Arraignment Set For Oklahoma Man In Co-Worker's Beheading
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
OKLAHOMA CITY (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A man charged with beheading a co-worker with a butcher knife at an Oklahoma food processing plant is scheduled to formally enter a plea to first-degree murder.
Alton Nolen is set to be arraigned in a Cleveland County courtroom Thursday for the September 2014 attack at the Vaughan Foods plant in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore. The 31-year-old Nolen has entered an initial plea of not guilty.
Investigators say Nolen had just been suspended from his job when he walked into the company's administrative office and attacked 54-year-old Colleen Hufford, severing her head. They say he also stabbed co-worker Traci Johnson repeatedly, before he was shot by a company executive. Johnson survived the attack.
Co-workers had said Nolen had been trying to convert them to Islam. Nolen had spent time in prison on drug and assault charges. When he got out of prison in 2013, he allegedly told family members that he wanted to focus on getting his life in order. But the postings on his Facebook page suggested he had became more interested in spreading the message of his newfound Islamic faith.
Some family members disagreed that Nolen had made a religious conversion. In 2014, his cousin, James Fulsom of Fort Worth, said, "I spoke to him once he was released, and when we spoke, there was nothing of the sort. I don't believe he was converted [to Islam] in prison."
In October, a judge rejected claims that Nolen is mentally impaired and found him competent to stand trial.
(©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)