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What John Wayne Bobbitt’s wife Lorena did to him as he slept in their bed has made their names go down in history.

She decided she’d had enough of his cheating and physical abuse. So she grabbed a kitchen knife and sliced off his penis.

Lorena, 23, then picked up the severed flesh and took it for a drive, stopping to hurl it into a field near their home.

Soon she began to realise the enormity of her actions and called the police, who searched the field and eventually found it.

(Image: AFP)

Bobbitt, 27, recalled he didn’t realise the severity of his wife’s attack at first. Then he checked himself and saw what was missing.

He told an American TV show last year: “I looked down and there was blood ­everywhere. It was a devastating thing to happen to you suddenly. Suicide seemed like the only answer.”

Incredibly, the recovered penis was ­reattached in an operation lasting nine and a half hours. Even more remarkably, Bobbitt was to discover he could still perform ­sexually with his reattached organ.

(Image: Ron Galella Collection)

Lorena, who was born in Ecuador, was arrested for what she did on the night of June 23, 1993, in Manassas, Virginia.

When she was taken into custody she told police in her poor English: “He always have orgasm. He doesn’t wait for me to have orgasm. He’s selfish.”

Charged with malicious wounding – with a maximum sentence of 20 years – Lorena’s lawyers said she snapped and gave in to an “irresistible impulse” to strike back after her husband allegedly raped her.

The attorneys also said she had ­nightmares over her husband’s alleged physical abuse throughout their four-year marriage.

(Image: The Washington Post)

The jury of seven women and five men concluded she was temporarily insane when she grabbed the knife. They acquitted Lorena of all charges.

Her supporters in court gasped on hearing the verdict. Lorena, turned to one of her lawyers and asked: “Is that good?”

Bobbitt was later accused of rape but cleared. The world’s most celebrated victim then found another kind of fame after his wince-making wounding – as a porn star.

He acted in a series of adult films and made dozens of TV appearances.

US radio shock jock Howard Stern even paid for a penis enlargement for him.

(Image: Ron Galella Collection)

His first movie was titled John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut and he went on to star in another called Frankenpenis.

But it wasn’t all glamour. He served 15 days in jail in 1994 for battering an exotic dancer in Las Vegas during a publicity tour.

More problems followed after he moved to the gambling capital to work in various jobs, including delivering pizzas. He received another small sentence for violating his probation over his role in a theft from a store. Now, 50, he works as a driver.

Not surprisingly the Bobbitts divorced in 1995 and haven’t seen each other for several years. But he says he holds no grudge.

(Image: AFP)

Bobbitt told the same American TV show: “I don’t blame Lorena. We both hurt each other. I wish her the best.”

The pair were reunited, again on television, in 2009 when Bobbitt told his ex: “I didn’t really understand how sensitive you are. You take things really seriously.”

Lorena, 46, has remarried and works in a beauty salon. She has founded a non-profit organisation to help domestic violence victims.

In 2015, she said: “I have a new life and just want to focus on what is positive and I surround myself with positive people.”

To read more about crimes which shook the world, pick up the Sunday Mirror on Sunday, June 4. From kidnappings to crimes of passion, the magazine looks behind the crimes which still haunt us today