MANASSAS, Va. -- His wife is the one on trial. But it was testimony about cruelty and abuse by John Bobbitt, and photos of his severed penis, that took center stage Tuesday.
Jonathan Whitaker, 19, who used to play basketball and lift weights with Bobbitt, said he bragged that "he liked to make girls squirm and yell and bleed and yell for help."
Lorena Bobbitt, who faces up to 20 years in prison if she is convicted of malicious wounding, admits she sliced off her husband's penis last year but says she was a battered wife who had just been raped.
John Bobbitt, acquitted of marital sexual assault charges last year, was the first defense witness Tuesday.
"I don't know where to begin," he said when asked how many times he had become angry with his wife.
"I have nothing to hide," Bobbitt told jurors. "Of course Lorena does. I hope the truth does come out."
Those who had shared holiday and other special events with John, 26, and Lorena, 24, described bitter, violent times during their 4-year marriage.
Terry McCumber told jurors she saw John Bobbitt beat his wife, and saw bruises on Lorena Bobbitt when they tanned together after hours at the nail salon where they worked.
On a questionnaire he filled out for a social worker, John Bobbitt reportedly admitted to 10 of 22 possible ways he abused his wife, physically or psychologically.
But Bobbitt testified Tuesday that he never hit his wife. "I never hit her at all - just push her, hold her down, restrain her from hitting me."
They fought about food. They fought at an amusement park. And they fought on Christmas Eve, when Lorena was embarrassed to open a gift in front of others and find it was lingerie.
Amalin Hoyt, a friend of Lorena's, said John became angry and pinned his wife against a wall. "I thought he was going to hit her," Hoyt said.
The only undisputed evidence of violence, however, came early in the day, when prosecutors presented graphic photos and descriptions of John Bobbitt's severed penis.
James Sehn, one of the surgeons who reattached the organ last year, showed large, color pictures of what he called "the stump," before the 9 1/2-hour reattachment surgery.
"There was nothing more than a red clot of blood left where the penis should have been," he said.
Defense lawyers, hoping to counteract the effect of the grisly pictures, asked witnesses to tell jurors six times how Lorena had led them to the penis by telling them into which field she had thrown it.
Throughout the testimony Tuesday, Lorena Bobbitt sat grim-faced, staring at the defense table cluttered with notes and documents that detailed her troubled life.
Her trial is expected to end today but could go longer.
Meanwhile, the worldwide media frenzy continued, and an uneasy truce held up in the courthouse hallways.
John's family and supporters gathered at one end, Lorena's family and friends at the other.
When they had to pass each other, they did so swiftly - looking straight ahead.
Lorena Bobbitt is expected to testify before the trial's conclusion.
