Woman attacked by Singleton still afraid

Saturday, Feb. 22, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

She struggles with broken prosthetic arms that she can't afford to replace, and she lives in fear that Singleton will come back to finish the job.

Singleton's arrest Wednesday night for the slaying of a prostitute in Tampa, Fla., has only heightened the fears that have plagued Vincent for two decades.

"Right now, I'm still stunned and very disappointed and horrified," she told The Associated Press Friday from her home in Tacoma, Wash. "I'm not sleeping. I can't hold any food down. I think I've been put through enough."

Vincent, 34, was a 15-year-old runaway in 1978 when Singleton picked her up, offered to drive her to Los Angeles and then repeatedly raped her before hacking off her forearms with an ax and leaving her for dead.

Singleton warned her that he was "going to finish the job" some day, she told the San Jose Mercury News.

Singleton, 69, denied attacking Vincent - a crime for which he served eight years of a 14-year sentence in a California prison. But he confessed to Wednesday night's stabbing.

Vincent couldn't believe Singleton was released. And she never forgets he's out there.

"She always looks in the back seat of the car before getting in," her boyfriend Bob Clayton told the Daily News of New York. "We have to send the dog into the house first. It's unrelenting. You go to sleep with it, you wake up with it."

Vincent now works with runaways.

They "think they're 10 feet tall and bulletproof and nothing's going to happen to them, because I used to think that myself," she said.

Vincent is unemployed and raising two boys. Although she won a $2.56 million judgment against Singleton, he is broke and can't pay.

She was thrown off welfare a few years ago. She filed for bankruptcy, lost her home and is having trouble finding work.

Even her prosthetic arms, which should be replaced every year, haven't been in three.

"They're both broken," Vincent told the Mercury News. "I'm struggling. I'm really struggling to get by, but I can't stop being a mom."

She hopes to make money selling her story. Meanwhile, she lives with the memory of that night always.

"I still don't feel safe. I don't know if I'll ever feel safe," she told KING-TV of Seattle. "I want to feel safe like I did when I was a little girl, when everything was carefree ... when I can trust again. I don't know how that feeling is anymore."