(MOBILE, Ala.) When Mallory Owens looks in the mirror ,"I don't like what I see," she says, "but I see a very lucky person, though."
She says she's lucky to be alive after being rushed to USA Medical Center Thanksgiving night , her face so badly beaten she was unrecognizable.
"The last thing I remember was us about to leave," she recalled. "And that is all I remember at all. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital."
Investigators believe the incident happened at a house on Bourgeois Circle, the home of her girlfriend's father, Travis Hawkins, Senior. It was a place Mallory says she's never felt comfortable, but went there that night at her girlfriend's request.
"I don't think her dad liked me," said Mallory. "I do not think I was his favorite person. He had told me that several times. He has made numerous threats to me, him and his son."
It was the son, Travis Hawkins, Jr., who has been arrested and charged with 2nd degree assault in the case.
Mallory says there has always been friction between the two because Travis, Jr didn't like his sister dating a girl. In fact, she claims, he's assaulted her before. So why, then, did Mallory return to that same house for a short time after being released from the hospital? She did it, she said, because of her girlfriend, Allie.
"I wasn't comfortable going over there," she said. "This is a place where I had just been assaulted. I was scared, you know? I wanted to make Alex happy. I wanted to be there for her."
Mallory credits her supportive family for giving her the strength she needs now, and in the days ahead. Those days will include more visits to the doctor and the courthouse. But there is one place she says she won't be going. That's to the house on Bourgeois Circle.
"There's no more trying. I done trying with that," said Mallory.
