murder mystery for you.
10:35
And also, the people who are attending are going to have the opportunity to take part in the play. And you could actually be the one who's murdered. I think it'll be so much fun. Go to my website www.pushinguplilies.com and you can purchase tickets.
10:53
You can also go to eventwright.com and order your tickets. There aren't many left. Again, we're only selling 60. I believe we have less than half left. So, if you really want to come, if you've thought about coming, I highly encourage you to go online and purchase your tickets so that you don't miss out because really we have limited space.
11:15
Now I want to talk this week about Mary Vincent. In September of 1978, on a quiet stretch of road near Modesto, California, a young girl stood there with her thumb out hoping to catch a ride. She was only 15 years old, and she couldn't know that the next person who stopped would become her worst nightmare.
11:40
Before the night was over, she would be assaulted, mutilated, and thrown into the ravine and left for dead. But Mary Vincent refused to die. She was a survivor. This is her story. And it's a story of horror, survival, resilience, and justice.
12:00
It still echoes more than 40 years later. Mary Vincent is the girl who refused to die. Mary Vincent was like so many teenagers, restless and searching, ready to get away. She'd run away from home and was on her way to Berkeley, hoping to find comfort at her grandfather's house.
12:21
I don't know how many of y'all have ever hitchhiked. I personally have never hitchhiked. I can remember when I was a kid, though, when I was with my parents, driving into town, we would always see hitchhikers.
12:34
It's not as frequent now, especially in Texas. It may be in the area that you live in, but in Texas, we just don't see it that much anymore. I think people are genuinely scared, not only to pick up hitchhikers, but also to be a hitchhiker.
12:49
It's scary. The world has changed a lot since 1978, but hitchhiking was common in the 70s. It was dangerous, but in that era, it was just a part of American life. And for Mary, who was 15, she didn't have a car.
13:06
She needed to get to her grandfather's house, and that was truly her only option. So, on September 29, she waited near Modesto, California, just hoping that someone would give her a ride. Now a blue van pulled up, and behind the wheel was a man in his 50s.
13:26
Not old, because I'm in my 50s. His name was Lawrence Singleton. He was a former merchant seaman. He was gray haired and was an almost grandfatherly guy. You know, sometimes you look at people and you're like, oh, he looks so sweet.
13:42
He looks so nice. And sometimes they just have the best personality, and they're so friendly, and you want to trust them. You want to believe that they're genuinely good people, but you can't believe what you think might be the case.
13:59
Just because they're gray-headed, they look older, they look like somebody that you could take in a dark alley, you can't always trust that. So, at first Mary hesitated, but something about him, you know, made her a little uneasy.
14:16
And when another car of hitchhikers pulled up, they refused to get in with Singleton because they sensed danger. But Singleton, you know, kept saying he only wanted to help. You know, he was a good guy, he said he was going the same way, he wanted to help her out, he understood her situation, and so Mary believed him, and she climbed into the van.
14:41
Now, vans are scary, y'all. You know how we always hear the story about the white van and giving out candy, and if they had a dog would you go, and all the things that we try to teach our kids are not okay.
14:54
But vans are scary. I mean, I don't know why we just automatically relate them to bad people. But this decision to get into this blue van, being driven by Lawrence Singleton, was a decision that would change Mary's life forever.
15:13
Now at first the ride seemed fine, but soon Singleton began to act strangely. He veered off the main road and then drove onto an isolated stretch of highway. Now as a passenger and as a hitchhiker, how would you feel about that?
15:31
What would your first thoughts be? Mine would be to jump out or to try to get out, because automatically I'm thinking, this guy's up to no good. Why is he veering off the main roadway? Mary knew something wasn't right, and she asked him where they were going.
15:50
And he basically brushed it off, like he didn't want to answer the question. Obviously, he didn't want to tell her where they were going. All of a sudden, everything went dark. Singleton knocked Mary unconscious.
16:03
And when she woke up, she was bound, stripped, and terrified. For hours through the long night, Singleton assaulted her over and over again, ignoring her sobs and ignoring her pleas for mercy. By morning, she begged him to let her go.
16:22
I mean, imagine yourself in this situation. She's bound, she can't get away, she's scared to death, she's 15 years old, she doesn't have clothes on, she's been assaulted all night. And she's actually just begging to be released.
