Woman beheaded, another stabbed by man at Oklahoma plant, police say

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A man 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 yesterday.

Moore, Oklahoma, police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis said police are waiting until Alton Nolen, 30, is conscious to arrest him in the attack that killed Colleen Hufford, 54. Lewis said the FBI was asked to aid in the investigation after co-workers at Vaughan Foods told authorities that Nolen recently started trying to convert several employees to Islam.

After killing Hufford, Lewis said, Nolen then stabbed Traci Johnson, 43, a number of times before Mark Vaughan, a reserve sheriff's deputy and the company's chief operating officer, shot him.

"This was not going to stop if he didn't stop it. It could have gotten a lot worse," Lewis said. "The threat had already stopped once we arrived."

Lewis said Nolen 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.

According to Moore City Manager Steve Eddy, the knife recovered at the scene is the same type used on the production floor of the plant where Nolen worked.

Lewis told reporters that it appeared Nolen had attacked both women at random.

Moore police have asked the FBI to look into the man's background, Lewis said, because of the nature of the attack, which follows a series of videotaped beheadings in Syria and Algeria by Islamic State militants and their allies.

Two federal law enforcement officials told The Washington Post that Nolen is a recent convert to Islam. One of the officials called Nolen's Facebook page "provocative," saying it included a photo of Osama bin Laden.

A Facebook page appearing to be Nolen's includes a wide range of photos, one of them depicting a beheading and another of Omar al-Shishani, a prominent Islamic State fighter who is Chechen.

The FBI is assisting in the investigation and has so far found no links to terrorism, the officials said.

In a statement, FBI Special Agent in Charge James E. Finch said the attacker's motive has not been determined but that there is no reason to believe there is a threat to anyone else.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections records say Nolen has served time in prison and is on probation for assault and battery on a police officer. He also was convicted of cocaine possession with intent to distribute in 2011.

Corrections records show Nolen has what appear to be religious tattoos, including one referencing Jesus and one in Arabic that means "peace be with you."