Crime & Safety

Man Said He Was Awake When Wife Cut Off His Penis

Victim testifies he was attacked by estranged spouse, a Long Beach State grad, who drugged him to tie him up but waited until he awoke to slice off his penis, running it through garbage disposal.

A man tearfully testified today that his estranged wife ``murdered me'' the night she allegedly drugged him and tied him to his bed, waited for him to awake then cut off his penis, tossing it into a garbage disposal.

Catherine Kieu, 50, is accused of slashing off the victim's penis with a kitchen knife on July 11, 2011, and destroying it in their Garden Grove kitchen garbage disposal. Her attorney told the court that Kieu suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder rooted in her war-torn childhood in Vietnam and repeated rape by a relative.

Frank Bittar of the Orange County Public Defender's Office, called it "a tragic case for all parties ... It's exceedingly tragic for Catherine Kieu."

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The estranged husband countered.

``She murdered me that night,'' the man identifed only as Glen testified this afternoon. According to the prosecution, Kieu was furious that her estranged husband was dating a former girlfriend, so she drugged him by lacing his meal with Ambien, and when he passed out, tied him up.

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But it was only after he awoke, he testified, that Kieu took a 10-inch kitchen knife and severed his penis with one slice, the Orange County Register reported.

She yelled three times at her groggy husband, "You deserve it," as she cut off his penis, the Register quoted Deputy District Attorney John Christl saying in his opening statement. Christl said investigators knew of this comment from a voice-activated recording system she'd rigged up in the bedroom in an attempt to catch her estranged husband having sex with the girlfriend, according to news reports including O.C. Weekly.

The victim tearfully testified Wednesday about the grisly attack during the first day of Kieu's torture and aggravated mayhem trial. 

Kieu's attorney countered that his client suffered from post- traumatic stress disorder and did not have the required mental state to be convicted of the charges she faces - aggravated mayhem and torture, with a sentence-enhancing knife-use allegation. If convicted, she faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The victim testified that on the night he was attacked, Kieu served him a tofu and chicken dish while she ate a salad. As he watched TV and sat in his office, he noticed the dish had a ``metallic salty taste'' but kept eating it. About a month before, he said, she served him a similar dish that tasted so salty and bitter that he assumed it was spoiled and threw it out.

The victim recalled that he was soon overcome with grogginess even though it was still light out. He said he rarely went to bed before 10 or 11 p.m.

His next memory was waking in a mostly darkened room, his estranged wife at the foot of the bed. He couldn't move because his arms and feet were tied to each corner of the bed, he said.

``I was very, very groggy,'' he testified and he felt as if he were in a dream ``like I wasn't there.'' Kieu ``pulled on my shorts. I didn't really understand what she was doing,'' he testified. ``I looked down and I saw something metallic, silver, shiny. I still didn't know what was going on. I felt her grab hold of my penis. I was very surprised.

All of a sudden," he continued, "I felt a very sharp pain and she had cut my penis off and then threw it on the carpet next to the bed.'' Initially, he felt ``excruciating'' pain. ``But I must've gone into shock because the pain subsided,'' he testified.

Kieu then picked up his penis and left the room, he said. ``The next thing I heard was the garbage disposal,'' he testified. ``I don't know how long that went on -- a long time.''

The victim choked up and cried as he explained how he tried to undo the rope around his wrists with his teeth. Later, he heard the garbage disposal turned on again, he testified. When Kieu asked him if he wanted her to ``take care of it'' - call police - the victim asked her to dial 911, he testified. She held up the phone to his ear so he could speak with a dispatcher, he added. Kieu put a towel over her estranged husband's groin, which was ``bleeding profusely,'' and tried to stop the blood flow, he testified.

``She didn't want me dead,'' he said. The victim said he spent a few days in a hospital and underwent surgery, but ``not reconstructive surgery.'' The operation was ``to make it usable as far as going to the bathroom,'' he testified. ``Of course, I will never have a sex life again,'' he said. ``The healing process may never be completely finished. My mental state is improving, but it may never be what it was before.'' Deputy District Attorney Christl, in his opening statement, characterized Kieu as a ``very controlling, manipulative woman ... who knew exactly what she was doing.'' The ``well-educated'' Kieu, who had a degree in mathematics and computer science from Cal State Long Beach, was also vain and reluctant to start over as a single woman, the prosecutor said. ``She was going to have to get a job, pay rent, and she's angry,'' he said, adding that the victim ``never saw it coming.'

For more background on the case, and the couple's estrangement, read our earlier story.

--City News Service contributed to this report


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