Tamecka 0:03 I was a single mom raising a four year old little boy. Everyday Life of working for my family business, I had pretty good, strong support system, his grandma and my mom and everyone would help it hands on and so just trying to juggle motherhood and working every day in 1995

Caitlin Van Mol 0:23 Tamika great Frazier lived in an apartment complex in Dallas, Texas. How well did you know your neighbors in that complex?

Tamecka 0:32 I am very much so an extrovert, so I admit no strangers. Then an apartment complex was fairly large, so lots of buildings, lots of activity, lots of people, and had been there about a year or so. And I did know a few people. I did get to know the immediate neighbors, the above neighbor, the below neighbor, because it was a two story, three story, dwelling

Caitlin Van Mol 0:54 on New Year's Eve, 1995 Tamika was trying to figure out what she wanted to do to bring in the new year.

Tamecka 1:02 So I come from a pretty spiritual background. My dad was is a pastor, and was a pastor at that time, a normal protocol would have been to go to church for night watch service, which is the service that brings into the new year. And you know, you kind of do your praise and worship and all that goes along with it. But I wasn't so embedded into the church to the degree that I felt compelled to go that night. And so I was dating a guy, and he was going to come in that night, but something detoured him. He was a truck driver at that time, and so something detoured him. And I called my cousin, I was like, Hey, he's not coming in. You want to get out later? A friend of mine's family would always put together a little, small family gathering party, so nothing big or outlandish, and I was always welcomed, and I invited her to go with me. We went, and the night went over without a hitch until so until

Caitlin Van Mol 1:54 this is live to tell the podcast where I talk to some of the bravest people who have been through the most horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin Van Mol normally, Tamika would have stayed at her cousin's house after the party, but that night, she decided to go home, where she would have the apartment to herself, being

Tamecka 2:22 a being a single mom, I was really more excited that night, because my son was at my mom's and I had some free time, so I was like, I'm gonna go home. And she was like, why don't you just spend the night and go home in the morning? I was like, No, I want to go home. Tomorrow's New Year's Day. I want to cook. And so I convinced myself to leave her, which was only maybe a seven minute drive from me, to go to my apartment, and as I drove home again, the only angst I had was worrying about maybe a drunk driver or something, or somebody misfiring their weapon, because they're excited about the new year. And I'm thinking from point A to point B, if I can get there, I'm safe. When

Caitlin Van Mol 2:54 she got home, she saw one of her neighbors that she knew as T. I knew

Tamecka 2:59 him as t, then his official name is Emmanuel. Didn't know that until after the fact, of course, I knew T through the affiliation of the girl he actually lived with that went to high school with me. Because of that relationship, it was a little bit more neighborly because I knew her. Hey, T how's it going? But not behind closed doors.

Caitlin Van Mol 3:19 Neighborly. Sure. Where did he live in relation to you?

