CLAYVILLE, N.Y. — A 23-year-old factory worker has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after authorities say he walked into the Pratt & Whitney / Homogeneous Metals Inc. plant in the Village of Clayville on Friday afternoon carrying a concealed hatchet and attacked two employees, leaving the plant's security guard fighting for his life. Zachery Stowell, 23, of Poland, New York, was charged on Sunday, November 8, after his release from hospital, Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol said in a statement, and he was remanded to the Oneida County Correctional Facility on $250,000 cash bail.

Source: CNY Online — Oneida County Sheriff's Office statement

The guard, Moulay Amrani, 36, of the Utica area, was struck nine times in the head with the bladed edge of the hatchet while seated at his guard station, suffering life-threatening injuries to his skull and brain, the sheriff said. He was airlifted by Mercy Flight to Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and was listed in critical condition on Monday. The second employee, Nicholas Sutton, 34, also of the Utica area, was struck four times on the head outside the building — and, though bleeding extensively, fought back, wrestled the hatchet away, and helped hold his attacker down until deputies arrived, according to the sheriff's account.

How the attack unfolded, according to investigators

The Oneida County 911 Center received several calls at 4:41 p.m. on Friday, November 6, reporting that a man had attacked two employees with an axe at the plant at 2395 Main Street in Clayville, the sheriff's office said. Investigators determined that Stowell, himself an employee of the plant, had parked in the vicinity and walked to the plant with a concealed hatchet. He entered the plant and walked through it for several minutes, appearing to be in search of someone, then exited the main portion of the plant and unsuccessfully tried to prop the main door open with his sandal.

Stowell then went to the guard station in the lobby and spoke with Amrani for about a minute before allegedly attacking the seated guard without provocation, striking him nine times in the head with the blade of the hatchet. The sheriff's office said Stowell then broke into a cabinet at the guard station and took several swipe cards in an attempt to get back inside the plant — but none of the cards worked, and he could not re-enter from the lobby.

The coworker who fought back

Stowell propped both lobby doors open and walked out of the lobby still carrying the hatchet, where he encountered Sutton walking alongside the building. According to the sheriff, Stowell struck Sutton four times on the head. Sutton, injured and bleeding extensively, defended himself and gained control of the hatchet. The two men fell to the ground, where Stowell allegedly punched Sutton repeatedly in the head and body trying to get the hatchet back. Other employees who heard Sutton's calls for help pulled Stowell off him and held him on the ground until law enforcement arrived — an intervention the sheriff credited at a Monday press conference in Oriskany.

Source: WUTR/WFXV (Nexstar) via EuropeSays

Sheriff's deputies from Patrol, the Criminal Investigations Unit, the Forensic Identification Unit and the Narcotics Unit responded, assisted by New York State Police. As officers detained him, Stowell resisted and bit a State Trooper on the thigh, the sheriff said; the trooper was treated at Wynn Hospital in Utica and released. Sutton was also treated at Wynn Hospital for significant head lacerations and has been released. Stowell was taken to Wynn Hospital for evaluation under guard by sheriff's deputies. Both crime scenes were processed by the Forensic Identification Unit, and evidence was secured by the Criminal Investigations Unit.

What the sheriff and the district attorney said on Monday

At a press conference on Monday, November 9, Sheriff Maciol, flanked by Oneida County District Attorney Todd Carville, said the motive for the attack is still under investigation. Carville said that if Amrani succumbs to his injuries, one of the charges could be upgraded to murder. Stowell was arraigned in CAP Court (Centralized Arraignment) after his hospital release on Sunday and remanded to the Oneida County Correctional Facility on $250,000 cash bail, a $500,000 bond or a $1 million secured bond.

Source: WUTR/WFXV (Nexstar) via EuropeSays

Why a factory-floor attack resonates far beyond Clayville

Clayville is a small village in Oneida County, in central New York's Mohawk Valley, and the plant on Main Street is the kind of mid-sized industrial workplace that employs thousands of people across upstate New York — including many immigrant and newcomer workers, among them Punjabi families settled around Utica, Syracuse and the Albany corridor, who staff factory, warehouse and security jobs on every shift. A guard attacked at his own lobby station, and a coworker saved by colleagues who ran toward the danger instead of away from it, raise the questions every shift worker's family asks after an incident like this: how did a weapon get inside, and what stands between one disturbed employee and the people at the door? Those questions are now part of the investigation, the sheriff's office said, alongside the central one it has not yet answered — why Stowell allegedly did it.

What happens next

The criminal case now proceeds in Oneida County, where prosecutors must present the felony charges through the grand jury process while Stowell remains in custody on the bail set at arraignment. Amrani's condition at Upstate Medical Center remains the fact that will shape the case most: District Attorney Carville has already signalled that a murder charge is possible if the guard dies. The sheriff's investigation into a motive continues, and the plant investigation — how Stowell entered, and what the swipe-card records and plant cameras show about his minutes inside — will form the spine of the prosecution's timeline. Awaaz Punjab will update this story as court dates are set and as the hospital reports on Amrani's condition.