Florida: Sebring man, Gary Van Ryswyk, arrested for performing castration

Last weekend, Highlands County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a home on Orday Road in Sebring after a 911 hang-up.

Image/Highlands Co. Sheriffs Office

When the deputy arrived and knocked on the door, it was answered by 74-year-old Gary Van Ryswyk. He told the deputy he had just performed a castration on a man that went completely wrong.

Deputies found the man on the bed with a towel over his groin, which was bleeding heavily. Nearby, there was a pink container which held two of the man’s body parts.

The room was set up like a surgical center with medical equipment and painkillers. There was also a camera set up to record the procedure.

Van Ryswyk told deputies he had met the victim on a website on the dark web called eunuch.com, which is for people who have a castration fetish. He told the victim that he had experience on animals and had even removed one of his own testicles in 2012.

He told deputies he had tried to perform the procedure on the victim a week earlier, but when he tried to sanitize the area, something came up so the procedure had to be delayed.

He also said he had done a similar procedure on a man in a local motel a few years ago that turned out pretty much like this one, but couldn’t remember the other man’s name. The man went to the hospital, but law enforcement was not notified.

The victim was taken to the hospital and was later flown to a regional medical center. He is listed in stable condition.

Van Ryswyk was arrested Monday and charged with practicing medicine without a license resulting in bodily injury, a second-degree felony. His bond was set at $250,000.