Man Castrated, Murdered by Ex-Girlfriend

A man in Australia was given a meal containing sleeping pills by his former girlfriend, who then stabbed and mutilated him, according to officials. The man later died, reported Mediaite on Feb. 11.

The article drew on a Feb. 10 My Fox New York story that reported police allegations that Jian Chen, a mother of two boys, had drugged Xian Peng, the father of her younger child. While Peng slept on her couch, the article said, the woman tied him and then stabbed him several times, including in the leg and face. She then amputated his penis.

According to the My Fox New York article, Chen called for medical assistance after stabbing and mutilating Peng. He died the next day; the story anticipated that officials would upgrade the charges against Peng from grievous bodily harm with intent to murder to murder.

A famous incident with striking similarities took place in the United States on June 23, 1993, when Lorena Bobbitt's severed the penis of her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, as he slept. A TruTV.com article on the case recounted that Lorena Bobbitt was responding to having been forced into sex with her husband earlier in the evening, as well as to years of physical and emotional abuse.

Lorena then left her husband bleeding profusely in their bed and drove off in their car. It was only while behind the wheel that Lorena Bobbitt realized she still had her husband's penis in her hand. She threw it from the car window and then called emergency services. Police later found the severed member, and surgeons attached it. Bobbitt went on to have a brief career in adult films. Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted due to temporary insanity.

A more recent case of castration involved two Portuguese men who were guests at an upscale New York hotel when a disagreement reportedly escalated into an incident of murder and mutilation.

Renato Seabra, the 20-year-old model with whom prominent gay journalist Carlos Castro had traveled to New York, was apparently Castro's lover, reported the New York Daily News on Jan. 10. The older man's killing--said by the newspaper to have possibly been triggered by the 65-year-old Castro refusing to take Seabra shopping--included a grisly act of sexual mutilation: Seabra reportedly castrated his victim with a corkscrew. Castro's death was reportedly the result of choking and at least one blow to the head.

Seabra fled the scene, and was arrested when he went to a hospital for treatment to what may have been self-inflicted wounds. The New York Daily News reported that authorities suspect Seabra may have attempted suicide.

Once in police custody, Seabra--who denies being sexually involved with Castro and says that he is heterosexual--reportedly claimed that castrating the older man was his attempt to "get rid of homosexual demons" and convert Castro into a straight man. Police suspect that the two were not only sexually involved, but had been for some months in Portugal before traveling to New York.