An Arizona man is in jail after nearly decapitating a man with a hatchet while the victim and his wife sat at a bus stop, according to police.
Daniel Michael, 25, is now facing first-degree murder charges after the victim, Jacob Couch, 32, died of his injuries on Friday. The alleged attack happened around 10 a.m. on April 5 on the corner of East Broadway Boulevard and South 6th Avenue, near downtown Tucson.
According to a police statement, officers responded and discovered several bystanders attempting to help Couch. Officers took over life-saving efforts until the Tucson Fire Department arrived and transported the victim to the hospital.
Detectives discovered that the suspect allegedly “initiated a confrontation” with Couch and his wife before striking the victim with a “sharp-edged weapon”. According to police, Michael walked away and left the area in a public streetcar.
Three days later, police identified Michael as the suspect based on surveillance images and other evidence. They apprehended him in his home on Tucson’s east side. Investigators reportedly “located additional evidence” at the home, but the press release did not say what was found.
Prior to Couch’s death, Michael faced charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with serious injury.
Doctors operated on Couch for “several hours” but were unable to save him, according to police.
Couch and his wife were in California mourning the loss of their stillborn baby when they stopped in Tucson on their way back to Alabama, according to his brother Luke Couch.
According to the brother, the suspect approached the couple unprovoked and demanded that they get up. According to his brother, Jacob Couch and his wife began to flee after the man appeared agitated.
Then Michael “came up behind him and swung a hatchet.”
“And witnesses said that he lifted the axe up over his head and swung it,” said Luke Couch to Fox News.
The victim’s family seeks “swift justice.”
“I want to make sure this man never does this again and no other family has to go through what my family has gone through,” the brother of the murder victim told Fox. “To see my brother lying in a hospital bed and unable to move, unable to do anything, it hurts so bad to know that I wasn’t able to be there to protect him because he would have done it for me in a heartbeat.”
