Warning: This article contains discussion of domestic violence which some readers may find distressing.
The woman who cut off her ex-husband's penis spoke about about her motivation behind the horrific act.
John Bobbitt was said to be asleep in the early hours of 23 June 1993 after a heavy night of drinking with his visiting friend, Robert Johnston, who was staying in the Bobbitt's apartment.
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John had asked for a divorce from his wife, Lorena, before Robert came around, and the couple were in the process of deciding who would get the apartment in the split - though Lorena did not want the marriage to end.
Despite John's claims that he went straight to bed that night, Lorena claims the sound of a slammed door woke her up, before John forced himself on her, ripped her underwear off and raped her.
But John disputed this, insisting that she was awake when he got back and made sexual advances herself.
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Explaining that he was 'exhausted' and had 'no idea what happened', Lorena instead said that after he raped her, she went to the kitchen for some water but returned with a knife. Thinking about the alleged domestic violence, she 'took the sheets off and cut him'.
John said he woke up in shock when he realised that his penis had been cut off: “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.”
After fleeing with the knife, she threw his penis out of the window of the moving car into a field, while John was taken to the hospital for emergency surgery as police searched for and retrieved his severed penis from a field in Virginia.
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A successful nine-and-a-half hour operation meant it was re-attached, as Lorena had called police after the incident and told them what happened, including where the penis was.
She was then arrested and charged with malicious wounding and faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted, pleading not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
John was also arrested and charged with marital sexual assault, based on Lorena's claims that he raped her, and he also pleaded not guilty.
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It became one of the biggest and most infamous 'he said, she said' cases in US history, and one that both individuals have spoken about in the years since.
Speaking to TIME in 2018, Lorena admitted that she doesn't regret her actions, saying: "To me, how could you regret something that you don’t have control of? People regret things like choosing a restaurant,
"That’s a regret. My best answer to that question would be, I was abused. He could have killed me. He choked me many times, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t have the capability, mentally, to choose right from wrong. [So] there’s no such thing as regret."
Despite not regretting what happened, she highlighted that she wants people to know that she didn't plan what happened that night: "It’s not like I woke up in the morning and said, 'By the way, I’m going to cut my husband’s penis off'.
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"There was a history. It was not my intention to do that. I felt terrible that he went through his whole thing. When I was being checked for rape at the hospital, the nurse said, 'After we finish the rape kit, you need to talk to this detective'."
Lorena revealed that they asked her where his penis was, and she said: "A person who is bad or vindictive would never tell them or be concerned about [where] his organ was.
"And I said, 'Look at this road.' Then [they] found it. To me, I think a person with bad intentions would have said, 'Forget about it, I don’t know.' I was really concerned about him."
Now going by Lorena Gallo, she currently runs the Lorena Gallo Foundation, which focuses on domestic abuse issues and aims to 'educate the public and young women about the red flags in dating an abuser'.
As for the Bobbitt's cases, John was acquitted in November 1993, and stood witness at his ex-wife's trial, though had trouble answering questions around domestic abuse.
On 22 January 1994, the jury found Lorena Bobbitt not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, as she was ordered to spend five weeks at a mental hospital.
The shocking case will be explored in the documentary I Cut Off His Penis: The Truth Behind The Headlines, which airs on ITV tonight (15 October) at 9pm.
Topics: Crime, US News, True Crime
Joshua Nair