Woman Avenging a Slaying Severs Man’s Penis, Police Say

FAIRFIELD, Calif. — A woman allegedly bent on avenging the slaying of a friend bided her time for more than a decade before she seduced the killer and then cut off his penis, police say.

The woman went home last Thursday with Alan Hall, 48, a pipe-fitter convicted in the 1983 strangling of a young woman. Hall told police he had known the woman for years, but only as “Brenda.”

Before attacking him with his own X-Acto knife, Hall reported, “Brenda” hinted that the woman he killed was a friend, which “caused him to believe that she was seeking revenge,” police said Wednesday.

Doctors were unable to reattach the organ.

Few details were available about the woman, who remained at large Wednesday.

Police also were investigating the possibility that “Brenda” does not exist.

Hall, who spoke to police Monday, said he ran into the woman, an acquaintance, at a gas station Thursday in downtown Fairfield, 38 miles east of San Francisco. She agreed to go to his trailer parked outside his brother’s house, he told police.

About 3 a.m. Friday, after they had sex, the woman grabbed a pen-sized device with a razor blade three-quarters of an inch long and sliced his penis, police said Wednesday.

Hall, who is 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, said he couldn’t fight off the woman, police Lt. Bill Gresham said. Doctors were testing blood samples for drugs or alcohol.

After trying for hours to stop the bleeding himself, Hall stumbled outside, where a passerby spotted him later--eight hours after the attack, Gresham said.

Hall was rushed to NorthBay Medical Center, but surgeons were unable to reattach the organ, Gresham said Wednesday.

“It was just too deep a cut,” Gresham said. “How do I put this? It was cut down to the base.”

Hall was discharged in good condition Monday. Hall was convicted in July 1983 of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Denise Denofrio and served four years of an eight-year sentence, according to Solano County Superior Court records.

John Mraz, the now-retired officer who investigated the case, said Hall strangled the 22-year-old with the cord from her sweatshirt during a sexual encounter.

Mraz had no recollection of ever interviewing anyone named “Brenda,” though he said police were searching his files.

Court records also show that Hall was arrested in December 1996 on suspicion of beating his live-in girlfriend, but the Solano County district attorney’s office declined to prosecute.