Tamecka 3:23 So my building was 28 and I believe their building, which was next to mine, was 29 and so very next breezeway would have been theirs. And so once I pulled into the apartment complex and and found parking, you know, near my my building, I did CT was standing outside, and it brought about a sense of security. To be honest, I see somebody I know. Mind you, Caitlin, it was three o'clock in the morning. I'm thinking it's late, but he's standing outside his New Year's Eve was, you know, nothing abnormal. I pull up and I had on a pair of heels, I remember vividly, and black pants and white shirt. And I thought, let me come out of these hills. I had a pair of slippers in the car, and I'll switch these out, taking my time. You know, he's standing there, and really, again, a layer of protection to me. Anyway, I get out of the car, and I'm lagging my purse and my coat and things that I had in hand, and as I'm approaching the area of my breezeway, he's standing kind of centered between the two buildings. And I was like, hey t you know, I was more fashion to strike up the conversation. Let him know I see you. You see me. Thank God you're here, you know. And so I started walking towards the stairwell of my apartment, but as I spoke to him, he had started to, you know, walk in the opposite direction, as if he was walking across the parking lot. And I thought, he must be, you know, preoccupied, but he spoke. But as I approached the stairwell, and again, I lived on the second floor, I heard a noise behind me, and I turned around. I was like, Oh, God, you scared me. And I was like, I thought you were walking that way. And he's like, No, I'm sorry, Mika, I didn't know that you were going up. I was trying to catch you to see if I could use your phone. And I. Kind of looked I was like, okay, everything. Okay? He's like, Well, I'm being outside waiting on Sean. It's taking a while, and I'm just kind of tired. And I thought, Okay, that's fair enough. And at that in that era that we had pagers, and you're quite young, you may know what a pager is. May not, but we had paid dad had a pager, yeah. So I had a pager, and the pager was relentless, because that was the way people got in contact with you. And so my pager was going off as he was asking. And I thought, who's this pager? Me this time of night, I need to, you know, get upstairs myself now and use the phone. So as we're walking, we're kind of, you know, gradually going up the stairs, talking this out. And I get to my door and I unlock the door, you know, no incident. And so I lived in a 700 square foot apartment, very small. As soon as you enter, you're in the living area. And so there's a bar that separates the living area from the kitchen, and that's where I left my cordless phone. And so I said, Give me a minute to you. I need to return this call. And my stepsister had called and was like, Hey, we missed you at church tonight, you know? And I was like, yikes. I was gonna come blah, blah, blah. So I got her off the phone, because I knew he was waiting. And two, I had already promised my cousin, as soon as I walk in the house, I'll give you a call, let you know I'm safe. And so I told him, Give me a second now I need to call my cousin, because I don't want to worry. And he's standing in the doorway. He's not even, you know, crossing the threshold, not being disrespectful at that moment. And so I'm thinking, just give me a minute. I started dialing as I'm walking back towards him, and I sit down on the sofa, which was adjacent to the door where he was standing, whereas I sat down. I guess that gave him comfort in just walking in. And so he kind of closed the door, but didn't shut it all the way. It was probably a foot open still, and he stood next to the sofa in the open space where he could sit or stand, and I was just sitting. And so I called my cousin. She's like, you good? I was like, yes, she was waiting on you to call us. I'm here. I'm here. And I didn't say somebody's here waiting to use phone. I said, Go ahead, I'll call you tomorrow. And she probably thought, you know, maybe she's entertaining her boyfriend. She's rushing me off. And I said, I'll call you tomorrow. Come over and eat dinner. I'm gonna cook. I hang the phone up and I hand it to him, and as I hand it to him, he stood there, and he made a call, and it failed. The call was like a recording, like you've dialed the wrong number. And so made a second call, and it failed. And so I'm thinking, Okay, I'm not sure who he's trying to reach, but at this point I'm sitting here, I realize it's three o'clock in the morning. Go ahead and finish, so I can let you go. He did it a third time, and the phone was just ringing and ringing and ringing. He was just waiting for whatever to answer on the other end. After he realized he was not going to make a connection, he handed the phone back to me, but rather than him walk out, he sat down in that open space, and I'm thinking, I didn't give you in any indication that you could stay or were welcome to stay and do whatever you were waiting on. But no sooner than I could ask him, What else I could help him with, he took his fist and he struck me in my face as hard as he could. It was just like a snap. And I thought, Whoa, what was that about? And I was like, Hold on t what was going on? And I could only assume he was upset for not getting through on the phone call. And I'm thinking, what's the problem? Why did you hit me? And as I'm asking, he's hitting me again. And so now it's ensuing a fight, and I'm thinking, I got this phone in my hand. I don't know why this guy's hitting me. And I was like, t do you need my phone? What do you need the phone again? Do you need my curse? I'm trying to ask him everything I can think of to get his attention to snap back. And so as I'm asking, the more I ask, the more he punched. And at this point I'm thinking, I'm gonna have to fight, and I don't even know why, and I didn't think fight for my life. I keep thinking I'm fighting, and so I'm swinging, and I got this phone, and I'm thinking, oh God, do I call somebody? What do I do? And I'm screaming at him, and he's punching me, and I hit the talk button on the phone, big round button on those old school phones. And I thought, I'll just dial 911 or hopefully get to 911 because at this point, this guy's losing it.

Caitlin Van Mol 8:49 But in the skirmish, she didn't know if she had dialed 911 accurately. She continued to offer him her belongings, car, anything to get him to stop, but he was

Tamecka 9:03 not saying anything. He was just wanting to bludgeon and fight. And by now, he's at a level of aggression, of not listening to me. And I lost the phone as I turned around and tried to fend him off with both hands, and I looked at him, and immediately I saw a sharp edge coming towards my face, and I thought, whoa. Now mind you, I'm kind of pent down in the sofa from trying to turn around and fight him, and I'm just about the size of a rag doll, and he was very slender but very tall, and all I could think of is I'm fighting this guy, and I don't know why I'm screaming, and I'm still trying to figure out why I'm fighting. And as I'm trying to swing with the free hand, I grabbed his wrist with the hand that was controlling the sharp object, and I'm thinking, oh god, he's gonna stab me with whatever this is. And it was coming towards my face as I was trying to pin them off as best I could without getting stabbed. Well, it punctured my left side of my face, and I thought, oh God. Now there's blood everywhere. I'm still swinging. He's. Still punching, and he's now stabbing, and I'm thinking, grab his wrist. And with everything in me, I'm holding just that wrist alone. I didn't care anything about a punch, so I'm trying to get out from under him and him. And again, Caitlin, I'm very spiritual. And so immediately I'm thinking, Oh God, please help me. Oh God, please help me. And then I'm like, in the name of Jesus, I'm just thinking, anything spiritual I can do to kind of resonate with just feeling like this is demonic and it needs to go away. As I'm trying to get away from him, he's grabbing the back of my shirt, and he's just ragdolling me around, and I'm just like, God, why won't he go? What is he doing? Why is he doing this to me? And I'm just now regurgitating because I'm losing a lot of blood the sickness that comes with that. There's a lot of shock that goes on in the body. My body is kind of shutting down, but not to the degree of fatigue, just cold and clammy. And now you're I'm half disrobed in certain areas because my clothes are torn, and then I started feeling him hit it up on the side of my head. Well, found out he's stabbing me, and I'm not really feeling it. Your body shuts down and your your nose, something's happening, but more blood was coming. So I knew something more than just being hit was happening. And by then, I'm just screaming, God, what do I do? And I'm I'm praying out loud. I'm negotiating anything you can think of. I'm slinging the furniture around so it can get in his path. And again, that little bitty room was like a huge track deal, trying to get away from him. And sadly, I thought, if there was everything that ever happened to me and blood will be involved, what would I do? Do I play dead? Do I what do I fight? What do I do? And at that moment, I honestly believe the Holy Spirit, in terms of my faith, came down and was like, just play dead, fall over in that pool of blood and just lay there and give him any indication that he's won or conquered you, so he can leave and you can get help. Because I had energy like a raging bull. I did not lose to fatigue. I was really wired up, and all I could think of is, if he knows I'm wired up, then he's going to continue to try to kill me. If

