IN JUNE OF 1993, A SMALL VIRGINIA TOWN BECAME THE CENTER OF THE WORLD FOR MANY. IT WAS THERE THAT LORENA BOBBITT ATTACKED HER HUSBAND, JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT AND CUT OFF HIS PENIS AFTER YEARS OF SEXUAL AND MENTAL ABUSE.
The super Bowl begins
During John’s trial, they were only allowed to talk about a very limited scope of time, but at Lorena’s trial everything was on the table. Opening arguments for her attorneys focused on how Lorena was timid and weak. A woman who was beaten and abused. The prosecution didn’t contest this, but said that no matter the circumstances, you can’t take the law in your own hands. Defense attorney, Lisa Kemler said in opening statements, “It was his penis that she could not escape” and “A life is more valuable than a penis.” The trial was never a question of guilt or innocence, but of why did it happen and did she deserve to be punished.
Friends testified that they were with the Bobbitts at Kings Dominion when Lorena kind of snapped and started scratching him while John just stood there and took it. A friend of Lorena’s testified that they had previously had conversations with Lorena about what they would do if their husbands ever cheated on them. The friend on the stand testified that Lorena said she’d cut his dick off because that would hurt him more. It was brought up again, that during the hours after the incident, Lorena said that John always has orgasms and never waits for her. She called him selfish for that.
Witnesses in the apartment complex and coworkers testified to events of abuse. Lorena was asked about a specific time, a month after they married, when they were coming home from a night out.
Lorena said that she and John were leaving Chelsea’s Club, and John had been drinking. He was zigzagging and going 85-90mph. While driving, John punched Lorena in the chest after she grabbed the steering wheel. During this ride, John’s brother, Todd was in the back seat nodding and encouraging John. When the 3 got home, John grabbed Lorena by the arm and kicked her because she was crying. An officer showed up and when John opened the door he was immediately calm. The officer asked Lorena if she had somewhere she could go. She told him no, but she’d leave anyway. Lorena took her car and parked in the parking lot at her work and slept in the car.
Lorena didn’t tell anyone about this incident, because she didn’t understand it herself. She was shocked and embarrassed and thought he wouldn’t do it again. He’ll change. John didn’t change. He kept pushing her, shoving her, kicking her, etc. Neighbors saw and heard them arguing. John was intimidating, and he “backed her down.”
The Castro’s children testified that there was a Christmas when they were all together. John gave Lorena a box and wanted her to open it in front of everyone. She did, and it was a pair of tiny underwear. She hid it and was very obviously embarrassed. Lorena got up and walked out of the room with John hot on her heels. He grabbed her and pushed her against the wall. Lorena asked him to put her down. He pushed her one more time and then muttered, “Bitch.”
Police testified that there were at least half a dozen reports, and that John had been arrested for assault and battery once. Multiple people said they witnessed the abuse or saw marks on Lorena. Janna said she saw marks on her. Coworkers saw him get mad at her in a bar. Neighbors heard commotion. One neighbor heard “ruckus,” and Lorena told her that John had raped her. That neighbor gave Lorena the pamphlets found after the dick-off. People described bruises ALL over her.
There were also pictures of Lorena with bruises from her police reports, and the reports say “left wrist contusion” and “choking” her. Neighbors noticed thick makeup. A few of her neighbors are women who were abused in past relationships, so they were seeing the similarities. Lorena testified that John liked anal sex, and that he would come home druck at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and force her to have sex that way. John would brag to guys he played basketball with and have “guy talk” where John Wayne Bobbitt would talk about how he liked to make girls squirm and bleed. He liked it when they begged for help, and he liked forcing them to have sex. Especially “fucking ‘em up the ass.” Three of his “friends” testified to this.
Lorena had to testify about getting anally raped and had a very difficult time getting through it. She said that he never asked and never used lube. She testified that she would get injured and bleed from her anus. John threatened to do it again pretty much every time they had sex. When John Wayne Bobbitt was called to the stand the goal was to make him credible and sympathetic. He was asked if he’d hit his wife or have forced sex with her. He said he hadn’t. He was asked if he had ever pushed, grabbed, or restrained his wife. John said that yes, he’d done that many times to restrain her from hitting him. He would tell her it’s “not ladylike to strike out.”
