As Singleton’s Parole Nears End, Concerns Are Rekindled

SAN QUENTIN — Seven months after his parole from prison created an uproar that rebounded from San Francisco to San Diego, rapist-mutilator Lawrence Singleton has faded into obscurity at his new home here.

Singleton, who does not respond to media requests for interviews, has been living for six months in a trailer home on the grounds of the state prison here, but he is not behind bars and is free to visit surrounding towns in the company of parole officers. However, shopkeepers and residents in places Singleton would be expected to visit say they have not seen anyone they thought was Singleton.

“We wouldn’t even recognize him,” said Marvin McIntosh, manager of a Thrifty Drug Store to the north of San Quentin in San Rafael.

McIntosh said San Quentin personnel frequent his store, and it is unlikely that Singleton or his parole officers would attract any notice. “And I would guess that he has probably taken steps by now to alter his appearance,” McIntosh added.

At Fry’s Food on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, less than a mile from the west gate to San Quentin, store manager Leonard Hansen said that he had not seen Singleton either and that he was sure he would recognize the parolee if he did come in.

“His picture was all over the papers for weeks,” Hansen said.

The story was the same at 27 other grocery stores, convenience stores and drugstores near San Quentin. Nobody could say they had seen Singleton.

A majority of the clerks and managers interviewed admitted, however, that they did not think they would recognize him anyway.

Singleton may be out of the public eye, but he is not forgotten. State officials and private citizens alike are nagged by the question of what will happen in five months when Singleton’s parole ends and he is free to move wherever he wishes.

“When April 25, 1988, rolls around, under the law he is a free man,” said Robert Gore, assistant director of the California Department of Corrections.

That upsets some area officials, such as Rotea Gilford, San Francisco deputy mayor for criminal justice.

“Under the present system, the criminal is eventually off parole and free to go where he wants,” Gilford said. “Our problem with that is not only a community safety problem, but a Larry Singleton safety problem.”

Twin Cities Police Chief Phil Green, whose jurisdiction borders on San Quentin, said he is especially worried about what might happen to Singleton once he is free to leave.

“Singleton’s in there at his own request for his own safety,” Green said. In July, Green threatened to bill the state for any police costs that would be incurred should Singleton’s presence spark riots in his jurisdiction.

Singleton was convicted of the 1978 rape and mutilation of 15-year-old Mary Vincent, whom he picked up hitchhiking in Berkeley. He drove her to the Modesto area, raped her and, in a drunken rage, chopped her forearms off with an ax and left her to die in a culvert. She survived and testified against him at his trial, which was held in San Diego on a change of venue.

Singleton served a little more than eight years of a 14-year, four-month sentence, benefiting from a law that required he be given time off for participating in a prison work/credit program.

Public outcry--fueled by the nature of his crime and the short sentence--began even before Singleton’s April 25 release from the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo.

On April 2, state corrections officials announced that Singleton, who had lived in Contra Costa County before his attack on Mary Vincent, would be paroled to the Contra Costa County town of Antioch. By April 20, in the face of heated public protest, they backed down, saying he would be released to another city in Contra Costa County. On the day before his release, however, a Superior Court judge issued a restraining order blocking the state from placing Singleton anywhere in Contra Costa County.

San Francisco officials, fearful that Singleton would be moved there, sought a similar court order. San Diego officials threatened to do the same when it was suggested that the parolee might be moved there because it was the trial site.

Restraining Order Overruled

An appeals court later struck down the restraining order, but the outrage followed Singleton around Northern California after his release. Corrections officials were forced to move Singleton in secrecy, often at night. Sometimes, the secrecy was breached. On May 25, Singleton had to be removed under police guard from an apartment in the community of Rodeo after his whereabouts was made public and an angry crowd of 500 surrounded the building.

A few days later, a mob of 100 invaded a hotel in Concord on the basis of false reports that Singleton was there.

Finally, five weeks after his release, Gov. George Deukmejian ended the odyssey by ordering Singleton to live out the remaining months of his parole on the grounds of San Quentin Prison in Marin County.

The low profile taken by Singelton since he moved here does not mean that he has not been out in public. “He leaves the prison about once a week,” said Department of Corrections spokesman Gore.

Gore said most of Singleton’s trips outside San Quentin are for weekly medical and psychological appointments at other state facilities. Gore said the parolee had also made “a few brief visits” to nearby stores.

Nonetheless, the rules governing Singleton’s life at San Quentin are strict. He is supervised 24 hours a day and must be accompanied by two parole officers whenever he leaves the grounds.

Singleton is also prohibited from mingling with or being near the families of workers who live at San Quentin. Because of this rule, his residence may be on the lonelier western edge of the 1,000-acre prison grounds, far from the main building and homes that cluster next to San Francisco Bay. Prison officials, however, will not specify where he is living.

Corrections officials call the Singleton case an aberration and say a repeat is virtually impossible.

“Singleton committed a terrible crime, and a glitch in the law enabled him to get out too soon,” Gore said.

Heavy Penalties Restored

Since 1979, when Singleton was convicted, new laws have restored heavy penalties for violent and sexual offenses. If Singleton were convicted of the same crimes today, he would not be eligible for parole for decades, state officials say.

Nonetheless, the controversy surrounding Singleton’s parole has left its mark. One bill pending before the state Senate would mete out longer prison terms to violent criminals. Another, already signed into law, requires the state to give local police advance notice before placing parolees within their jurisdictions.

The measure pending in the Senate, introduced by state Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord), would lengthen sentences for serious crimes and guarantee that a certain minimum sentence be served even if prisoners would otherwise have received time off through the work/credit programs.

Some prosecutors, however, have reservations about Boatwright’s bill.

Ken Kingsbury, a deputy district attorney in Alameda County and member of a California District Attorneys Assn. committee that is reviewing California’s sentencing laws, said enough “piecemeal” tinkering with the Criminal Code has already been done.

“It has taken the criminal justice system all of 10 years to pick out those situations that it missed when the (state determinate sentencing) law first went into effect,” Kingsbury said. “We don’t recommend a whole lot of increases in penalties.”

Meanwhile, local officials say they are at least as worried about what happens to criminals when they get out of prison as they are about the sentences criminals get going in.

A law that takes effect in January requires the state to notify local law enforcement officials when a parolee is to be released to their county. The law requires 15 days’ notice if the parolee was tried in that county and 45 days for parolees committed to prison from another county. Previously, the Corrections Department notified local law enforcement agencies of parolees but only as a matter of policy, not law. Moreover, there has been no standard notification time, and sometimes notice came fewer than 24 hours before release.

Contra Costa County Counsel Victor Westman said that notifying the police is not enough and that local elected officials should also be notified. “How is anybody else going to make their opinion known?” he said.

‘Very Little Input’

Westman, who represented Contra Costa County in the suit that sought to block Singleton’s parole in the county, said the parole system does not allow adequate consideration of the needs of local communities. “It is designed to be a system where there is very little input by local officials,” he said.

In San Francisco, Deputy Mayor Gilford said the new law was at least a first step in improving the parole process. “It helps keep people from being essentially dumped on our doorstep the same day we are notified about it.”

Gilford said he would also like the Department of Corrections to have the power to indefinitely extend parole.