Caitlin Van Mol 11:59 he's saying anything, the only

Tamecka 12:02 thing I ever could get was the grumbling and roar. It's just sounding really demonic. If you could ever think about a spirit of a demon in the grunginess that comes with it, there's just a lot of run and noise making nothing that says I'm mad at you, or nothing that says this is for you. And so as I'm laying there, I'm trying to slow my breathing down, and as I'm thinking that he's thinking, I'm dying, he decides to disrobe me from my waist down. And I'm thinking, Oh, God, it's getting worse. Oh, I just this cannot happen if he's disrobing me that very well means he's getting ready to try to violate me. And so at that point he leans back, because he gets down in the floor with me to do this. And I had a little bit of a peripheral he leans back on his knees. And then I see him at that point pleasuring himself. And I screamed out, Jesus, please help me. You know, just unconsciously it came out, and he took the very object and he stabbed me in the side of my head. And he just kind of almost kept it there as if to say, you die, you know. And his exact words was, bitch, Jesus, can't help you die. And I took a deep breath, and it felt like a gas, but it was so ah, it was so deep in nature that I thought I didn't die. When I took that deep breath, still got energy, so I'm still alive. And at that very moment, all I could think of was my little boy. He was four years old at the time, his fifth birthday was within five days, and all I could think of is I could have lived for this kid. I had him, you know, at a young age, God promised me that if I did write by him, that he'd help me raise him. He'd see me through this single parenting, I started using all of that mentally to gain incentive in that very moment.

Caitlin Van Mol 13:42 Then Tamika started hearing sirens. Her 911 call had gone through, and the operator could hear everything that happened. Oh, God,

Tamecka 13:52 I'm hearing something. Maybe there's help. Maybe there's help coming. And maybe a few minutes later, I started hearing what would be footsteps running up the stairs, and he's still, you know, pleasuring himself. And I'm like, he don't hear what I hear, but I'm stay still. I'm gonna lay here, and I'm hopeful that there's help coming. And the sirens are getting closer and closer.

Caitlin Van Mol 14:12 Finally, an officer arrived. He was alone, but the front door had been open the whole time.

Tamecka 14:19 The police officer said he noticed that the guy was pleasuring himself. He saw the blood. He saw me landing floor, but because he did not have backup immediate with him, he is protocol to wait, you know, because you don't know what you're walking into. He said, The only instinctive thing he could think to do was to slam the door and then reopen it.

Caitlin Van Mol 14:36 The loud noise seemed to snap T out of a trance. You know, it almost

Tamecka 14:41 looked as if he was just as surprised as I was. He jumped up, ran to the door, leaned on it with a small, frail frame, and tried to roll himself up so he didn't look conspicuous. And I'm screaming now. Now I know there's help, and I'm like, somebody's out there, and he's frantic. I'm frantic, and so I'm screaming and please help me. Please help me. Again. I'm this robe. From my waist down, and so he ran past me to try to go and barricade himself in the bedroom, which, again, was just feet away. And I thought, Where is he going? And I jump up, and I grab my clothes and try to get myself decent. And I'm running to the door, and the police officer opens the door, and he runs in, and I said, he's he's come he's in the room. I don't know what he's getting ready to do, but he's in there, and I

Caitlin Van Mol 15:21 need help. The officer went towards the bedroom as Tamika got out of her apartment and ran to her next door neighbors, who

Tamecka 15:29 was a very good friend of mine at the time and still is having gotten to her with all of the chaos by now, there's neighbors everywhere, people's wondering where the ambulance are going. You know it brings about the crowd, and she's looking at me, and she's not frantic, she's just kind of staring like what on earth happened? And she was in a trance, if you will. But even more so, just more shocked. And I said, I don't know what T did, what's wrong with T, but he just jumped on me and and again, I remembered the sharp object, but I never gave it a lot of credit. I told her, I said, call my dad, call my brother, call my cousin. I'm rattling out all these, all these phone numbers, just get somebody that's attached to me here now to help me.

Caitlin Van Mol 16:12 But her friend was still in quiet shock looking at her so

Tamecka 16:15 so she's kind of like you've got and she wanted to say something about what the way I looked. And another girlfriend was spending the night with her that night, and she ran to the door to see what was going on. And she just screamed, just like, Oh my God. You know, she took on all of the the drama, if you will. And I thought, Evelyn. Her name's Evelyn. Evelyn, chill. You know, I was bad, but

Caitlin Van Mol 16:37 like, I'm the one who got attacked. Why are you freaking out? She said, She's,

Tamecka 16:41 I said, Sirs. I just kept hearing scissors. And I thought, just get her away, you know. And so she told her, Evelyn, chill out, you know. And I think, gracefully, God, put it on Bridget to just stay quiet before

Caitlin Van Mol 16:54 Tamika could really interrogate what Evelyn was freaking out about. The paramedics arrived. I was tended to

Tamecka 17:02 with a C collar and a gurney to get me down the stairs, to get me to the ambulance. And the paramedic was just he had changed a whole different shape. He could not believe his eyes, but, you know, he had stayed professional as best he could, and he started out Miss great. You gonna be fine? We're going to get you some help. There's hospital right down the street. I was like, Don't take me there. Take me to Parkland. Parkland is known for trauma. I have no idea where that came from. Caitlin, I was young, didn't have had, never have a traumatic experience. So they continued with the journey to Parkland. As he as they were driving, he said, we're bringing in a 24 year old female multiple stab wounds, and he was given my condition, and then I heard a pair of scissors protruding out of her left ear. And I thought, did you just say I have a pair of scissors in my head? The

Caitlin Van Mol 17:53 sharp object T had stabbed her with was one half of a pair of scissors when he stabbed her the last time they went into her ear and stuck there?