John was presented with a questionnaire where he admitted to striking his wife, but John says he doesn’t remember filling it out. Then the lawyers showed him the signature on the back and asked if it was his. He agreed that it was. John had previously been charged with assault and battery to which he entered a guilty plea. However, John says he didn’t plead guilty. The officer who came to their house a month after their wedding testified about coming there that night, but John said he didn’t remember that.
John was asked if he ever told anyone that he enjoyed forceable sex. He testified that he didn’t. The defense rattled John Wayne Bobbitt. He kept getting confused and mumbling. Lorena came across as a victim, and there was a significant record of abuse. Most agreed that Lorena was abused, but did it make her go temporarily insane and incapable of stopping the impulse to hurt him?
John’s attorney had said that John was “incapable of lying,” because he lacked the ability to perform the complexity of lying and then covering up the lie. During Lorena’s trial however, he essentially perjured himself by “not remembering” any instances in which he had admitted to abusing Lorena. He also denied pleading guilty to assaulting her in an instance where he did in fact plead guilty.
Lorena’s emotional testimony portrayed her as a victim who was sincere and traumatized by her longtime abuse. John’s testimony portrayed him as cavalier, insincere and at times an outright liar. Lorena said she was in love and wanted to give John a chance. She was raised a Catholic, and when you got married you stayed married. Lorena’s parents had been married for a long time, and she had been a virgin when she married John. Divorce was a failure.
the abortion & leading up to the cutting
Then Lorena was asked when she first became aware she was pregnant. In the Spring of 1990, she had deliberately stopped taking birth control and became pregnant. Lorena said that she had stopped taking her birth control so she could get pregnant and become a mother. She was hopeful that this would change him and the state of their marriage. She hoped that this would be the family she’d always wanted.
According to John, he didn’t know about the pregnancy until he came home from work one day when she put a bib around him. He was shocked and told her they weren’t ready for a baby, and they couldn’t afford it. He said she wanted too much, too fast. John said they agreed on the abortion, and that Lorena “felt bad the day of and the day after but by the time she went to bed the next night she was fine.” He said that he had hugged her and told her to “just forget about it, you know?” Basically what’s done is done.
According to Lorena, John got angry when she told him she was pregnant and told her she’d make a terrible mother. He told her that if she had the baby, he wasn’t going to help out. It was either him or the baby. Lorena said it wasn’t so much that she agreed to have an abortaion as much as it was him telling her she was “going to do what bad girls do.” So Lorena talked to her boss Janna who had had a few abortions. Janna told her it wasn’t that bad. There was another girl that was pregnant at the nail salon, and she didn’t want two women taking off at the same time.
So on June 15th, 1990, Lorena and John went to the clinic.
While at the clinic, Lorena testified that John kept teasing her about how big the needles were, and how bad the whole thing was going to be. The nurse ended up having to separate her from John because she was having so much anxiety. After the abortion, Lorena said she felt guilty and fell apart. She couldn’t eat and felt weak and sick. This procedure went against her deeply religious beliefs which were very important to her. The evidence definitely points more to Lorena’s testimony that she did not want the abortion rather than John’s testimony that she agreed and went willingly.
Up until this point in the relationship, there were definitely disputes and altercations, but Lorena testified that this is the point in the relationship when the forced sex began. She said that after the abortion, she no longer wanted to have sex with John. This wasn’t an issue for John; whether she wanted to or not, she was going to have sex with him. It was during this time the two bought their house, and John left the Marine Corps. He began bouncing at a bar, which Lorena was not comfortable with. What little money he made, he kept for himself and left Lorena to pay all the bills alone.
