Former CSULB Student Sliced Off Husband's Penis

Furious that her estranged husband was dating a former girlfriend, a Garden Grove woman drugged her spouse with Ambien, tied him up and castrated him as he woke up, tossing his penis into a garbage disposal, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

Catherine 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.

"This is a case about a husband wanting to seek a divorce from his wife and her unwillingness to accept it. That's it," Deputy District Attorney John Christl said in his opening statement. "By refusing to accept it, she committed a vicious act. She took away his manhood."

The prosecutor 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 again, Christl 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."

On his Dec. 27, 2009, wedding day, the victim penned a letter to guests that he had changed his mind, but ended up going through with the nuptials, Christl said.

About 11 months later, he told Kieu that they had "made a mistake" and he wanted a divorce, Christl said. However, the victim, "concerned the defendant did not have a place to live," allowed her to continue residing with him in his condominium, Christl said.

At first, the victim slept on the couch, but it was too uncomfortable so the estranged couple agreed to sleep in the same bed, separated by pillows, and they stopped having sex, Christl said.

Meanwhile, Kieu's estranged husband was spending time with a former girlfriend, which angered the defendant so much that she bought several voice- activated recorders and planted them throughout the condo and his car to catch the two having sex, which never happened, according to Christl.

The voice-activated recorders, however, did give authorities an accounting of what happened between the two before and during the castration, Christl said.

Less than a week before the July 11, 2011, attack, Kieu got a prescription for the insomnia drug Zolpidem, known by its brand name Ambien, which she put into a bowl of tofu soup she made him for dinner, Christl alleged.

"You can hear him saying, 'Oh, it's good,' " Christl said. "You can also hear him saying, 'It's a little salty,' " a reference to him unwittingly tasting the drug, the prosecutor said.

The victim dragged himself to bed uncharacteristically early -- about 8:10 p.m. -- and Kieu used ropes to tie him to his bed between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., Christl alleged.

When the victim awoke, Kieu told him "You deserve it" three times, and then "slices off his penis with one motion of the knife," the prosecutor said. "She then walks into the kitchen, takes the severed penis and puts it in the garbage disposal."

As the victim begged for help, Kieu dialed 911, Christl said. When the emergency workers arrived, he was still tied up with a towel over his groin and the 10-inch knife in the sink next to the garbage disposal, Christl said.

Before police arrived, Kieu gathered up the recorders and deleted audio files from her laptop computer while also peeling off the label on the Ambien prescription bottle, the prosecutor alleged.

Kieu's attorney, 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."

The defendant suffered a "lifetime of trauma," beginning with her childhood in Vietnam during the civil war, Bittar told the jury.

A year after her mother died, a "very troubled" older brother began raping her continuously for months when she was 6 years old, according to Bittar.

"And war was everywhere. Shelling, machine gunfire, rockets, tanks," he said. "That was another layer of trauma she endured."

An expert is expected to testify that Kieu could not tell anyone about the sex abuse because of the patriarchal culture in her country at the time, Bittar said.

When she was a teen, she fled her homeland with an aunt and other relatives, Bittar said. While adrift at sea, a Pakistani merchant ship picked up Kieu and her relatives and took them to a camp with "deplorable conditions" in Indonesia, Bittar said.

She eventually made her way to California, where she went to high school in Westminster and later got married in 1984, Bittar said.

Kieu and her previous husband had a grocery store that failed, which contributed to the demise of their marriage in 1997, Bittar said. Their divorce was "amicable," Bittar said.

"She's not jealous and she's not wicked and she's not a black widow," he said.

Their son told investigators that Kieu would suffer periodic bouts of crying, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, Bittar said.

Kieu met the victim in 2001 at a gym, but she "rebuffed him" because he "seemed too eager" and she wasn't ready for another relationship, the defense attorney said.  In 2008, their paths crossed again and they started dating, according to Bittar, who said the victim was "hyper-sexual" and was taking drugs like Viagara.

"He always wanted it," Bittar said.

The victim also desired sexual positions that were "painful" to the defendant, who had two herniated discs, her attorney said.

The way he wanted her to perform oral sex would "choke" her and make it difficult to breathe, "but for his pleasure she would acquiesce," Bittar said.

Kieu's "mental health state was deteriorating in a severe way" after her husband asked for a divorce and began "carrying on" with a 30-year-old woman, Bittar said.

--City News Service