Tamecka 18:04 He was like, you're going to be fine. We got this. Your vitals are good. And he stayed in the professional space, and he did everything in his power to keep me from just spazzing out. And by then, I'm chatty, Cathy, asking all the questions I can think of. And I'm like, What are you guys gonna do? Are you telling me scissors are in my head?

Caitlin Van Mol 18:25 Could you describe the scissors? The scissors,

Tamecka 18:29 if you had to think about it, would remind you of cutting shears for hair at a barber shop or a salon, and they have the little curve at the end of one of the circles. They were long and sharp in nature, maybe about a three to four inch blade, and the handles were just as long during the midst of the the struggle and when he did initially stab me in the face as I was holding his wrist, something happened that the screw came out of those scissors. So it ended up being a long line of just a knife, and so wasn't the full set of scissors that actually entered. It was just one of the blades that had stayed intact, whereas they found the other piece of the scissors that was broken off in the sofa later on as evidence. Okay, so I'm really just trying to get the Adjust of what's going on before I left Bridget, and before I got into the ambulance, I did make a call to my dad, who had been dispatched to come to the apartment. Somehow, my dad made us to the apartment, into the hospital in record time, and before I even got there. I don't know how that happened, but when they opened up the ambulance doors and I had made it to the hospital, there stood my dad, one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet. Never ever loses his cool, very soft, spoken, very compassionate. But to hear His voice, read it, and him scream, I knew it had to be something extremely bad,

Caitlin Van Mol 19:49 yeah, and it's like you never, as a parent, obviously, that is the scariest thing, helpless. But as a child, to see your. Or, I assume, very strong, silent dad freak out, yeah, did that change things for you about how you felt about your condition? It

Tamecka 20:10 did. I immediately went into a toddler space. I started to cry. I started to spaz a little bit, and think Daddy helped me. What is going on? What did I just endure? Can you please explain why you're upset? Please tell me what's going on that happened, but it happened with assurance that I had people around that were going to help me, and so I felt more vulnerable at that point where I could crying, and hopefully they could calm me to a point that I didn't, of course, exacerbate it in my vitals, but I was freaked out. Once I saw my daddy, freaked out.

Caitlin Van Mol 20:42 Word had gotten out to Tamika, his family, and they all started pouring into the ER, did you see anyone other than Him before you went into surgery from your family?

Tamecka 20:54 Yes. When I first entered into the hospital and they were taking me back for testing, I was going in and in and out the MRI machine, having go from hallway to hallway, each time they Gurney me around, I would see family members, and the walls were lined. I won't both be boastful, but I know a lot of people then, and I know an enormous amount of people now, and everybody that you can think of who probably thought I may have been getting ready to leave this earth showed up with that intent of just making sure they had a moment with me. And so that stemmed from family to cheerleaders, from when I was in high school, college buddies, working family, church family, you name it. If they had an attachment to me, they made it to that hospital in record time and the walls were lined. Did

Caitlin Van Mol 21:40 that make you feel better about your chances or worse? I really,

Tamecka 21:43 if I can think hindsight, 2020, more. So that night, I was probably more freed that I had that kind of support. But when I think about it now, of course, these people are waiting on me probably die, so I don't know what I really said. I was just grateful to have the support around at that time? Yeah, my dad would be the spokesperson from the night on out to each and every person that would, you know, come to me, whether it be a doctor, friend, family member, and he would always kind of set the stage and share my condition in the preview before they would enter the room. I would hear this spill, and he would kind of just set the tone. And each time he did that, I gained some strength to try to prepare myself so whoever would come to the bed wouldn't freak out or wouldn't put me in the grave. Before

Caitlin Van Mol 22:27 she went into surgery, the police were already there to take a statement,

Tamecka 22:32 and they wanted to know the relationship between he and I and how I knew him, because when they rolled me from the apartment complex, I saw him sitting in the back of the police car. They had to pass the car up to get to the ambulance. Turns out the guy jumped out of the window, second story window, and as he landed on the ground, there was two police officers that was coming to help the one attending officer. So those guys just we see somebody falling out, flying out the windows. Let's ask questions, you know, and figure what this is all about, not knowing that he was the victim or the assailant.

Caitlin Van Mol 23:05 So Tamika didn't have to worry about her attacker being free. But there were major concerns going into her surgery.

Tamecka 23:14 Those possibilities stemmed from me though, having a stroke, losing my eyesight, losing my hearing, dying, bleeding out. The blade that was intact was leaning against my main artery, just literally leaning on it. And all of the pictures that they put up on the scans to try to determine, how do we get this out? The same way it went in, and slide it so cautiously that it does not tear that vein, because if it does, it's over. And so I had to hear that, and they called out all

Caitlin Van Mol 23:46 stops. Doctors were called in from two neighboring hospitals to help with the surgery. Guys,

Tamecka 23:53 we need everybody that's been in some kind of conspicuous situation to help us figure this out. And so they joined forces, and 13 hours later, I was free of scissors. The surgeon was even more surprised that he could even get it done. He said it and he thought somebody's got to be watching out for her, because there's no way in a million years we can repeat this. While

Caitlin Van Mol 24:13 Tamika was in surgery, the waiting room was getting a little rowdy. Were you aware of what your brother's reaction was, not

Tamecka 24:25 the one that I spoke about in the book.

