The family of James John Felbaum gathered at the Butler County Courthouse Friday morning, hoping to see the wheels of justice begin to turn against the transsexual accused of killing him.

"We want justice," said Lisa Felbaum, James’ sister-in-law.

But they will have to wait awhile.

Tammy L. Felbaum, 42, was scheduled to go before District Justice Joseph O’Donnell to face charges of criminal homicide, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person and practicing medicine without a license.

But the Butler County district attorney’s office and Mrs. Felbaum’s attorney said the hearing had to be canceled because Dr. Karl Williams of Ellwood City Hospital, who performed an autopsy on Felbaum, was unavailable to testify.

Prosecutors say Felbaum, 40, was castrated in a very crude operation in the couple’s mobile home at 318 Smith Road, Marion Township. Citing medical reports, they say the pain from the procedure and drugs given to him caused him to suffocate on his own vomit Feb. 25.

Police say Mrs. Felbaum told them she helped her husband with the operation but only because he asked her to do so. In court documents, police allege Mrs. Felbaum told them her husband had started the operation himself and she agreed to help him when he asked.

She even told authorities Felbaum signed a note asking for her help, police said.

Although Felbaum’s family will have to wait until 9 a.m. April 5 for the rescheduled hearing, they talked openly about him and his wife.

"When he got hooked up with her, his life just fell apart," Nadine Felbaum said of her ex-husband and his wife. "She is not a nice person. This woman is a sick individual and she deserves anything that she gets."

"It’s a hell of a way for a man to go," added her fiance, Joe Pahel. "I want to see ... (her) put away."

"I don’t think in her sick, twisted mind she meant to kill him," Lisa Felbaum said, adding she believes Tammy Felbaum wanted to prove a point and show him what she could do.

Police said Tammy Felbaum told them she performed a similar castration on herself years ago. They also said there was an operating room in the couple’s Harrisville-area home with medical equipment and books about anatomy and medicine.

Family members claimed that Tammy Felbaum tried to keep her husband from seeing his family.

Felbaum’s father, Richard, said he met with his son regularly, especially during the last six months. He said he had to meet him at a truck stop in Barkeyville because Tammy Felbaum refused to let her husband see his family.

Family members said Felbaum was planning to leave his wife after he left the drug-rehabilitation program, from which he was discharged in mid-February. They said he only went back to her Feb. 22 because she called the halfway house where he had been living and said he needed to come home for a family emergency.

Several days later, he was dead.

Nadine Felbaum said she does not believe her ex-husband tried to perform a castration on himself. "I don’t think he ever wanted that. He was very proud to be a man."

"There’s just no way on God’s green earth he would agree to this," Lisa Felbaum said.

Felbaum’s death has also left two children without a father.

"My son just had a dream in his heart ... that this man was going to pop in his life," Nadine Felbaum said of her 9-year-old son, Nicholas, who wanted his father back in his life after years of separation. She said her former husband had no contact with the boy or his sister for about five years. Nadine and James Felbaum also have a 13-year-old daughter, Christina, who is manic depressive and suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder so she doesn’t really understand what happened to her father, Nadine Felbaum said.

She said the last time James and Tammy Felbaum had contact with the children, Tammy Felbaum asked Nicholas, who was 4 at the time, if he wanted to be a woman and talked to him in both a man’s voice and a woman’s voice.

Nadine Felbaum also claimed that Tammy Felbaum became angry that the children were hungry and poured hot soup over them before pushing Nicholas into a kerosene heater severely burning his arm.

Lisa Felbaum said her brother, Mike Mrozenski, introduced James and Tammy Felbaum. Lisa said Tammy Felbaum was a stripper and bartender at a Greensburg nightspot Mrozenski frequented. She said Mrozenski and Tammy Felbaum had a relationship which ended after she tortured him.

Tammy then became involved with Felbaum, Lisa said.

Tammy Felbaum had a "terrible temper," Lisa said. "If you didn’t do what Tammy wanted you to do, she would get angry."

Police say Tammy Felbaum was raised as Thomas Wyda and underwent a professional sex-change operation in 1980.

She is being held in the Cambria County Jail without bond.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.