Lorena testified that it was during this time that she stole $7200 from the salon and took equipment home to work a 7th day from home to make more money. John was furious when he learned about this and told her to come clean with Janna. She did, and had to work off the money she stole. So not only is John refusing to help with any bills, he is partying often with friends or his brother when he was in town, and he is now forcing sex on her in addition to the altercations they are already having. The violence in these fights began to escalate as well.
Lorena testified that John was always good at hiding his violence from other people, but he did slip from time to time. Just like a serial killer will start to get sloppy over time, abusers do too.
On Thanksgiving of 1993, John and Lorena got into an argument about what they were watching on TV. Some witnesses testified that John went up to the roof and disconnected the TV antenna. Lorena and her mother decided to leave to see a movie since he’d disconnected the TV. John took her keys and disabled her car engine. So Lorena tried to use John’s car. He drove off erratically, hitting her and knocking her to the ground with his car. She did file a complaint following this incident.
However, if we said that Lorena is the only person to have filed complaints in the marriage, that would be untrue. According to law enforcement, they’d visited the couples’ home about a half dozen times, sometimes with John calling, sometimes with Lorena calling. Lorena did have a temper of her own. She did get violent, on one occasion scratching John’s face in public. She was actually later arrested in 1997 for allegedly attacking her mother, and when they went to court her mother changed her testimony saying the mark on her face was from a pimple, not where Lorena had hit her….
During this time, John and Lorena separated twice. John saying that Lorena would call and beg him to come home, Lorena saying she only called him to ask for help with bills. It was during this time he told her about an affair he’d had, and she says he taunted her about this with comments about how she didn’t deserve him and shaming her body. He would make racial comments and threatened to take away her paperwork from immigration. He threatened to have her deported, and that she wouldn’t have a green card. He would call her an alien and a foreigner and tell her she didn’t deserve to be in this country.
By April of 1993, their house had been foreclosed on, and they’d moved into the apartment in which the incident took place. They had recently reconciled, and Lorena was hopeful about their future. Shortly after though, John told her that his friend Robbie was going to stay with them for “a while.” Which Lorena knew meant he’d be back to partying and not taking the marriage seriously. Lorena testified that in early June of 1993, Lorena had purchased a tape recorder in order to get evidence of the verbal abuse she suffered. She wanted to get a divorce, and this would be the proof that she needed in that process.
Unfortunately, John found the tape recorder. He beat her and raped her. He told her if she resists sex, he’ll have anal. If she left him, he’ll follow her and rape her. He told her that he can have sex anywhere he wants, anyway he wants, and at any time he wants. Lorena said that the only time she felt at peace was when John wasn’t home. Otherwise she was full of anxiety. She couldn’t eat or sleep, and her health was deteriorating.
Here is the thing, just because a woman does not tell anyone about abuse does not mean it’s not happening. However, from a legal standpoint, it is very helpful when you do have people that have witnessed the abuse or have at least been made aware of it. We do know that Lorena told family members and friends during this time. They witnessed the bruises and marks on her.
The Incident
Lorena also told her family doctor. In a visit on June 18, 1993 Lorena complained of her hands shaking, intense anxiety, insomnia, hyperventilating, and severe cramping. When Dr. Inman asked about the possible source of her stress, Lorena disclosed that her husband was having sex with her without her permission. Dr. Inman gave her information for protective services, but Lorena did not call them. On June 21, 1993, Lorena filed for a protective order, but she didn’t get the order issued. The police officer told her to come back in 3-4 hours, because his secretary was on lunch.
Lorena had essentially moved in with neighbor, Diana Fletcher, but was still sleeping at the house. All of her things were at the Fletcher’s, but John always came to find her. Diana Fletcher said that Lorena left their house a few nights before the incident and wasn’t vengeful or mad. June 22, 1993 Lorena went to work and everything was normal. Later that day, John called Lorena at work and asked her what time she’d be home. Lorena told him that she was working until 8pm, so John and Robby went out that night.
