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An innocent father who was mourning the death of his stillborn child was randomly and viciously attacked with a hatchet and nearly decapitated while sitting at a bus stop in Tucson, Arizona on April 5, waiting to travel back to their home in Alabama.
Jacob Couch, 32, and his wife Kristen were waiting at a bus stop in Tucson — where they had traveled on their way home from Los Angeles, where they were mourning the loss of their stillborn child — when suddenly, 25-year-old Daniel Michael began harassing them and yelling at them. Couch, a father of two young teenagers, reportedly told the man that they were leaving the area.
As Jacob bent over to pick up their luggage, Michael viciously attacked Couch with a hatchet, nearly leaving him decapitated.
Meet Daniel Michael, who was arrested in Tucson, AZ after he allegedly struck Jacob Couch in the neck with a hatchet while he was sitting at a bus stop with his wife.
Jacob and his wife Kristen were reportedly staying in Tucson to mourn the death of their son who was stillborn.… pic.twitter.com/ISDcYjsarL
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 15, 2025
“Seeing your husband get almost decapitated and being the only one to help like, it’s hard,” Kristen explained.
“Looked at him and could tell he was agitated and told my husband don’t say anything else to him,” she told local news station KVOA. “I told him we were leaving, like, okay, just calm down and he waited until my husband bent down to come up behind him and attack him.”
“The injury cut the artery in the back of his neck in half it went so deep that it hit his skull,” Couch’s sister-in-law Erica Sims told another local news station, KOLD.
“If you’re going downtown when you’re drunk carrying a large machete like that, you have no other intentions other than to cause harm to somebody,” Coach’s brother, Luke, told KOLD. “He went down there looking for trouble and it just so happens to be my brother who is not going to make it home from this.”
Jacob Couch was rushed to Banner University Medical Center, where he is currently on life support after undergoing surgery. According to doctors, he suffered an anoxic brain injury from the lack of oxygen before he could make it to the hospital.
“The doctors told us he wouldn’t even be able to perceive what we told him but the other day we were all talking to him he started crying, his face all crunched up and he was trying to open his eyes,” Kristen said after visiting her husband in the hospital.
She told the news station that she had spoken to her husband, telling him that “he’s stronger than he thinks he is and that we’re all here and we’re all going to be here when he comes back. We’re not giving up until he does and he’s a fighter and we believe in the power of prayer.”
Michael initially denied the attack, but admitted to police that he had been drinking earlier that day. When he was shown surveillance footage of the area where the vicious attack took place, Michael then confirmed that it was him in the video. He was charged with aggravated assault with a dangerous instrument and causing serious physical injury, and is being held in jail on a $1 million bond.
It is unclear why Michael is not being charged with attempted murder, which has prompted outrage from many commentators:
