ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TAMPA, FLA.
A man who served eight years in a California prison for raping a teen-age hitchhiker and chopping off her forearms was arrested Wednesday night in the slaying of a woman in his home.
Lawrence Singleton, 69, was arrested after police responding to a call about a domestic dispute made a grisly discovery.
``They framed me the first time, but this time I did it,'' said Singleton.
A neighbor said Singleton told the deputy he had been chopping vegetables and cut himself. The phone rang, and when Singleton went back in, the bloody body of the naked woman was on the floor.
In California, Singleton drew public ire in 1987 after he was freed eight years, four months into a 14-year sentence for the 1978 mutilation-rape of a 15-year-old hitchhiker, who survived.
After he was paroled, prison authorities shuttled him from city to city as residents staged angry demonstrations and even filed suit to keep him out of their communities.
Prison authorities wound up housing him in a mobile home on the grounds of San Quentin Prison until his parole ended in 1988. He returned to his home state, Florida, where he was arrested in 1990 and this month on shoplifting charges.
- Associated Press
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