Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, is charged with murder in Sunday's attack

Newly released audio of a mayday call to the Coast Guard has revealed the immediate aftermath of a fishing boat attack, in which a Mexican national living in the US illegally is accused of killing his shipmate with a hammer and injuring two others.

Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, is charged with murder in the Sunday attack on board the Captain Billy Haver, which was trawling the waters about 55 miles off Massachusetts.

'Mayday mayday mayday!' the Virginia-based vessel is heard calling. 'We have a man gone crazy here on the boat!'

The captain relays his position and continues: 'We have one man, I don't know if he's dead or what. But one of the crew members went crazy and he started hitting people in the head with a hammer.'

'I got three men that's injured right now, one I can't wake him up. I don't know if he's dead or not.'

The captain said that the assailant had fled up onto the ship's mast: 'He's in the rigging. Now he's already cut those [unintelligible] off.'

First to arrive in response to the call was the German cruise ship Mein Schiff 6. Two of the victims were brought aboard the massive cruise ship for medical treatment, and one was pronounced dead by the ship's doctor.

A Coast Guard vessel also responded to the scene, escorting the Billy Haver and Mein Schiff into port in Boston, where Vazquez was taken into federal custody.

Prosecutors say that the Billy Haver had seven crew members on board, including Vazquez, when he charged at a shipmate wielding a hammer in one hand and a knife in the other.

One victim told investigators said that he fought Vazquez off and then looked down to see another shipmate lying on the deck in a pool of blood.

Vazquez allegedly struck a third crew member before scaling the ship's mast in a bid to escape as the crew tried to subdue him.

A crew member on the Captain Billy Haver (above) says that Vazquez charged at him wielding a knife and hammer, before climbing the mast in a bid to escape

He was living in the US illegally, but had previously sought protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

Vazquez was granted DACA protection on November 30, 2013, but his renewal request request was denied for abandonment in 2015, meaning he failed to file required paperwork, according to documents cited by Fox News.

At the time of Sunday's attack, Vazquez was free on a $20,000 bond in a recent domestic violence case.

On March 9, Vazquez was arrested in Newport News, Virginia on a charge of forcible abduction.

An ICE spokesman says an immigration judge had granted Vazquez bond despite ICE objections and he was released from custody in April.

German cruise ship Mein Schiff 6 (above) was the first to respond, and took on two victims for medical treatment before the ship's doctor declared one of them dead

Lindsay McDannald, Vazquez's mother-in-law, told WCVB that he is a heroin addict and had attacked her daughter.

She said that he 'assaulted her, strangled her and held her against the wall.'

'I think it's a travesty, I think that the court system failed and that they should do a better job in terms of releasing these people,' McDannald said.

Vazquez is charged with one count of murder within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the US, and one count of attempted murder within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the US.

If convicted on all counts he faces a sentence of up to life in prison, and would be subject to deportation upon release.

A federal judge in Boston ordered Vazquez held without bail on Wednesday.

Vazquez's federal public defender requested a probable cause hearing, which was tentatively scheduled for next week, but had no comment to reporters outside the courtroom.