An Oklahoma man beheaded a woman after a workplace dispute on Thursday, the Associated Press reports.
Moore Police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis said Friday that the suspect Alton Alexander Nolen, 30, entered the Vaughan Foods processing plant in Moore, Oklahoma on Thursday and beheaded 54 year-old Colleen Hufford.
Nolen had recently been trying to convert his co-workers at the company to Islam, Lewis said Friday, according to interviews with the company’s workers.
After stabbing and beheading Colleen Hufford, Nolen began to do the same to 43 year-old Traci Johnson, but was stopped when the company’s chief operating officer, Mark Vaughn, who also serves as a reserve sheriff’s deputy, shot and injured Nolen.
“This was not going to stop if he didn’t stop it,” Lewis said of Vaughan’s intervention. “It could have gotten a lot worse.”
Nolen and Johnson are both in stable condition.
The attacker had just been fired from the company. He was fired in a separate office building, home to Vaughan Foods’ human resources office, and drove to the entrance of the business. It’s not yet known why he was fired.
Lewis said Oklahoma police have asked the FBI to help investigate the matter.