MOORE, Okla. A man who had been fired from a food processing plant in an Oklahoma City suburb beheaded a woman with a knife and was attacking another worker when he was shot and wounded by a company official, police said Friday. Moore police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Alton Nolen.
“Yes, she was beheaded,” Moore Police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis told The Associated Press before a Friday news conference.
Lewis said the man then stabbed Traci Johnson, 43, a number of times before being shot by Mark Vaughan, a reserve sheriff’s deputy and the company’s chief operating officer.
Police revealed that Nolen was terminated from his job at Vaughan Foods on Thursday just before the rampage occurred.
Johnson and the suspect were hospitalized and in stable condition Friday, Lewis said.
Lewis said he does not yet know what charges will be filed, adding that police are waiting until the man is conscious to arrest him.
Nolen also recently had been trying to convert co-workers to Islam, Lewis said, citing investigators’ interviews with people. Moore police have asked the FBI to help them investigate the man’s background, Lewis said. Nolen reportedly has multiple, apparently religious tattoos, including one referencing Jesus and one in Arabic that means “peace be with you.”
Lewis said the suspect had been fired in a building that houses the company’s human resources office, then immediately drove to the entrance of the business. Lewis said he didn’t know why the man was fired.
“This was not going to stop if he didn’t stop it. It could have gotten a lot worse,” Lewis said.
The incident happened at the Vaughan Foods processing plant in Moore, about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City.
