ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 9, 1997 TAG: 9703100106
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.
SOURCE: DAN REED SAN JOSE MERCURY-NEWS
Support is pouring in for a woman whose attacker in a heinous 1978 crime is now accused of murder.
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, Wash., 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.
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. ``These things could be used as a weapon.''
``There are a lot of people who say they need things,'' Miguelez 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.
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.
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.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE. Mary Bell Vincent, at aby CNBplayground with her son Luke, 10, said she's "overwhelmed by the
love that's out there."