MASSACRE AT SEA

Fishing Crew Member Charged With Murder in Bloody Attack Off Nantucket

He allegedly attacked fellow sailors with a knife and a hammer.

A 27-year-old man was charged Tuesday with murder and attempted murder after he attacked his fellow ship crew members with a knife and hammer off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and killed one, according to an Associated Press report. Boston authorities cited by the AP state that Franklin “Freddy” Meave Vazquez attacked three of the seven crew members on his vessel Sunday before scaling the mast in an ill-fated attempt to avoid capture. A nearby German cruise ship came to the rescue after the captain placed a distress call, and took two of the injured members on board before a doctor pronounced one dead. Vazquez’s motivations remain unclear. The AP added that Vazquez is a Mexican citizen who was in the U.S. illegally, and that he had been arrested in March in Virginia on an abduction charge.