16:39
His response was chilling. He looked at her and said, “You wanna be set free? I'll set you free”. And he reached for a hatchet. Okay, with two swift swings, he severed it. both of Mary's arms just below the elbows.
16:57
Her screams echoed through the ravine as he dragged her to the edge. And then with one final act of cruelty, he actually threw her down 30 feet into the cold, rocky dirt. And then he got back into his van, and he drove away.
17:15
He thought she was dead. You would automatically think that. If you used a hatchet to chop off someone's arms below the elbow and throw them into ravine, your thought is number one, they're going to go into shock.
17:28
Number two, they're going to be unconscious. They're going to bleed out and they're going to die. And that was exactly what he thought. But Mary Vincent was not finished. At the bottom of the ravine, Mary lay bleeding weak and close to death.
17:46
She could actually feel her life slipping away. And then something that will to live. inside her snapped into focus. A voice in her head repeated over and over, things that she probably had heard before on TV or whatnot.
18:07
I can't go to sleep. If I go to sleep, if I give up, if I don't try to find him, if I don't survive, if I don't push forward, he's gonna do this to somebody else. And I cannot let that happen. She pressed the ends of her arms.
18:25
Y'all, they're severed. They're cut off with a hatchet into the dirt. And she packed the soil into the open wounds trying to stop the bleeding. And then she started to climb. So, she climbed inch by inch.
18:42
Her body was broken. Every movement sent waves of pain through her. You can only imagine. She was naked, shivering, and bleeding. But she did not want to give up because she was determined to stop him from doing this to anyone else ever again.
19:02
What an amazing woman. So up 30 feet, she climbed vertically up Jagged Rock. She wasn't sure she could do it, but she did. And when she reached the road, she staggered forward, holding her arms up so that the muscles and the blood would not continue to escape the wounds.
19:26
And finally, she saw headlights. Two people were driving past her. And at first, they thought she was a mannequin. Because how many mannequins have, we seen in the store where half of their arms are missing or their head's gone or one leg?
19:41
It doesn't look like a real person. It doesn't even seem possible that it could be a real person. But then they realized she was a living, breathing person and that she was actually fine. for her life.
19:55
They pulled over, they wrapped her in blankets, and they rushed her to the hospital, and she survived. Even as she recovered in the hospital, Mary's memory was crystal clear. She remembered it all. She worked with a forensic artist describing every detail of her attacker, and soon the police arrested Lawrence Singleton.
20:20
And Mary actually faced him in the courtroom. When asked if she could identify her attacker, Mary did not hesitate. She raised her prosthetic, hook-hand and pointed directly at him. Her words were simple and very powerful.
20:38
I was attacked, I was raped, my hands were cut off, he used to touch it, and he left me to die. The jury found Singleton guilty of attempted murder, kidnapping, mayhem. and multiple counts of sexual assault.
20:56
The sentence, which was the maximum allowed by law at that time, was 14 years. That Singleton served just eight. So, in 1987, guess what, he walked free. Communities across California protested. Nobody wanted him living near them.
21:16
Who would want someone who tried to murder somebody? As a neighbor, he was so unwanted that for a time, he was forced to live in a trailer on San Quentin's prison grounds. I mean, I can't even believe that they let someone do that.
21:34
But freedom eventually meant opportunity. In 1997, guess what, he struck again. And I know we've talked about this many times when prisoners get out of jail early. They've been a good guy, right? They haven't gotten into any trouble.
21:49
They've been going to church. They're teaching others about God and how to get back on track and note. In Tampa, Florida, he murdered a woman named Roxanne Hayes. She was a 31-year-old mother of three.
22:06
And this time, there was absolutely no escaping justice. Singleton was sentenced to death. But before the state could carry it out, cancer carried him out. He died in 2001. For Mary, the news was pretty devastating because she had known all along that releasing him actually meant more victims.
22:32
And she was right. She was exactly right. But Mary did more than survive. And thank God, I always love when someone takes something bad and turns it into something good. It's so easy when something bad happens to waller and self-pity and make everybody...
22:53
as miserable as we are and I get it it's hard to know how you would respond and what you would do if something terrible like this happened to you. We all want to think that we would become an advocate and that we would help others and that we would speak out and prevent this from happening again and not everybody has it in them.
23:14
Not everybody's that strong. But Mary did that. She became an advocate, she testified before lawmakers pushing for tougher sentencing laws. Her case inspired California's Singleton Bill. I hate that it has his name on it.
23:33
I really really wish that it had her name on it because I hate to hear his name over and over, but this bill increased the maximum penalties for crimes like the ones that he committed. Again, I wish it had her name tied to it because I don't think he deserves recognition.
23:50
and he doesn't deserve for us to repeat his name over and over because of what he did. Now Mary also found healing in art, which to me is amazing because, remember, her arms were cut off with a hatchet below the elbows.
24:05
She became a self-taught artist and created thousands of pastel drawings, many of them which depicted very powerful, resilient women. She even engineered her own prosthetic tools. Can you imagine? Fashioning parts of old appliances to create devices that actually helped her cook and helped her paint and even helped her bowl so that she can live a normal life.
24:36
Now today, Mary lives in Washington state with her husband. She actually raised two sons, and she has continued to share her story with victims of trauma, turning her pain into power. She's living proof that the human spirit can overcome even the darkest of nights.
24:55
Her story is one of unimaginable brutality, but it's also one of unimaginable strength. At just 15, she faced this man who tried to silence her forever and instead she found her voice. She helped put him behind bars.
25:16
She helped change the law and she builds a life full of love, resilience, and meaning when it could have gone the other way so very quickly. Her survival reminds us that even in the face of pure evil, courage can actually win.
25:37
If you or someone you know has ever been sexually assaulted, you can always call the National Sexual Assault Hotline, which is 1-800-656-HOPE, H-O-P-E. Or visit RAINN.ORG for confidential support. If this story moved you, I encourage you to share it, subscribe, and leave a review.
26:04
It just reminds us of how short life can be and I know that we all see the Facebook post teenagers missing, teenagers didn't come home, been missing for hours, parents or online and making a plea for the public to help find their child.
26:21
You can only imagine, the pain that families go through when their child goes missing. You know, Mary ran away as a lot of people did. This was not unheard of. It was not unheard of to run away, to get angry, to hitchhike.
26:38
She was going to her grandfather's. She was going to family's house. She was just trying to go somewhere that she felt was her safe place and this happened. Of course, I didn't know this story when I was a kid, but I always thought I would never hitchhike or pick up a hitchhiker.
26:57
My thought was, “What if they have a gun in their bag? What if they have a knife in their bag? What if they're just like genuinely not a good person? What if this is not really just a teenager trying to get a ride to her grandfather's house?”
27:12
But on the other hand, the hitchhiker's thinking the same thing. “What if this is not a nice person? What if there's a gun in his glove box? What if there's a gun under his seat? What if there's a knife in his pocket? “
27:27
There's so many bad things that can happen. And so, I'm kind of glad that hitchhiking is not really so much a thing anymore. I know it still happens, but again, we rarely see it in Texas. And I know that there are other season states where it's more rampant than it is here.
27:44
But this story is horrifying. It's horrifying that this can happen to such a young person, but it's amazing that she did so much with her life after this and just continued to be resilient and has become an artist.
28:02
I mean, can you imagine? Imagine the feeling that goes through her when she creates her art, the fact that she does still have the ability to use her arms even though half of them are missing. This story really touched me, and I haven't reached out to Mary, but I would love to interview her for the podcast.
28:25
I think that would be amazing. I would like to try to reach out to her. It's hard sometimes to get people who were involved in incidents like this to actually take the time to talk to you. So, we'll see.
28:39
We'll see what we can do. I'm always for trying. You know, the worst that can happen is if they say no. And even if they do say no, or they're too busy now, maybe someday. they'll remember and they'll come back around and actually reach out and offer an interview.
28:56
But I just think that to hear it from somebody who's been through it is amazing. It's one thing to read the story and to tell you what happened, but to talk to her and see what was going through her mind when this happened would just be amazing.
29:09
I know she's done interviews before, so I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to reach out to her again. Want to remind you that Pushing Up Lilies is going to have a booth at the McCart Street Mercantile in Crumb, Texas, and we're going to be selling our subscription boxes there along with a lot of other merchandise that's in our Murder merch store and even newer merchandise that's not in the Murder merch store.
29:33
We'll also be competing again in Denton's Day of the Dead festival coffin races, and I plan to have a booth there as well. Waiting to hear from them to make sure that we were accepted for a booth. But.
29:46
I very much look forward to talking to y'all next week. Please, please, please stay safe and I'll talk to you soon. Bye y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast.
30:06
This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public. Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.