Woman beheaded in Oklahoma

A 30-year-old 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.

Alton Nolen is suspected of killing 54-year-old Colleen Hufford and stabbing 43-year-old Traci Johnson. The employees were apparently attacked "randomly," said Moore Police Sergeant Jeremy Lewis, adding that Nolen had been fired moments before the attack.

After being dismissed, police said he immediately drove to the front of the warehouse main office, struck another vehicle and walked in the front door. He stabbed Hufford several times and then severed her head, Lewis said.

Chief Operating Officer Mark Vaughan, also a reserve sheriff, stopped Nolen in his rampage by shooting him. He is currently in stable condition at a local hospital.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking into Nolen's background for any potential religious ties to the attack. Former colleagues said he had attempted to convert them to Islam in the past months, according to the police report.

This extremely rare form of homicide comes as Islamist militants fighting in Iraq and Syria have released videos that purported to show the beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker.

US officials have not confirmed any link between those videos and the Oklahoma case. The FBI did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the investigation.

"It did appear random," Sergeant Lewis said. "He wasn't targeting anyone. It appears they were just in his way as he came in," he told a press conference, adding that the chief operating officer who shot Nolen was a "hero."

"This guy was definitely not going to stop," Vaughan said. "He didn't stop until he was shot. We would have had a lot more victims."

The food company voiced shock at the attack. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the team member we lost and all those affected," Vaughan Foods said in a statement.

glb/msh (Reuters, AFP, AP)