Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Young Alabama Lesbian Savagely Attacked, Allegedly By Girlfriend’s Teenage Brother

Mallory Owens was beaten almost beyond recognition by her girlfriend’s teen brother on Thanksgiving Day [Facebook images].

Mobile, Alabama – A 23-year-old lesbian was brutally attacked by the brother of her lover on Thanksgiving Day.  According to several reports, Mallory Godwin Owens suffered smashed bones, multiple fractures of the skull, and her face was beaten virtually beyond recognition by 18-year-old Travis Monroe Hawkins Jr.  The victim, girlfriends with Travis’s sister Ally for over year according to family friends, was blindsided by her assailant at the family’s Thanksgiving dinner just as she was leaving the home.  Avery Godwin, Mallory’s sister, told AL.com that Travis hit her sister so hard that she suffered brain bleeding, and needed to have metal plates surgically implanted beneath her eyes to support her facial bones.

Hawkins was arrested for the crime by Mobile Police and charged with second-degree assault on Sunday while his victim was still recovering from emergency surgery at the University of South Alabama Medical Center.  Godwin commented on the charges against her sister’s assailant to the press, saying, “That charge shouldn’t be there. He should’ve been charged with attempted murder.” As News 5 reports, other members of Mallory’s family are also calling for stiffer charges to be leveled against Hawkins, who had a previous altercation with the victim.  In addition to a charge of murder, the Owens family contends that Hawkins, who loudly disapproved of his sister’s relationship with a lesbian, committed a hate crime during the attack and is now a free man after being bonded out of custody the same day he was arrested.

Mallory, who is to be released from the hospital on Monday, will likely need reconstructive surgery to repair the extensive damage to her face and skull, expensive procedures which the family cannot pay for by themselves. Local and Facebook efforts to raise money to defray her medical costs are underway. An account has been opened in her name at Regions Bank, and donations may be made to any branch worldwide.  Justice Today-For Mallory, a Facebook group established by Pensacola, Florida motel owner Sonia Mason, features up to date posts on Mallory’s continuing struggle to heal. The story of the brutal hate crime assault against Mallory is going viral around the World Wide Web.

Young Hawkins was already well known to local law enforcement authorities, according to AL.com.  His father, Travis Monroe Hawkins Sr., 40-years-of-age, was arrested and charged with shooting Travis Jr. in the chest during an altercation in January 2011.  Avery Godwin says Travis Jr. is intent on further violence against her sister. Godwin is quoted in “The Time of My Life” blog as alleging that young Hawkins called to threaten Godwin since the Thanksgiving assault, and to put the family on notice “that he would finish what he started last night [the night after the attack] with Mallory.”  

As of this writing, law enforcement authorities are remaining largely mum about the case, saying only that they believe the attack took place quickly, during a span of only a few seconds total, and consisted of three blows.  If that is the case, they are three of the most devastating blows, causing the most physical damage, that the Unfinished Lives Project Team has ever seen.

November 26, 2012 - Posted by | Alabama, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbian women, LGBTQ | , , , , , , ,

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

« Previous | Next »