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NORMAN, Okla. — A jury has sentenced a man convicted in a workplace beheading horror to life, plus 130 years on assault charges alone.

Alton Nolen, 33, was convicted Friday on six counts total: first degree murder, plus five assault crimes. This was after beheading his coworker Colleen Hufford, stabbing another worker Traci Johnson, and attacking other employees trying to help the victims during the September 2014 attack inside Vaughan Foods.

Hufford died as a result of her injuries, but Johnson survived.

In court Monday during Phase II, jurors were tasked with deciding the penalty for Nolen on assault charges only. Both ‘assault and battery with a deadly weapon’ and ‘assault with a dangerous weapon’ carry no less than 20 years of imprisonment and no more than life behind bars.

  • Count 2 (assault with a deadly weapon): Life
  • Count 3 (assault with a dangerous weapon): 55 years
  • Count 4 (assault with a dangerous weapon): Life
  • Count 5 (assault with a dangerous weapon): Life
  • Count 6 (assault with a dangerous weapon): 75

Prior to deliberation, assistant district attorney Susan Caswell asked the jury to consider two factors: the graphic testimony provided by witnesses during Phase I of trial, and Nolen’s past convictions including assaulting a police officer and two drug counts.

The jury will now consider the murder charge. The state is seeking the death penalty.