Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 19, 1994 TAG: 9401190174
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium
On one side was the defense's doctor, claiming that Lorena Bobbitt was worn down by an abusive husband and mental disease and finally lost touch with reality after he raped her on June 23.
On the other side was the prosecution's doctor, saying that although the 24-year-old manicurist was raped, beaten and mentally ill, she knew what she was doing when she mutilated her husband.
"She attacked the weapon which was the instrument of her torture - that is, her husband's penis," said Susan Feister, who anchored the defense team's contention that Bobbitt suffered from temporary insanity - an irresistible impulse - when she took the 12-inch kitchen knife to her husband.
"I don't believe she had control over her actions," Feister said.
But the prosecution's psychiatrist, Miller Ryans, characterized the action as "not an irresistible impulse, but an impulse that she did not resist."
"When she stood at the foot of the bed, thinking about all these bad things her husband had done to her, at that moment she had a choice to make," Ryans said. "She could either complete the act, or back off and leave. She chose to amputate the penis."
Both psychiatrists agreed that Lorena Bobbitt remains a sick woman, troubled to this day by depression and a post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from her four-year marriage to John Wayne Bobbitt. The 26-year-old former bar bouncer was acquitted of marital sexual assault in the same Manassas courthouse two months ago and has denied his wife's allegations.
The medical views dominated the fifth day of Lorena Bobbitt's trial on a charge of malicious wounding, which carries a possible 20-year prison term. Although Tuesday's dry, technical psychiatric discourse lacked the emotional punch of Lorena Bobbitt's tearful testimony last week, the doctors could emerge as the pivotal witnesses when the jury of seven women and five men begins deliberations.
The case could go to the jury today, weather permitting. Tuesday, five jurors had to be ferried to court by sheriff's deputies because of icy roads.
Feister, medical director of the Psychiatric Institute of Washington, said Lorena Bobbitt is a classic example of a battered wife, weakened by years of beatings, rapes and threats from a husband she both loved and feared.
The psychiatrist testified that Lorena Bobbitt was afraid to leave her husband because he had told her "he would find her no matter where she was and have sex with her any time he wanted, anywhere he wanted and any way he wanted."
Notwithstanding that, Feister said, Lorena Bobbitt "continued to maintain and hold on to a hope that things would get better."
Based on interviews conducted in the last several months, she diagnosed Bobbitt as suffering from three major mental illnesses last June: depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and a panic disorder. Her symptoms included disturbing dreams, a death wish and feelings of worthlessness, along with physical reactions such as shaking and shortness of breath.
Feister said that when John Bobbitt attacked his wife on June 23, it unleashed a brief psychotic episode over which Lorena Bobbitt had no control.
She said Lorena Bobbitt, who has a "borderline normal" IQ of 83, "may appear well put-together, [but] she's a very fragile individual."
Although Lorena Bobbitt now says she has no recollection of the cutting, Feister said "partial amnesia" is not uncommon among trauma victims.
Ryans was part of a three-doctor team from Central State Hospital in Petersburg that examined Bobbitt for prosecutors last month.
While the doctors concluded that she had been raped by her husband June 23, Ryans said, "there was no evidence she was out of touch with reality or experiencing any delusions" when she attacked her husband.
"She was well aware of what was going on," he said, noting that she was able to tell police where to look for the severed penis, which she had thrown into a field as she drove from the couple's apartment, just outside Manassas. The organ was recovered and reattached.
by CNB