A Southern California jury has convicted a woman who was accused of drugging her estranged husband before severing his penis and tossing it in the garbage disposal.
Jurors found Catherine Kieu guilty Monday of charges of torture and aggravated mayhem for the July 11, 2011, attack.
Sentencing was scheduled for June 28.
Catherine Kieu,was found guilty of charges of torture and aggravated mayhem for the July 11, 2011, attack
During trial, the 60-year-old victim testified that his penis could not be reattached and that he felt as though he had been murdered.
Deputy District Attorney John Christl told jurors that Kieu, 50, drugged the man’s tofu with sleeping pills and screamed ‘You deserve it!’ before attacking him with a 10-inch kitchen knife.
Kieu was jealous and angry about her husband’s plans to divorce her because he was seeing his ex-girlfriend, the prosecution said.
Audio of the incident was captured by a voice-activated recorder Kieu had hidden in the bedroom, Christl said.
The man, who is not being named by the AP because of the nature of the attack, married Kieu after they met at a gym but soon subjected Kieu to verbal and sexual abuse, Kieu’s public defender, Frank Bittar, said during trial.
Kieu had mental health problems caused by a childhood full of molestation and other trauma in war-torn Vietnam and her husband also constantly demanded sex in ways that caused her pain, Bittar said.
Kieu’s husband said it felt as if he’d been ‘murdered’
The defense argued she ‘had a break from reality’ on the night of the attack.
Catherine Kieu, 50, is accused of severing her husband’s penis because she was angry that he had started seeing a former lover and wanted a divorce.
Kieu’s public defender, Frank Bittar, said before jury deliberations: ‘She’s a shattered woman who tried to do the best she could’.
The husband said he remembered waking up tied to the bed.
During the trial Mr Christl described the scene: ‘When he woke, she told him “You deserve it” three times, and then slices off his penis with one motion of the knife’.
‘She then walks into the kitchen, takes the severed penis, and puts it into the garbage disposal.’
Catherine Kieu sits next to her attorney, deputy public defender, Frank Bittar in court. He said she is a ‘shattered woman’
He told the court that after she put the penis in the garbage disposal, she then turned it on, before calling 911.
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