Antioch Outraged Over Plan to Parole a Rapist to Its Area

Antioch’s angry mayor is demanding that the Department of Corrections find a different area for the paroling of Lawrence Singleton, who raped a 15-year-old girl and chopped off both her arms.

“Our phones haven’t stopped ringing,” Mayor Joel Keller said Friday. “There’s a lot of anger and outrage.”

Keller said he has been deluged with telephone calls from residents dismayed that Singleton, 59, is scheduled to be paroled April 25 to Antioch, even though he has never been a resident of the town, 40 miles east of San Francisco.

The mayor has sent the department a “strongly worded” letter of protest.

Singleton was convicted of the Sept. 30, 1978, kidnaping and rape of Mary Vincent, then 15. The victim, a hitchhiker from Las Vegas, was found wandering dazed and bloodied near Modesto, both arms chopped off below the elbows with an ax.

Singleton’s 14-year, 4-month sentence at the California Men’s Colony at San Luis Obispo was reduced by credits for good behavior and time served while awaiting trial. He claims he was framed in being convicted of the attack.

Antioch, a city of 45,000, was chosen for Singleton because it is in Contra Costa County--where Singleton previously lived in San Pablo--it has affordable housing and it has an excellent Police Department, Robert Gore of the state Department of Corrections said.

Vincent, now 23 and the mother of an infant, lives in self-imposed exile in an undisclosed location.