Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

John & Lorena Bobbitt

John Wayne Bobbitt and Lorena Bobbitt (née Gallo) was an American couple married on June 18, 1989, whose relationship made world-wide headlines in 1993 when, after years of being allegedly raped, beaten, and sodomized by her husband, Lorena cut off his penis with a knife while he was asleep in bed. The penis was subsequently surgically reattached. John Wayne Bobbitt was acquitted on the rape charge.

Incident

The incident occurred on June 23, 1993, in Manassas, Virginia. Lorena Bobbitt stated in a court hearing that, after coming home that evening, her husband raped her. After he then went to sleep, she got out of bed and went to the kitchen for a drink of water. She then grabbed an eight-inch carving knife on the kitchen counter, returned to their bedroom, pulled back the bed-sheets and cut off his penis.

After this, she left the apartment with the severed appendage and drove away in her car. After a while driving and struggling to steer with one hand, she threw it out the window into a roadside field. She eventually stopped and called 9-1-1, telling them what had happened and where the penis could be found. John Bobbitt's penis was found after an exhaustive search, and after being washed with antiseptic and packed in saline ice, it was reattached in the hospital where he was treated. The operation took nine and a half hours. Bobbitt went on to star in two pornographic films in the 1990s, and claims his penis is "back to normal".

Arrest and trial

When she was arrested the night of June 23, she told the police, "He always have orgasm [sic], and he doesn't wait for me ever to have orgasm. He's selfish." This conversation with Detective Peter Wentz was tape-recorded, and the transcript was read later in the trial by Mary Grace O'Brien, the Prince William County Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney prosecuting Lorena.

During the trial, the couple revealed details of their volatile relationship and the events that led to the assault. Lorena stated that John sexually, physically, and emotionally abused her during their marriage. She said that he flaunted his infidelities and forced her to have an abortion. Her defense attorneys, who included the defense lawyer Blair D. Howard, maintained that his constant abuse caused her to eventually "snap" because she was suffering from clinical depression and a possible bout of post-traumatic stress disorder due to the abuse. John denied the allegations of abuse; however, when he was cross-examined by Howard, his statements often conflicted with known facts, severely weakening the prosecution's case.

Lorena testified that John had raped her and physically battered her on multiple occasions prior to the evening of the severing of his penis, that they lacked financial stability, and that he stole her earnings and spent the proceeds. Both the prosecution and defense sides conceded that he had demonstrated a history of abuse toward her and that this abuse created a context for the assault. Expert witnesses for both the prosecution and the defense testified that "he had mentally and physically battered her; that the abuse was escalating; and that, by 1993; she lived in constant fear of him." The defense strategy emphasized her action as being a mix of self-defense and temporary insanity constituting an "irresistible impulse" due to the history and pattern of abuse and rape. One expert witness testified that "Lorena believed and was immobilized by John's threat, 'I will find you, whether we're divorced or separated. And wherever I find you, I'll have sex with you whenever I want to.'"

John Bobbitt was later acquitted of rape. He had multiple versions of what had happened that evening in question, relating at various times to police and to the court that "they had not had sex; that Lorena had tried to initiate sex, but he had been too tired; that they had had sex, but he had slept through it; and that the sex had been consensual."