John got home around 3-3:15am. Lorena was awakened by doors slamming but then went back to sleep. John testified that he fell asleep quickly, but about an hour later he was touching her and then he was on top of her and then back asleep. When the attorney asked John if he had sex with Lorena that night, John says he didn’t remember. John Wayne Bobbitt said later that he heard her talking, but he didn’t respond because he was exhausted. He has said many times that they did not have sex that night because he was “too tired.” Not drunk, just tired.
Lorena told the court that he raped her. She said she didn’t want to have sex, but he wouldn’t listen or let go of her. Lorena began to break down on the stand. She describes that night saying that the sex hurt her, and that she felt like her “vagina was ripping.” Lorena continued to curl up into herself while she’s telling the story. Lorena asked John why he kept raping her and doing this to her. He said nothing, and he pushed her away. Lorena said John didn’t care and he doesn’t care for her feelings.
After the rape, Lorena said she was numb and walked like a zombie to the kitchen. She thought she could calm herself with a glass of water. While drinking the water, the refrigerator door was open and the light was shining on a knife. That’s when she started thinking about all the times he’d hurt her.
The next thing she remembers, she was in her car. She said she felt like she was in slow motion and trying to drive. Lorena said she was trying to drive, but she had the knife in one hand and John’s manhood in the other hand. Lorena got scared and threw the dick out of the window.
She went to work in the middle of the night and couldn’t open the door. That’s when she saw the knife in her hand and started screaming and threw the knife away. She was finally able to open the door and she said she felt at peace, because she just wanted to be safe. Apparently when Lorena left the apartment, she grabbed her purse and Robby’s Gameboy.
The prosecutor questioned Lorena about why she doesn’t remember leaving the apartment or taking her purse or Robby’s Gameboy, and she didn’t have an answer. She had also reportedly stolen $100 from Robby while he was staying with them, and she said it was because “John owed her money.” She later returned the gameboy to Robby.
The foreman of the jury, Clay Cocalis agreed that it didn’t seem right that she remembered the light flashing on the knife but not other stuff about the night. On the tape recorded interview at the police station, Lorena said, “I was angry already and I, I turned my back and the first thing I saw was the knife. Then I took it and I was just angry…I was just mad.”
Dr. Susan Feister, a forensic psychologist testified for the defense. She was asked if she thought that Lorena suffered from any mental disorders at that time. She said she thought that Lorena was suffering from PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder, and Anxiety/Panic Disorder. Dr. Feister testified that she doesn’t believe that Lorena was in control of her actions at the time of the incident. She said that John had “closed off every avenue of escape for her” so Lorena became psychotic and “attacked the instrument of her torture.” Dr. Feister testified that she believed Lorena’s actions were consistent with irresistible impulse.
Another doctor for the prosecution didn’t agree. He said that Lorena got angry and that John had “challenged her sense of control.” He said she could have left or called 911, but she chose the knife. Then the defense called Regina Keegan to the stand. Regina was a client at the nail salon and happened to get a manicure and her brows waxed by Lorena Bobbitt on June 17th. And she is a hero.
Regina said that when she sat down with Lorena she noticed that Lorena’s manicure was terrible and her eyebrows were uneven. Then Lorena pulled up her sleeves to get started on Regina’s manicure and Regina saw the black and blue bruises up and down her forearms. Regina said that the bruises were all the way around her arms like she’d been grabbed. Regina gasped, and Lorena pulled her sleeves back down. Regina said that Lorena’s breathing changed, and her hands started shaking. Lorena had tears in her eyes and Regina asked about the bruises. Lorena told her that her husband hurt her. Regina said that Lorena told her that her husband said he was going to drop her over the railing and tell everyone she jumped.
Regina gave her information about ways to get help and even offered to take her home, but Lorena told Regina that her husband would kill them both. Regina said she was afraid for Lorena, but there wasn’t much else she could do. After she left the salon, Regina went back to her life and heard about the Bobbitt thing, but she didn’t really watch the news or read the papers because she was a busy mom. Then 5 months later, she was sitting, doing laundry with the TV on. Footage from the courthouse came on and Regina saw Lorena on the screen. That’s when she recognized her.