Caitlin Van Mol 24:27 Tamika wrote a book about her experience called Life after a memoir of inspiration post survival. He

Tamecka 24:36 was a feisty guy. I lost him to COPD a couple of years ago. Sorry. Thank you so much. He was truly the firecracker of the family, just one of my best friends, and so I knew if anybody would get rambunctious, it would be him. I understood that he kind of kicked a lot of dust up in the emergency room, because there was this whole Alliance for him to go and try to put. Bond him out and kill him.

Caitlin Van Mol 25:01 Yes, they were loosely formulating a plan to bond out T and kill him. My

Tamecka 25:07 oldest brother was very much so more compassionate, more soft spoken, more let's be more rational. And so between the two, I heard there was a very comical setting going on, but,

Caitlin Van Mol 25:17 but, like, we don't need to cut charges. Nobody catches charges today, buddies? Yeah,

Tamecka 25:21 it's so funny because my stepdads father, at the time, 90 year old guy, he may have been in his 80s or 90s. At the time, he was one of the ones hyping them up. It was like, what are you gonna do? So I got all of these stories after the fact, but it was, it was great to know that they were just really, you know, team, let's make sure she's good, but nobody needs to go to jail.

Caitlin Van Mol 25:46 We're gonna be right back. When Tamika woke up from surgery, she was intubated and couldn't talk. She was extubated within days, and she was able to get up and walk with some help.

Tamecka 26:03 And I think maybe day three, I wanted to get up and see if I was stable enough to walk. And so I had help walking one person on one side, each side of me to kind of get me three or four steps in a day, or, you know, during the hours of the day. But I still hadn't gotten a mirror to see what I looked like. And then finally, I got a one of those days, one of those moments when I got up to walk, and I turned around and looked in the mirror and I was just really swollen. And I thought, this has got to get better. I can remember them telling me when I first got there, my head was swelling in record numbers, and that would be part of my dad's spill. She doesn't look like herself right now, but she will, you know, and kind of doing that. And so as the days progressed, I knew then I had to tell myself, it's only temporary. It's only temporary. I didn't know how extensive anything was. I just knew that it wasn't me or my normal look. And so as I started to heal, even post hospital stay, I noticed that my eye doesn't look the same. My face doesn't really look the same. Doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look the same. During

Caitlin Van Mol 27:06 the attack, Tamika had been cut across her left eye, and it

Tamecka 27:11 went in a downward motion, so it shifted my pupil as it was coming down. And so I did end up having a little bit of strabismus, which is cross eyed, but, you know, more vertical way. And so that was just a little bit of damage, but I knew nothing of the sort, until I was un bandaged and I started to heal.

Caitlin Van Mol 27:29 It also caused her left eyelid to droop, which was hard to accept. Gotta

Tamecka 27:35 figure this thing out. And how do I go back to Tamika? You know, I wanted to go back to normal. Normal didn't come back immediately, and over the course of time, I thought, This is my new normal. This is just reassurance that I survived something. And so I started to use it as more of a of just a reminder, a reminder that, you know, could have been a lot worse one, and that, you know, God was truly with me. And I can see out of the eye, I don't look the same, but I'm still I'm okay, and so I had to really convince myself at that point it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's a really

Caitlin Van Mol 28:09 hard thing to finally settle in.

Tamecka 28:13 Yeah, I think more of what could have been worse, and that settling came a little easier when I thought about all of the chain of events as I replayed them in my head over and over, how, thankfully that last wound didn't kill me. And so the scar started to shrink mentally for me after thinking about that stuff more and more. And I'm, I'm grateful for that, for that. Yeah,

Caitlin Van Mol 28:37 I mean, there's it could have been worse, but I think I would go through Why did this have to happen at all? Yeah,

Tamecka 28:46 there were moments that I can tell you for certain that I thought I didn't sign up for this, especially when I thought about all of the attention that it brought because it was deemed such a miraculous survival, the media was all over it. I was getting calls and contacted from all over the world. CNN had did a blurb turkey. You know, people in Greece. I spoke with translators in Spain. They wanted to know how this woman survived a pair of scissors going across her head from one side to the other, and it was noteworthy, but the gawking and the tugging and the pulling became very troublesome, even

Caitlin Van Mol 29:28 without all the attention being attacked completely ran her life off the rails.

