A transsexual accused of killing her husband by castrating him said she never performed surgery on her husband, but nursed him after he castrated himself.

Tammy Felbaum told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for today’s editions that James J. Felbaum, 40, died from an overdose after he performed surgery on himself. The 42-year-old also told the newspaper the media has exaggerated aspects of her life.

"They’ve taken a private thing and made it ugly. As black and ugly as it could be made," Mrs. Felbaum told the newspaper from the woman’s wing of the Cambria County jail. "I really did love him. I stuck by him through everything. Not his family. Me."

Mrs. Felbaum, a Marion Township resident, was transferred to the Cambria County jail because of overcrowding at the Butler County Jail. She faces charges of homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and practicing medicine without a license.

Officials said James Felbaum died after a "very crude" castration in the couple’s trailer home near Harrisville. The coroner said pain from the castration, along with painkillers, suppressed the man’s gag reflex and he was suffocated by his own vomit.

Police said Tammy Felbaum, who was reared as Thomas Wyda, told them she performed a similar procedure on herself years earlier and had undergone a professional sex change operation in 1980.

A police warrant allowed searching the trailer for human body parts, human tissue, doctors’ tools, anatomy books or bandages. It said part of the home was set up as a makeshift operating room with a surgical table and equipment for intravenous medicine.

Hazardous materials crews removed "bottles upon bottles" of unknown chemicals, state police said. Police said they also found several dead animals and feces on the property.

The newspaper reported that Mrs. Felbaum tearfully denied hurting or killing her husband and described the experience as a nightmare.

Mrs. Felbaum described herself and her late husband as drug addicts who struggled to stay clean. In fact, the day James Felbaum left a rehabilitation clinic, Feb. 22, he started taking the prescription painkiller oxycodone.

"As soon as he got home, we got high," Mrs. Felbaum said.

That day, Mrs. Felbaum said she fell asleep in the living room and when she woke up, she found her husband had castrated himself. Because Mrs. Felbaum had an interest in medicine, their home was filled with medical supplies and James Felbaum used those to perform his surgery, Mrs. Felbaum said.

"The surgery was meticulously done with lidocaine, an anesthetic," she said. "I said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?’ He said, ‘no.’ He wasn’t bleeding profusely."

Mrs. Felbaum said the reason her husband wanted to castrate himself is private.

"After it was over, I took care of him," she said. "I did not want my husband to die. Period. I did everything I could to save him. I even freaked out on the ambulance guys because I didn’t think they did enough."

Also, Mrs. Felbaum would not say if she performed the same procedure on herself. But she did say, "I do know what the pain of castration feels like. It’s a dull aching pain."

The conditions of her trailer and the property on which it sits have been exaggerated, Mrs. Felbaum said. Her home had deteriorated because of her drug addiction.

Marion Township officials could fine her up to $300 a day because of the condition of her property. The fines started to accrue last Friday.