Court Rules Singleton Can’t Be Forced Into Debt Hearing in County

An Orange County Superior Court commissioner ruled Wednesday that the woman Lawrence Singleton raped and mutilated can’t force the ex-convict to appear in a county courtroom to discuss the $2.5 million in civil damages he owes her.

In a two-page letter to the court, Singleton said that because he lives more than 150 miles from Orange County and has no money to make the trip, the county’s courts should not have jurisdiction. Commissioner Ronald L. Bauer agreed.

But an attorney for Mary Bell Vincent vowed after the hearing in Santa Ana that he would chase Singleton all over the country to make him pay something toward his $2.5-million debt.

“The reason Lawrence Singleton did not show here today is that he was probably afraid he would be shot,” said Mark E. Edwards, Vincent’s Tustin attorney.

‘Offer Him a Job’

“But he can do more good for Mary Vincent if he is alive, healthy and employed. If someone out there wants to continue to force Singleton to pay his debt to society, offer him a job and send us his paycheck.”

Singleton picked up Vincent, then 15, hitchhiking on Sept. 29, 1978. Then he raped her, hacked off her forearms with an ax and abandoned her in a remote area of Northern California.

She recovered, however, and testified at Singleton’s 1979 trial. Singleton was convicted but served less than eight years of his 14-year sentenced before being paroled. His parole raised such a public outcry that Singleton for his own safety was forced to spend his year on parole living in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin Prison.

Following the end of his parole in April, Singleton is believed to have moved to Florida, where he has relatives. He registered with Florida officials at a Tampa address.

Singleton’s two-page letter to Bauer, dated June 16, had a return address in Richmond--across the San Rafael Bridge from San Quentin in Contra Costa County--but that turns out to be the address of the parole office to which he formerly reported.

Robert Gore, spokesman for the Department of Corrections in Sacramento, said his office has not been in contact with Singleton since his release. And Vincent’s attorneys are not sure where he is. “I suppose we’ll begin by looking in Contra Costa County,” Edwards said.

He told Bauer that Singleton, while he was still living on San Quentin’s grounds, had been served with papers to appear Wednesday in Orange County.

Vincent, who now lives in an undisclosed location in the Pacific Northwest, won the $2.5 million last year in a court in Nevada, where she once lived. Singleton failed to contest the case.

Why Orange County Hearing

Orange County was the site of Wednesday’s hearing because it is the Superior Court closest to the office of Edwards, her attorney.

Bauer said if Singleton had lived within 150 miles of Orange County at the time he was served, Edwards might have a case for forcing his appearance.

Edwards said he will appeal.

In the letter to Bauer, Singleton accused Edwards of persisting in “abuse of the judicial process for his personal gain”; noted that extra security would be needed if he appeared in court, which he said would cost the county thousands of dollars, and said that “under penalty of perjury,” he was writing the letter in Richmond.

Bauer, unaware that anyone would consider it important, threw away the envelope with the postmark, according to a court clerk.

“He could have sent it from anywhere in the world,” Edwards said.