Inset left: Zachary Mowel appears in a booking photo (Dickson County Sheriff’s Office); Inset right: Tessa Mowel (Facebook/Selfie); Main image: the home the man allegedly tried to burn down with his wife inside (Google Maps)
“Momma, he tried to kill me,” a woman who was stabbed and burned earlier this week told her mother. “He was leaving me to die.”
Thanks to the heroic intervention of two strangers who happened to pass by the blaze, however, Tess Mowel (née Trotter) is still alive.
Now, the victim’s mother is looking for the couple from Alabama whose quick intervention saved her daughter’s life in Tennessee.
“God bless you, and I will reach out to you once my family finds out who you are,” Tina Trotter told Nashville-based NBC affiliate WSMV. “Our family is so grateful for y’all because I wouldn’t have her today.”
The pair were visiting from out of town to look at something on sale via Facebook Marketplace. When they saw the smoke coming from the small house, they rushed inside and put out the fire that had threatened to engulf the woman and take her life.
The incident occurred on Monday evening. Firefighters first arrived on the scene at a house on North Charlotte Street in Dickson, a small town on the Western edge of the Nashville metro area.
A resulting investigation by local and state police determined Zachary Mowel, 28, beat and stabbed his wife, doused her with gasoline, and then set their home on fire, according to a press release issued by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The husband currently stands accused of one count each of attempted murder in the first degree, aggravated arson, aggravated assault (domestic-related), and domestic assault.
Law enforcement say the man himself owned up to the attack as soon as police officers arrived outside the blaze.
“I did it,” Zachary Mowel allegedly said as he walked toward police standing outside his burning and broken home. “It was me.”
Family members say the brunt of the violence occurred in plain view of the couple’s two children.
“This all happened with their 5 year old and 8 year old boys watching and pleading for their dad to not kill their mom,” Tori Ila Elizabeth Trotter, the twin sister of the woman who was attacked, wrote in a GoFundMe for medical expenses and lost income.
She is currently recuperating in stable condition at the trauma unit of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
Grim details are now filtering out about the crime as the since-paralyzed woman was able to speak to her mother about the night that changed their family’s life, Tina Trotter told the TV station.
“The boys were sitting right there, my grandsons, and he grabbed her arm and stabbed her,” Tina Trotter told WSMV. “She told Jackson, her oldest child, to go call 911, and he wouldn’t let him do it.”
But the violence remains a horrific puzzle.
“He promised me he would never do that, and then to do this in front of the boys,” the victim’s mother went on in comments to the TV station. “I don’t know. That’s why I can’t get my head around it.”
Tessa’s sister offered some thoughts on a potential motive for the attack in comments to Nashville-based ABC affiliate WKRN.
“He’s never been physical with her. He’s been emotionally abusive towards her,” Tori Trotter said. “She actually asked for a divorce back in May. She actually called a lawyer that morning and had an appointment set up, and none of us expected this, not this.”
The victim is now paralyzed from the waist down, she has third degree burns covering her right leg, a collapsed lung, all of her ribs are broken, and she has nine total stab wounds, according to her sister.
“Please if you can my entire family would appreciate any help,” Tori Trotter wrote on the GoFundMe. “Tessa is the strongest person I know and her and her boys did not deserve this torture.”
The brutality of that torture is underscored by what investigators found when they discovered the victim amid the churning smoke near the back door of the residence: a knife was still lodged in her body, according to court documents filed by state law enforcement.
Tessa is not expected to ever walk again, her sister told WKRN.
“I just hope people realize emotional abuse can be far more worse than physical abuse,” Tori Trotter added. “You never know what someone can be capable of.”
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