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15th October 2024
04:24pm BST
In 1993, John Bobbitt woke up to find that his penis had been cut off. It was a case which gripped America and sent the media into a frenzy as one of the most famous ‘he said, she said’ court battles ensued.
John Bobbitt met wife Lorena in 1988 at a Marine Corps officers’ ball while he was enlisted.
The couple married a year later which John claimed was due to pressure from Lorena and her mother but she said was down to John proposing on his own accord.
John was discharged from the Marines in 1991 which was when things started to go downhill.
He struggled to find a full-time job, while Lorena worked first as a nanny for the owner of a beauty salon and later as a manicurist.
Her employer, Janna Bisutti told ABC News 31 years ago: "She was going to do anything to try to make her marriage work."
John told ABC that he and Lorena would argue over everything while Lorena claimed John hit her for the first time just one month into their marriage.
John claimed he was just ‘subduing’ her as she was the violent one, saying she was ‘jealous and possessive’.
Lorena fell pregnant but John insisted they wait until they were ready, so she had an abortion.
Retired sergeant Kim Chinn revealed that there were complaints of domestic violence at the Bobbitts' home 'half a dozen times' as their arguments escalated and on one occasion both were charged with assault and battery.
Lorena also claimed that John raped her numerous times, with her attorney Blair Howard later stating that she felt ‘trapped’, however John denied these allegations.
John was 26 and Lorena 24 when they decided to get a divorce but on the night of June 22, 1993 tensions came to a head as John’s friend Robert Johnston came to stay while they decided who got the apartment.
After a night spent drinking, Lorena claims John came home and forced himself on her while he claimed he was ‘exhausted’ but she made sexual advances towards him.
He said he had ‘no idea what happened’ as he was in a ‘deep sleep’ while she claimed she was raped after which she went to get some water and picked up a knife.
She admitted all the alleged abuse and the abortion came to her mind. She said: “I pick up the knife and ... I went back to the bedroom. I took the sheets off and I cut him. Everything went just fast.”
He explained what happened when he first woke up: “I sprung up and I was bleeding, I was applying pressure, then immediately I thought it was something out of a horror movie. A nightmare… turned into reality.”
Lorena fled the scene with the knife, throwing his penis out of the window. She later called the police and confessed to what she had done.
Meanwhile, John’s friend took him to the hospital. Police retrieved the penis in a field and put it on ice. After a nine-and-a-half-hour operation, a surgeon was able to successfully reattach it.
Lorena was arrested and charged with malicious wounding and faced up to 20 years in prison if she had been found guilty. She pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
John was also arrested and charged with marital sexual assault, to which he also pleaded not guilty.
The pair attended separate trials on different dates. No cameras were allowed in the courtroom for John’s case, but Lorena’s trial was broadcast worldwide.
John was acquitted in November 1993 and stood as a witness in his ex-wife’s trial but had difficulty answering questions about domestic abuse.
In January 1994, the jury found Lorena not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. She was ordered to spend five weeks at a mental hospital.
She would later go on to say that they were both ‘victims of a tragic situation’, a statement John disagreed with.