Tamecka 29:34 Life just changed immediately, drastically. Finger snapped my brothers and cousins and all of my family members joined forces and moved all of my belongings from that apartment. I never went back to that dwelling. And so I was now living with my mom. I'm independent. 24 year old with my own place. And so I went back to being, you know, dependent on my parents, and each day I wanted to find a sense of normalcy with each step that I took, even if it was. Motherhood at that time. And so I put a lot of energy back into my son who was just a little like he was five years old, and mom who did this to you, and why does your face look like that? And who hurt your eye? And so I got all of those questions from this baby, and as he questioned it, and he would hear people tell him, your mom's so strong. He built this son of a superwoman mentality. My mom is so strong person, and that alone pushed me back into normalcy, you know, seeing him get excited about his mom still being alive, and she's a bad girl now she You better not mess with her, you know, this kind of stuff. And I could give him what he needed, and that really is what gave me my wind beneath my wing at that time,

Caitlin Van Mol 30:45 Tamika, his whole family, was processing what happened, but Tamika didn't feel like she was necessarily being centered in the conversation. To be honest

Tamecka 30:55 with you, Caitlin, I can remember over the course of time, I used to feel like nobody really gave me the energy I thought I deserved post my experience, and my dad had to tell me you were not sitting on this side of the table. And I had to give them grace, because I started to kind of anger around the anniversary time, like I needed not, like I needed somebody to call on me or that I needed it highlighted, but I kind of needed people to understand that that was a moment for me that'll never, ever go away, and it was a moment for them too. And my best friend, she said it best. She said, You don't ever want to sit in our seat either, I promise you. And that's not to diminish your feelings, but to let you know some of us still haven't healed. You're the strongest woman we know, and we're still trying to figure out what happened to you and why did, why we wasn't there to help you. And so a lot has come from that in terms of how to cope later in life, how to deal with, you know, the energies that surround that time of year. I never really sat in the seat of, oh my god. Here comes the anniversary of me getting attacked, I usually try to make a very liberating, freeing space where people can see, look at her. She's still doing the damn thing. She's good

Caitlin Van Mol 32:08 at the time when your family is also making it very clear this happened to us as well. Were you able or afforded the time and space to talk about your experience, or did they just not want to hear it because it was too painful for them,

Tamecka 32:25 too painful for my mommy, and still to this day, she does not like to resonate with it. She knows that it happens, and I give her grace for that reason. She's mommy. Daddy being so spiritual. He's always kept it on the pedestal of spirituality. He never really brought it down to life, although I've had to share it with him, even in angered moments, dad, you know, thank I'm grateful. I'm thankful God saved my life. I know that happened, but this happened, and this is how I feel around that time, because with my dad being a pastor, when he started to early. He was early in his pastoral ship at that time, and so that was kind of like, you know, gas pedal for him, although it was my scenario was like, I know she was up under my anointing when it happened, and I know I prayed for my daughter, and I know she's alive. And so then I won't take anything away from his spiritual being, because he's a great man of God, and I believe everything that's been ever held upon him with that, but

Caitlin Van Mol 33:23 because it's like we can all acknowledge that God was present, but this happened to me. Yeah, so can we talk about me and

Tamecka 33:34 Caitlin to this day? Um, I do what more with people like you. I do it more with the strangers who I do want to know that they can get on the other side of traumatic experiences. I do it more on platforms, and that gives me, I guess, the therapy that I need, because it's very therapeutic to talk about it. I don't fret. It does not take anything away from me. It actually kind of hunts me up a little bit. It still gives me a free space, and so I don't get the free space with my family like I think I should have, or could have, or want to, but even hearing them say how it affected them, the grace that comes with that helps me deal with it this kind of way, this kind of helps me a lot better.

Caitlin Van Mol 34:17 So in your book, you talked about a counselor coming or a social worker or somebody to give you some pamphlets about mental health services. Can you talk about why you were initially didn't want to do any counseling or therapy, and the and the evolution of how you felt about it?

Tamecka 34:33 Novice energy, culturally, at that time in our life, therapist was frowned upon also. I was always surrounded with a very spiritual background. I didn't walk in the spiritual nature. I was still very secular in the world, having fun, doing me and no regrets. But at that time, I knew that there were a lot of people praying for me. I knew from an evangelistic perspective, that everybody thought, you know, she. A miracle. God saved her. He's going to be sitting with her and walking with her for the rest of her life. She don't have to worry about nothing. And so in my mind, I'm a spiritual Superwoman,

Caitlin Van Mol 35:09 but Tamika also needed someone on the earthly plane to talk to in a real way.

Tamecka 35:16 As I started to progress through healing, I did notice that, you know, I did not want to be saturated in this spiritual idea. I love God. I love everything God did for me. I am truly a child of God, and I truly believe I am a miracle, but I felt like I was missing out on what real life really was supposed to feel like in order for me to bounce back, and by then, I started really joining forces with the media. I was doing a lot of talk shows, and then I started getting a lot of invites at different churches, and they wanted me to come share the miraculous story, as if I was giving my Easter speech. And so it all started to become a little superficial, but

Caitlin Van Mol 35:58 public speaking did help. So therapy remained off the table. She also did have an old slash new person to support her during this time. Rod

Tamecka 36:10 and I were always friends first, before the ordeal, and we actually kind of grew up on the same street. Our grandparents shared the same residential street as I got a little older, there was just a little bit of a sense of attraction to the energies that surrounded the room. Of us hanging out really, not really intentional. As I went through the ordeal, those that knew about us kind of liking each other, if you will. My brother, being one of them, made sure that, when it happened, that they got in touch with them. But I was dating somebody else, Caitlin, I wasn't even dating Roderick, so I was like, yeah, he's cool. Bring him on board. I had a child. His dad was there, you know. So I'm thinking, what guys are out there? Bring them on out, whatever, whatever this looks like. Bring them on out. And so

Caitlin Van Mol 36:52 they can join the big old waiting room full of my people.

