Singleton Sentenced To Death For Murder Of Tampa Prostitute

MIAMI - Twenty years after he raped a California teenager, chopped off her forearms and left her in a ditch, Lawrence Singleton yesterday was sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair for the fatal stabbing of a Tampa prostitute in his living room.

Singleton, 70, showed no emotion as he listened to Judge Bob Anderson Mitcham seal his fate in words laden with disgust.

"This was an unprovoked, senseless killing of a human being," the judge said of the February 1997 slaying of Roxanne Hayes, 31.

In Los Angeles, Mary Bell Vincent, now 35, said she was relieved.

"I didn't want to play God and don't want anyone's death on my hands," said Vincent, who now lives in Tacoma and is fitted with two prosthetic hooks. "But I think there's a little bit of relief. I think I can start all over and put everything behind me and hopefully be safe and happy."

Singleton, a onetime merchant seaman, was convicted of seven felonies in connection with his 1978 assault on Vincent, including attempted murder, rape and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, the maximum then possible under California law, and served a little more than eight years before he was freed.

Singleton had lived quietly in his native Tampa for several years before Hayes' slaying on Feb. 19, 1997.