Survivor of Brutal Attack Will Tell Her Story

Mary Vincent.

While you may not remember the name, you’ll remember the crime.

In 1979, she was a 15-year-old girl hitchhiking near Berkeley when she was picked up by Lawrence Singleton, a former merchant seaman.

He drove her to a remote spot near Modesto, raped her, hacked off her forearms and left her naked in a ditch to die.

Vincent lived through the ordeal, and now, more than 20 years later, in a rare public appearance, she’s coming to Port Hueneme to share her tale of survival.

“I read an article about how she found peace after 20 years of poverty and anguish. I asked her to come to a small town and tell her story to the community and victims and tell them there is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Maggie Federico, a spokeswoman for the Port Hueneme Police Department, which is sponsoring the July 26 event.

The speech will be at 7 p.m. at the Community Center, 555 Park Ave. The event is free. For information, call Federico at 986-6543.

Police Chief Steven Campbell started the “town hall” style meetings last year as a way to bring cops and residents together to talk about crime and police work.

Vincent, now married and the mother of two children, will also talk about victims’ rights and her dealings with the state’s criminal justice system during Singleton’s 1979 trial, Federico said.

Singleton was convicted of attacking Vincent and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released for good behavior after serving eight years. He lived free for a while before killing a 31-year-old woman in Tampa, Fla., in 1997.

Now 70, he is on death row in Florida waiting for his turn in the electric chair.

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Three young men were arrested on suspicion of burglary and robbery after leaving the keys to their getaway van inside a market where they allegedly snatched some cold brew.

It was a fitting end to a bumbling day of beer runs, cops say.

The trio went to a store on West Pleasant Valley Road in Camarillo recently to buy beer but fled with it instead when a clerk refused to accept their identification, Sheriff’s Det. Ernie Montagna said.

“Somehow, during the time with the cashier, one of them pulls out a wallet and either places the keys on the counter or they fall. When they ran to the vehicle, they didn’t have any keys,” Montagna said.

On the same day, before their arrests in Camarillo, the men allegedly hit another market on Avenida de los Arboles in Thousand Oaks, Montagna said.

In that caper, two of them went in and grabbed several six-packs of beer before tackling a store clerk who tried to stop them, the detective said.

Anthony Hernandez, 20, of Camarillo remained in county jail on Sunday night in lieu of $50,000 bail, and Jason Schreiber, also 20 and of Thousand Oaks, was being held without bail because of a probation violation.

The third suspect, Joshua Salas, posted bail. Salas is 21, which is legal drinking age.

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Residents in Simi Valley who try to catch a little breeze in their homes by opening up garage doors on those all-too-frequent 100-degree days may be relieved of more than the heat, police say.

Simi Valley is one of the safest cities in the nation, but garage theft occurs regularly, police say.

“With no one around and the garage door standing wide open, an opportunistic thief can easily enter a garage and remove items, grab a few tools or steal a bicycle and quickly get away,” says Vicki Kinzer, a police spokeswoman.

Kinzer said thefts have occurred at all hours of the day and night and often aren’t discovered by homeowners for a few days. Property in these cases is rarely recovered.

Police advise homeowners to lock garage doors with padlocks or bolts both inside and out and think about shining lights on the garage.

It’s better to be in the hot house than out in the cold.

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Police believe one man could be responsible for two separate assaults in west Ventura in which women were attacked while walking or jogging in the morning hours.

At about 9:30 a.m. on June 6, a 33-year-old woman jogging on Ventura Avenue near Canada Larga Road was grabbed by a man who said he would kill her if she didn’t get in his light-colored sedan, Sheriff’s Det. Steve Sagely said.

During a struggle, the attacker used a small knife to slice the victim’s face from her neck to cheek. She escaped when another car pulled up and scared away the attacker, Sagely said.

The attacker was described as a black man with short hair, 6 feet, 180 to 200 pounds and 30 to 35 years old.

“She saw the car earlier in Foster Park, and it looked like he was working on it. Then she saw it again down the road, so she crossed the street. He slammed down the hood and grabbed her,” Sagely said.

A man matching the same description and driving a light-colored sedan sexually assaulted a woman Feb. 4, 1998, said Ventura Police Sgt. Bob Anderson.

The victim in that case, who is 43, was walking her dogs in the 2200 block of Main Street shortly before 5 a.m., when a man pulled her between two parked cars, Anderson said.

The woman regularly walked her dogs at that time, Anderson said.

Rumors that the same man has attacked three or four different pedestrians or runners in Ventura have circulated around town for months, Anderson said.

Although these are the only two cases linked to this attacker, Anderson said he is concerned about what he described as predatory behavior in both cases.

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Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.