Shocking: A Brutal Beheading Has Just Occurred On American Soil

A recently fired employee of a food processing plant in Oklahoma — a man at least one report claims may be Muslim — has attacked and beheaded a woman with whom he used to work.

Police in an Oklahoma City suburb say that the 30-year-old suspect severed the head of a 54-year-old woman, then started to stab another plant employee with a knife. Before the second victim could be killed, the attacker was himself taken down by someone with a gun — he was shot and wounded by the armed owner of the company. The suspect is now in custody.

Any time a story of a beheading breaks, one naturally wonders about the background and beliefs of the perpetrator. A report on newsok.com raises suspicions:

The man accused in the attacks is Alton Nolen.

Several employees told police he had been trying to convert other employees to Islam.

The Associated Press reports that police in Moore, OK have asked the FBI to look into the suspect’s background because of the gruesome nature of the attack:

The 30-year-old man, who has not been charged, stabbed Colleen Hufford, 54, severing her head in Thursday’s attack at Vaughan Foods, Moore Police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis said.

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.

“This was not going to stop if he didn’t stop it. It could have gotten a lot worse,” Lewis said.

BCN editor’s note: This article first appeared at Western Journalism.