Left: Jacob Couch (GoFundMe). Right: Daniel Michael (Pima County Jail).
An Arizona man is behind bars for nearly decapitating a man with a hatchet as the victim and his wife sat at a bus stop, cops say.
Authorities updated the charges against 25-year-old Daniel Michael to first-degree murder after the victim, Jacob Couch, 32, died Friday from his injuries. The alleged attack occurred around 10 a.m. April 5 on the corner of East Broadway Boulevard and South 6th Avenue near downtown Tucson. According to a police statement, officers responded and found several bystanders attempting to render aid to Couch. Officers took over lifesaving efforts until the Tucson Fire Department arrived and rushed the victim to the hospital.
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Detectives learned the suspect allegedly “initiated a confrontation” with Couch and his wife and took out a “sharp-edged weapon” and struck the victim. Michael walked away and left the area in a public streetcar, cops said. Three days later, police identified Michael as the suspect through surveillance images and other evidence. They arrested him at his home on Tucson’s east side. Investigators reportedly “located additional evidence” at the home, but the press release did not specify what was recovered.
Michael originally faced aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with serious injury before Couch’s death.
Doctors performed surgery 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 and were traveling via bus to their native Alabama when they made a stop in Tucson, his brother Luke Couch told Fox News Digital. According to the brother, the suspect came over unprovoked and demanded that the couple get up. Since the man seemed agitated, Jacob Couch and his wife started to move away, his brother said.
Then Michael “came up behind him and swung a hatchet.”
“And witnesses said that he lifted the ax up over his head and swung it,” Luke Couch told Fox News.
The victim’s family wants “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 victim’s brother 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.”
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