Tamecka 36:55 And so Roderick joined the waiting room. But Roderick was very adamant about his tangibility. To me, he didn't go and set the tone like I'm the girlfriend, because the guy that I was dating at the time made it to the hospital the next day, when I was intubated, still came in the ICU, ICU room, and I can laugh about it because my two best friends were at the foot of the bed. He was just real frantic. And he was like, Oh my God. What happened to her? What happened to her? What happened to her? Well, when he walked in, Robert was there, and he was kind of like, having his first visit, and he was showing some signs of heart failure, and says, look a little deeper than an average friend. And the guy was seeing was like, Who is this guy? And so I'm sitting there, like, how is this happening in this time of my life and my girlfriends at that very moment, even in all the goriness of how I look, was packing up at the foot of my baby, and I was like, Is this really happening? And we laugh about this to this day, and

Caitlin Van Mol 37:50 you're intubated, so you can't be like, This is who that is, and this is I was

Tamecka 37:54 glad I was intubated. Let's go there. And I was embarrassed, but it was funny. And so as time progressed and I got out of ICU, Roger just he didn't care. He just never left my side. He sat there when I woke up, he was there. When I went to bed, he was there. The guy was coming and going, and everybody was like, rod's not leaving. It gave our best friend vibes. I still didn't see him as boyfriend, but I also noticed that he was, he was starting to be so smothering in a good way. I later found out that he told my brother, maybe if I don't stick to her now, I'll lose her. So the other guy fizzled and went on about his way and Roderick was like, you need anything. And I was really open to dating him, but I was still open to dating but I was open to taking care of me first. So all of that gumbo in at that time, he just never left. And as I saw that he would stick close by, we started, you know, I started to heal more. He started to be a little bit more accessible, and I just kind of flowed with the traffic of it all. And it just kind of happened that way. Year later, I conceived my 27 year old son, and we married two months after his birth. It was kind of almost like, ah, what were we doing here? And that was kind of just, you know, the spill at the time. And so I became, you know, the apron and the white picket fence, wife and mom overnight, you know, head spinning, wise, to be honest with you, is that what you wanted, I didn't know what I wanted. I just know I was with another child. I was still young. Life was busy. The family business was back on board. I was back at work. The media was all over me. So I had a new other side of life. I had to deal with,

Caitlin Van Mol 39:36 and of course, she had to deal with the trial of Emmanuel Moffett, who we have been referring to as t

Tamecka 39:44 we get to court. They've got a laundry list of witnesses from prior incidents in this guy's life where he had a rap sheet of assault cases.

Caitlin Van Mol 39:55 He had also been arrested during the violence at the 1990 Three parade celebrating the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. And

Tamecka 40:04 I later found out that the girl Sean that he lived with that he had attacked her and had a pending assault case. We went to court in April. And I'm a fashionista by by nature. I love to clothing. I love shopping. One of my weakest moments is shopping too much same. I do a lot of that. And so I thought, What am I gonna wear to court? I could be ready, you know, not thinking about testifying, but what am I gonna be wearing, honey? I found the baddest suit I could, and I was ready the first day, of course, me, key witness was first and only day for court for me, because once I speak, I can't be in the courtroom anymore, and so the most heart wrenching part of the court case was being able to witness enlarged photos of my attack, my head, my face, the they took pictures before they sewed it back up. So I got to see all of that, and I didn't intensively get to see it. They accidentally left them out in the hold of a room where I was meeting with attorneys. And I looked and I said, is that my face? And it's like, oh God, put that up. Put that up. We don't need her to see that. And they were trying to protect me, but at that point, I'd already seen it. And so I had to sit in that for a minute and realize, yikes, we are really here for a true trial. And so I get on the stand and I'm looking around like I am in court, and this is a judge, and the judge had to be the sweetest guy. Was an older, white guy, and just really soft spoken. And I was thinking, I need you to be firm. This guy tried to kill me, you know. I'm looking at him like, toughen up, you know? And I'm thinking, mind your business. He's a judge. He knows what he's doing. And then the prosecutors, there was a lady and a man, and both just really great people. And Lisa Fox and John growl, I'll never forget their their names. A lot of people was packed into the courtroom because they want to know what's gonna happen to this guy and what really happened to this girl. Were they dating? You know, I've been put, been made his girlfriend. So many narratives had been formed about me in my story until I was able to actually share it, and up until I wrote the book, people had me dating a guy, so it was just a whole lot of drama I get on the stand, and they start out just like any other court case. Can you tell us if the person's in the room, can you identify him? And immediately identified him, and that was first time I'd seen his face. And I thought, God, T Why did you do this? You know, it even came to me like, I've seen you all this time. What is wrong with you and why me? You know, that's when, if I had to have a moment, I got pissed within a couple of seconds. But that was all internal. I never, of course, divulged that at that time, but that's what I was thinking. They get told me to give an account of what happened, and I did. I got through telling the story as they would have read it and heard it, and many of times, and they removed me from the courtroom, and so I didn't get a chance, of course, to hear his testimony, but I understood it after the news got a hold to it, of course, him trying to defend the fact that I cursed him out and I was mad about something. I threw a lamp at him, and he tried to defend himself.

