Woman Who Castrated, Killed Abusive Father Gets Manslaughter

MySpace photo of Brigitte Harris

The woman who killed her abusive father after strangling and castrating him in 2007 was acquitted of murder yesterday. However, Brigitte Harris was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, a verdict she immediately said she was happy with. The 28-year-old had told jurors that, after years of rape and physical abuse at her father's hands, she was just trying to prevent him from abusing his two young granddaughters (her nieces), but not kill him.

With the conviction, Harris will now face a maximum sentence of 5 to 15 years. Her lawyer said after the verdict, "The best offer the DA made was 12 years...We got a great verdict...Any time the top count is murder two and you walk out with manslaughter two, you have to feel relieved" Queens DA Richard Brown said he hopes Harris "will receive the counseling she so obviously needs." Defense psychology expert, Dr. Dawn Hughes, offered Harris free counseling for life.

Harris was also convicted criminal possession of a scalpel, the instrument she used to castrate her father after she had researched Lorena Bobbit's attack online. She admitted to cooking the evidence on a stove because she had learned, via the online research, that a penis can be reattached. Friends and family say they are now hoping the judge will deliver the minimum sentence for Harris, who once dubbed herself "XXLadyVengeanceXX” on MySpace. Her lawyer said, "The horrors she lived through, no one should ever have to go through."

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By Billy Parker in News on October 1, 2009 2:23 PM

Comments [rss]

NannyState

Screw prison, I'd settle for keeping her out of the dating scene.

HymietownHero

So, she didn't actually castrate him, she cut off his penis. A cruel punishment, surely, but if you're going to kill the victim anyway, can't we just get right down to it without the vitriolic genital mutilation?

Maybe he deserved the worst. I kind of like that she seems to have been inspired by Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance. See it if you haven't!

jaycjay

"if you're going to kill the victim anyway, can't we just get right down to it without the vitriolic genital mutilation?"

She says she wasn't intending to kill him; hence the manslaughter conviction.

ozik

It's criminal to possess a scalpel? Why?

And if you were going to emasculate someone, why the hell would you use a scalpel? Wouldn't a bigger knife be more effective?

jaycjay

It's not illegal to possess a scalpel, until you have intent to use it as a weapon. While some weapons are specifically named in possession laws, there's also that catchall for any "dangerous or deadly instrument."

That's why you'll see people charged with criminal possession of a weapon when all they have is a hammer, a golf club, a baseball bat, or whatever. Sometimes it's something even more bizarre and unlikely than those.

nicemarmot

It seems fair. On the one hand he seems to have deserved what he got, but on the other, can't really be taking the executing into our own hands now can we. I can't blame her for not trusting the system - it failed her, why would she trust it to protect her nieces?

Amanda Harletsch

A true tragedy!

How sad this woman did not trust the system, and ended up killing her father to protect her girls, she ended up becoming a monster thanks to living with one for so long.