Regina called the courthouse and talked to DA Paul Ebert. Ebert said, “Son of a bitch. If I had had this I could have nailed the bastard.” John’s case was already with the jury. Ebert told Regina she couldn’t help him, but she could still help Lorena. Ebert gave Regina the number of Lorena’s attorney, Blair Howard. When Regina called Howard’s office and asked for him, the secretary was like, “How’d you get this number?” Ebert had given her the back line. Regina said Ebert could have buried her and just pushed her off, but he didn’t.
After Regina Keegan testified for the defense, DA Ebert chose not to cross examine her. When asked by the documentary crew, Ebert wouldn’t admit that he wanted to convict John, but didn’t really want to convict Lorena, but he had a big mischievous smile. Ebert also directed a psychiatrist who had previously testified against Lorena having PTSD to talk to Regina Keegan. After talking to her, the psychiatrist changed his opinion about Lorena and changed his testimony to say that he agreed with PTSD.
During closing arguments, Blair Howard said, “A woman’s body is her home…to rape a woman is to ravish her soul.”
Lorena’s verdict is not guilty by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to 45 days in a mental hospital. Of course, this verdict upset the Bobbitt family. So at this time Lorena is in the hospital, learning to cope with the trauma she’s been through and seemingly bettering herself. What does John do?
John Bobbitt after the trials
John Wayne Bobbitt, on the other hand, was leaning into his fame. He stripped at a drag show, sold his clothes and underwear and starred in porn. John wanted to show people that he was all healed up, so he starred in John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut. People wanted to see his penis so they were willing to pay to get this movie. Dr. Sehn from Episode 1 said he was glad to see his handiwork was working well.
Howard Stern loved John Wayne Bobbitt and continuously had him on his show. John Wayne Bobbitt just said that Lorena was mad and his best friend, Howard Stern agreed. Stern said that he didn’t think John did anything to her. “She’s not that great looking…She’s got a lot of pimples…her skin didn’t look that good…I think she needs a little vitamin Bobbitt.” He even offered to pay for John to have penis enhancement surgery. Then, because his dick hadn’t been through enough, John decided he wanted to get a penis extension. Length and girth.
SO OF COURSE THEY MADE A PORNO MOVIE ABOUT IT. In the movie “Frankenpenis,” the watcher actually gets to see the real life surgery. Unfortunately, the surgeon who performed John’s operation already had lawsuits against him that he weirdly never mentioned to John. The surgery was botched and now John’s member is deformed and just all around fucked up. That surgeon had his license taken.
Despite all the fame and him trying to make money, John filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, so he didn’t have to pay his hospital bills. He ended up moving to Vegas to “start over” and became a chaplain at a Vegas wedding chapel and performed weddings. He was hired at The Bunny Ranch as a greeter and limo driver. People who worked at the Bunny Ranch said there were 2 sides to John Wayne Bobbitt. They said he went from a “nice, well-mannered guy to fucking asshole in 3 drinks.”
Eventually, John got fired from the Bunny Ranch for getting in an argument with the owners about him not being allowed to drink on the property. They had forbidden him from drinking while he was there because of his behavior. After he was fired, the Ranch got a restraining order. According to an article in Vanity Fair, In 1999 John plead guilty to a felony charge of attempted grand larceny related to the theft of $140,000 worth of clothes from a store in Fallon, Nevada. John claims he was unaware the clothing hadn’t been paid for. He was sentenced to five years’ probation.
Four months later, he was found guilty of harassment of an adult-film actress and ex-girlfriend and spent 60 days in jail. John wanted to go to Niagara Falls, NY, but he couldn’t get there on his own. “Desiree” took him. John had no money, so she said she could help. She helped him get an apartment, and she was paying the rent and supporting him while she worked and lived in Vegas. “Desiree” said she would come visit and one time near the end of their relationship, she went to make sure that John had gotten the apartment put in his name instead of their name.
John lost it and started beating her. He took her to the balcony and pushed her over, holding her by her legs. He threatened to drop her, but people saw them so he pulled her back up.
