Vincent married his third wife, Patricia Ann Christ, in 2000. Desperate to escape the relentless legal scrutiny, paparazzi lenses, and toxic patterns of Southern California, the couple left the West Coast entirely. They settled in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, hoping that rural isolation would provide the stability that California never offered.
While the move ended Vincent’s public run-ins with police, the physical consequences of his earlier lifestyle caught up with him brutally. In 1996, Vincent had broken three vertebrae in his neck during a catastrophic car crash in Mission Viejo, which permanently damaged his vocal cords. In North Carolina, his health deteriorated further. A severe infection stemming from peripheral artery disease led doctors to amputate the lower half of his right leg in 2012, followed by a second surgery that removed more of the limb a month later.
Patricia Ann Christ took on the primary role of caregiver during these grueling final years. In a rare 2014 interview with local media in Asheville, Vincent appeared frail and wheelchair-bound, expressing gratitude for his wife's steady assistance while acknowledging that he was living on modest remaining savings. Patricia maintained strict control over his privacy, shielding him from curious tourists and the entertainment press as his cognition and physical mobility declined.
