Oklahoma man beheaded female co-worker and stabbed another while reportedly shouting Islamic phrases

By RYAN GORMAN

A disgruntled former employee beheaded a woman and stabbed another before he was shot Thursday afternoon during a workplace dispute in suburban Oklahoma City, police said.

Alton Nolen, 30, killed Colleen Hufford, 54, at the Vaughan Foods processing plant before an off-duty reserve Oklahoma County Deputy that works for the company shot him, Moore police said during a Friday morning media briefing, according to KWTV.

He also stabbed Tracy Johnson, 43, authorities said. She is in critical condition but expected to recover from her injuries.

The deputy has been identified by the station as Mark Vaughan, the company's chief operating officer. Vaughan shot him multiple times with a rifle, sources told KFOR.

Police said Nolen had recently been terminated from his job on the company's production line and began the rampage by ramming at least one vehicle in the parking lot before entering the building.

Nolen was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover, cops said. He was in the process of converting to Islam, KFOR reported.

Federal agents with the FBI have been called in after it was reported Nolen was shouting Islamic phrases during the attack and previously tried to also convert co-workers to Islam, KWTV reported.

Nolen has multiple tattoos on his torso including one that says "as-salaamu ataikum," a common Arabic greeting, according to Oklahoma Department of Corrections records. He also has praying hands tattooed on his body.

The troubled man has a lengthy criminal history that includes multiple drug charges and assaults on police officers that have resulted in four separate stints in prison, prison records showed.

His most recent prison sentence, a two-year stint for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, ended only last year.

He was out from behind bars on a suspended sentence due to last until 2017, again for a drug charge and assaulting a police officer.

"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the events," said a Vaughan Foods statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the team member we lost and all those affected."

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