10 Absurd Details Surrounding Bertha Boronda, Who Castrated Her Husband With A Straight Razor

6 /10 Suited For Divorce

Once the deed was done, Bertha proceeded to flee casually. She told her nephew, who was living there at the time that Frank cut himself shaving and never elaborated.

Then she walked out and went on the run. Frank, meanwhile, didn’t feel like bleeding out from his crotch in his own home, so he went next door to the fire station and summoned a Red Cross hospital doctor to his aide.

He was rushed to the hospital, where he claimed assault while Bertha got away on a bike, dressed as a man.

She stayed on the lam for over 24 hours until she was caught in her brother’s suit, which she’d worn previously to stalk Frank incognito to prove his cheating ways.

5 /10 Tasteless Defense

In court, Bertha initially denied any involvement, citing temporary amnesia. She didn’t recall the whole evening. Later interviews and interrogations led her to change her story to one of retribution in jealousy.

She knew Frank was cheating and would soon skip out on her to go to Mexico, and that on that evening, she only defended herself from Frank’s “vile request” of what he wanted to do to her.

She even claimed to find letters from previous flings – one being his daughter from Serena, which she asserted had romantic implications. None of this helped her case.

She was tried and convicted of Mayhem, which by definition was the assault and severance of an appendage to render useless or remove.

4 /10 Style In Profile

Bertha remained remorseless over what she did. She never avoided it, except for initially, and once the arguments were established, she owned up to it and just went along with the facts that she did, indeed, try to cut off Frank’s little Frank in a jealous rage.

Her ambivalent smugness could be seen in her mugshots, where she had a similar resting face of unconcerned detachment. She was also posed wearing her huge, ruffled hat.

ddit

3 /10 Penal Parole

Bertha was sentenced to five years in a women’s prison. Frank filed for divorce.

The papers ran with her story as it went on. Some took particular care to avoid the scrutinous details while others, like the modern papers of today, threw the most offensive private part of the story in the reader’s face.

After two years, Bertha was released and moved out of San Fran to LA to have better luck.

2 /10 Maybe It’s You?

The lousy marriage didn’t leave a lasting bitterness in either mouth, as they were quick to remarry to other people.

Frank married a much, much younger woman than himself named Josie Warburton and eventually died in 1940 at the age of 77.

Bertha married, then divorced, Alexander Patterson in LA. Perhaps he sensed the tension rising and didn’t want to risk a similar disastrous mayhem-filled marriage. She died in 1950 at 72.

1 /10 Twisted Inspiration

As far as penile punishment goes, Bertha was somewhat of an innovator. She may have been the first woman of the 20th century to go for the crotch shot with a blade, but she wasn’t the last – or the most famous.

That title goes to Lorena Bobbit, who infamously cut off her husband’s penis and then threw it in an open field over his claims of abuse.

They say never sleep next to an angry woman—especially not one with access to a blade.