A man beheaded a co-worker at a food processing company in Oklahoma on Thursday afternoon, and stabbed another employee before he was shot and wounded by a company executive, the police said Friday.

The suspect, identified as Alton Nolen, who has a criminal history, had just been fired from the company, Vaughan Foods, and “he recently started trying to convert some of his co-workers to the Muslim religion,” said Jeremy Lewis, a spokesman for the police department in Moore, Okla. It was not immediately clear if that proselytizing was a reason for his termination.

After being fired, “he drove to the front of the business, running into a vehicle, exited his vehicle, entered the business, where he encountered the first victim, Colleen Hufford, and began assaulting her with a knife,” Mr. Lewis said. “He did kill Colleen and did sever her head.”

After killing Ms. Hufford, 54, he attacked Traci Johnson, 43, with the same knife, the police said.

“Mark Vaughan, who is the chief operating officer of Vaughan Foods and is also an Oklahoma County reserve deputy, confronted Nolen, and at that time shot him and stopped the threat and the assault,” Mr. Lewis said.