Machete-wielding man kills co-worker at shipyard and witnesses track him, Texas cops say

A Texas man was killed by his co-worker in a machete attack at a shipyard, officials said.

Juan Carlos Vasquez Rojas, a 29-year-old Colombian national, was charged with murder Tuesday in the slaying of 57-year-old Michael Counce, according to the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said the two men had worked together for about a week at Magellan Dredging at the shipyard in Oak Island, an unincorporated community across the Trinity Bay from Houston.

A motive for the killing wasn’t released.

“There was obviously some kind of an argument that turned extremely violent,” Hawthorne said.

Witnesses called 911 and followed Rojas, who ran away from the shipyard, and watched as he hid in bushes before emerging to get inside a passing vehicle, officials said. Deputies stopped the vehicle and arrested Rojas within 15 minutes of the attack, officials said.

Hawthorne said the killing wasn’t a “surprise attack” because Counce suffered defense wounds, but “we don’t believe that he came to work thinking he was going to be attacked and killed with a machete.”

Rojas has been in the U.S. on a work visa and lived in the country “for quite a while,” Hawthorne said. He was in jail on $2 million bond.

Counce was from Sherman, a city in North Texas.

This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 12:22 PM with the headline "Machete-wielding man kills co-worker at shipyard and witnesses track him, Texas cops say."