Once she was back in the apartment, he tied her to the bed and stripped her. Then John raped and sodomized her while telling her she was his Lorena now and no one could escape him. After 3 days of this, “Desiree” tried playing dead. He untied her and started gathering sheets like he was going to wrap her up, but once she was completely untied and he started to walk toward the door, she ran.
John was 32 and charged with harassment, but there were no allegations of rape at the time of the arrest, so no rape kit was done. They found an 11-12-year-old kid who was home sick that day who saw through his peephole that John was dragging “Desiree” through the hall. He left Nevada for a while and tried to find ways to stay in the limelight. He appeared on WWE Monday Night Raw. He joined the Jim Rose Circus as part of the knife-throwing act.
He was supposed to be on Celebrity Boxing 2, but was charged with battering his third wife, Joanna Ferrell, a fitness model. He works construction, drives a truck, hauls furniture. He and Ferrell split. John would be found not guilty of several domestic-battery charges relating to Ferrell. He moved back home to help take care of his mother, sick with cancer.
In 2014, a car ran a red light and John smashed into it, breaking his neck. In 2016, he scheduled an appointment with Dr. Berman, asks the man who once reattached his penis to reduce it. “I should’ve just left it alone,” says John. When asked about the other assault convictions and claims, he said that women used him and his name as a stepping stone to get famous themselves and all the allegations are totally false and made up.
Lorena bobbitt after the trials
Lorena has had a much different path since her release from the mental hospital and was declared to need no further hospitalization. She became a US citizen later that year and her family moved to Virginia from Venezuela. She worked multiple jobs to help support them while they got their citizenship.
She was offered $1M to pose for Playboy, but she turned it down. She said “My family, we just ate beans and rice and hot dogs because that was the cheapest thing,” she says. “Do you know how much a million dollars would have helped? But I stood up for my beliefs, my integrity, my Catholicism.” She re-enrolled in community college where she met her now husband. They have a daughter together.
In 2007, she started a domestic violence foundation and now travels as a speaker to raise awareness about domestic violence. She said “the media was focusing only on the penis, the sensationalistic, the scandalous. But I wanted to shine the light on this issue of spousal abuse. When I went to Knoxville [to speak at a symposium for Lincoln Memorial University’s law review], the president of the school introduced me as a celebrity. I said, ‘Thank you, but let me correct you. I am not a celebrity, I am an advocate.’”
This case, while it made headlines for sensationalized reasons, did affect change in legislature. In 1990, Senator Joe Biden and Senator Orrin Hatch signed the Violence Against Women Act. It has since been reauthorized and has evolved over time.
The Violence Against Women laws provided programs and services, including:
- Federal rape shield law- which prohibits introducing evidence or cross-examining rape complainants about their past sexual history- which has NOTHING to do with being raped at all.
- Community violence prevention programs
- Protections for victims who are evicted from their homes because of events related to domestic violence or stalking
- Funding for victim assistance services, like rape crisis centers and hotlines
- Programs to meet the needs of immigrant women and women of different races or ethnicities
- Programs and services for victims with disabilities
- Legal aid for survivors of domestic violence
So if you watch the documentary, it starts off with Steve Harvey interviewing Lorena. The end circles back to that interview and him joking about why she left with it.
She said that the media is a double edged sword, and she knows the jokes will be there. As long as she shines a light on domestic violence she’s ok with it. She wants women to know they aren’t alone, and they can get out.
Then Lorena shows us ALL the cards and letters she’s gotten from John Wayne Bobbitt over the years. Dining room table COVERED in letters.
- “I miss you.”
- “I love you.”
- “If I had any woman it would be you.”
- “From your cold, insensitive husband”
John keeps trying to stay in touch with her, but John says she contacted him first and wanted to know about his money situation. Lorena, however, has all the texts and things…
- “We’d make a lot of money if we got back together…”
- “If you had a baby there would be a lot of people who would love an interview…”
Lorena said, “Leave me alone! I cut his penis off!”
If you or anyone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call 1-800-799-SAFE to get help.
