Mobile woman charged in fatal stabbing remains in Metro Jail

MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — A woman accused of murdering her boyfriend while his two children were home was denied bail again Tuesday. Jennifer Heathcoe is accused of stabbing 33-year-old Taylor Rawlins to death at a Sollie Road apartment. A Mobile Police homicide detective testified that Rawlins’ 8-year-old daughter called 911 crying on Aug. 22 and said her stepmother had stabbed her father. She told me to come quickly because he was going to die. The detective said Heathcoe also called 911 and in the background Rawlins could be heard saying, “Let go of me, I can’t breathe.”

“It made me sick to my stomach for what this boy went through because he is the best man in the world. He loved his children. He took care of her and did the best he could do,” said Alesia, a friend of the Savell family.

The detective said the couple had been drinking alcohol and Heathcoe initially grabbed a pair of scissors to attack Rawlins, but he took them away from her so she grabbed a knife in the kitchen. The coroner told the detective that a lot of force was used as the knife pierced his chest, lungs and heart. The detective testified that Rawlins’ 11-year-old son heard his sister screaming and then heard his father say, “Jennifer, what the hell is wrong with you?” The detective testified that it wasn’t the first time that happened she pointed a knife at him.

“Shouldn’t even have been together,” said Heathcoe’s father, Donald Cain.

The detective said Heathcoe initially said that another person came into the apartment and stabbed him, then claimed in a statement to police that it was self-defense. Heathcoe faces domestic violence charges stemming from an incident with Rawlins in Daphne in December 2023. The following month, she was charged with drunken driving in Mobile. The murder case will now go before a grand jury.