In the quiet neighborhood of North Omaha, Nebraska, Alyce Singleton was a familiar and gentle presence. At 82 years old, she was a widow who had lived in her home at 2125 Ohio Street for many years, maintaining her independence with a quiet strength. She had been married to Charles E. Singleton, who passed away in 1975, and she continued to live a self-reliant life in the home they had shared.
To help with the upkeep of her property, she occasionally hired a man for yard work, never suspecting the trust she placed in him would lead to a devastating betrayal.
The day after Christmas in 1987 brought a horrifying end to Alyce’s peaceful life. On December 26, the man she had hired for odd jobs, Clarence Victor, forced his way into her home. What followed was an act of unspeakable violence. Victor, a man with a dark and violent past unknown to his elderly employer, brutally attacked her in her own kitchen. He bludgeoned her with a metal pipe and then slashed her throat with a knife. A subsequent autopsy would reveal the horrific extent of her injuries, noting that she had been alive and conscious through most of the torturous assault, which lasted between three and five minutes before she succumbed to a fatal laceration of her carotid artery.
Omaha police were dispatched to the residence at around 6 p.m. that evening, where they discovered the tragic scene. The investigation began immediately, and it did not take long for a suspect to emerge. Alert neighbors had noticed a suspicious car in the area on the day of the murder and reported it to the authorities. This crucial tip led investigators directly to Clarence Victor. Police discovered that Victor had performed gardening work for Alyce, giving him familiarity with her and her home. The pieces quickly fell into place, and just three days after the murder, on December 29, 1987, Clarence Victor was arrested.
The subsequent investigation into Victor’s background revealed a chilling history that underscored a tragic failure of the justice system. He was, in fact, a serial killer. In 1964, he had been convicted of manslaughter for strangling a 40-year-old woman named Hilda Marian Williams. After serving only a fraction of his sentence, he was paroled. Then, in 1976, he killed again, slashing the throat of 24-year-old Jerry Black. For this, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years. Inexplicably, he was paroled yet again in September 1986, just over a year before he would take Alyce Singleton’s life.
During his interrogation for Alyce’s murder, Victor initially denied involvement but eventually gave a tape-recorded statement admitting to the crime. He claimed that after he knocked on her door, Alyce began to scream and scratched his face. He then attacked her. At trial, the evidence against him was overwhelming, and a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony. A three-judge panel, convened for sentencing, described the murder as "especially heinous, atrocious and cruel," citing the "imposition of extreme suffering" Alyce endured. Victor was sentenced to death.
Clarence Victor, then 56, was sent to Nebraska’s death row. However, his legal journey was not over. His case went through numerous appeals, even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court on questions of jury instructions. Years later, in 1998, Nebraska passed a law prohibiting the execution of individuals with "mental retardation." Victor's attorneys filed a motion under this new law, and after tests determined his IQ to be below 70, a court vacated his death sentence in 2000. It was commuted to life imprisonment. Clarence Victor died in a prison nursing facility on May 5, 2015, at the age of 82, the same age as the last woman whose life he had so brutally taken. Alyce Singleton was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery, leaving behind a community to grapple with the loss of a vulnerable neighbor to a predator who had been repeatedly freed to kill again.