Caitlin Van Mol 42:57 So okay, so that so it's her, it's her fault. Really, it's

Tamecka 43:01 all my fault. And sadly, the prosecutor said, we're not even gonna argue this. And even his defense attorney was, like, far fetched, even cross on this, we're not, we don't have nothing. We have nothing. Yeah, after that was done, you know, they went on and they spoke to all the other witnesses and got their account of what they know about the guy, and the things that we found out was just horrific. It was a young lady that came from a smaller city not far from here, that he dated years ago, that they put her records from an assault case the girl he was living with, I told you he had one pending. And then the police officers that apprehended him at the parade, they were there, and they gave an account to that. And so they had built a whole bible of drama for him, and didn't last long. I think we were in court maybe five days. I think the jurors were maybe gone about two hours, a quick turnaround came back, of course, found him guilty. Initially, the case went from assault with a deadly weapon took attempted capital murder after it became an attempted murder case, they knew that they could at least ask for life in prison. The eligibility of parole was put on the table and it was accepted. So he's eligible for parole in 30 years, which will be January 1, 2026

Caitlin Van Mol 44:16 Wow. How do you feel about that? You know, I've

Tamecka 44:19 never really took my attack personal. I didn't ever just really worry about, you know, where he was or what he was doing. I think I was more nosy. So I would do my homework from year to year, and just kind of, where is this guy at and what is he still in the same spot? But as time has progressed, I thought, well, it's law. He did hurt me. If he was sick enough to do it, then I don't know if there's any reformation behind bars, so when it's time, let me know. So I reached out to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice about a year ago, as the year started to get closer, and I said, I'm still alive and well, this is where I am. Here's my email address, if you will keep me abreast of proceedings going forward, I'd appreciate. At it. So they got me in a system that will notify me of any upcoming parole meetings, board meetings, or whatever they do. It

Caitlin Van Mol 45:08 took many years after everything more or less settled down, but Tamika did eventually go to therapy.

Tamecka 45:15 Counseling never really entered into my space until much later, much later, after I married and had kids and started recognizing my world is still spinning from 1996 and I didn't do nothing about it, and kind of everything at that point started to kind of simmer down. And so real life started to look normal again. But what happened to me didn't go away. And so at that point, I'm liking I can't just sit in this without getting help, or I can't just sit in this and assume that I'm strong enough to handle all of the days that come ahead. And so that's when I started to evolve into knowing it's okay to talk to somebody. It's okay to, you know, not be okay. So last year, I was like, I'm a little exhausted. I need to take some time off, so I took about eight weeks away, and I saw therapists then, but I spoke more along the lines of what I was dealing with at that time. So if I can be really honest with you, there's still space for me to really sit in this and figure it out, and I have yet to do it, because life keeps liking and I think until I get it done, it's going to continue to life, because I'm not really addressing one of the more core issues in my life. I'm very aware. I'm very Yeah,

Caitlin Van Mol 46:30 it's, I was just talking to my best friend about this, because I've been out of therapy for about a year, and she's like, just get a new therapist. Just get a new therapist. I was like, I'm wondering, there's, I mean, lots of stuff I could talk about with a therapist, but it was, like, the metaphor of, you can lead a course to water, but you can't make them drink. Or, like, you can lead a horse to water, but they have to have, like, the time and space to be thirsty to drink the water. Like, I don't know if that's a good metaphor or not, but like, I totally

Tamecka 46:57 get it, though. I totally get it. It makes complete sense to me, and I'm, you know, I can sit in that and resonate with what you're saying, because I didn't have a lot of moments, but I had enough, and those moments far and fewer in between just let me know I was still human and that I could afford myself a better mental success. Had I just, you know, did it initially? I even think it played a role in me marrying too soon. Just a lot of spontaneity came from that traumatic event. And they will tell you, even in counseling, don't make big decisions after you go through something, you know, life changing. Nobody gave me those nuggets then, so I'm actually suffering some of those consequences now. So you know, are you still with him? We're actually going through a divorce right now, and it's not a negative space. It's just overdue. And I don't think the demise of my marriage came from me not appropriately getting probably what I needed back then. But I can say, having shared it with him that had I taken time out for me and really gone through the process and gotten the necessary help to kind of dissect, why not be so spontaneous and making those moves so fast that it probably would have been a different story for us. Would I have married him later, or have gotten to know him better? You know, before that happened, because there's still that gray area of having not gotten to know Roderick in the capacity of true dating, if that makes sense. And so

Caitlin Van Mol 48:27 while you are also trying to figure out who you were, I'm trying to figure out who I

Tamecka 48:31 am, who are all these people still tugging and pulling on me. How can I raise this five year old kid a lot? And so I filed for divorce this past January, and it's still going. There's technicalities to that, you know, but I mourn the death of my marriage some years ago, and unfortunately, kind of set in it. Raised the kids. All my kids are adults. Now have three children, two boys and a girl, my baby, she's 25 I'm now grandmother of three beautiful Grand boys that I am just super crazy about, and I just, I'm ready to get to a space where I can be selfish enough and take complete care of Tamika. Well, selfish in a very positive sense. I use the term selfish, and I may not be using it in such the way that it sounds, but when I say selfishness is very attractive space for me, and it's a space for me to love on me again, get to know who I am, and really allow myself to resonate with all of things I've dealt with over these last 30 years. I would love to marry again. I would love to write again. I would love to have more speaking engagements. I would love to do things that allow me to walk away feeling free. I've done a lot of people pleasing in a good way, and now I'm ready to please Tameka,

Caitlin Van Mol 49:55 this is live to tell. I'm Caitlin Van Mol if. You can follow the show on Instagram and Tiktok at live to tell podcast. If you enjoy today's episode, please rate review and subscribe. It really helps the show. I'll see you in two weeks. You

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