A scalloping ship crew member, Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, who reportedly attacked three crew members, eventually killing one, pleaded guilty in Boston’s federal court on Wednesday for murder in the 2018 incident off the Massachusetts coast. Meave, 31, admitted to stabbing a crew member on board Captain Billy Haver, a fishing vessel, and hurting two more with a hammer, court documents revealed.
While sailing for approximately 55 miles off the Nantucket coast on 23 September 2018, Meave first struck a crew member with a hammer before asking the man to “stay there,” per court records.
The victim saw another crew member bleeding after he was stabbed by Meave with a fillet knife. Meave Vazquez again hit a third individual’s head with a hammer just when the man emerged from the vessel’s ice hold, investigators informed.
After struggling for a while with the captain and managing to evade arrest by other crew members, Meave reached for the vessel’s mast. From there, he threw the fillet knife to the deck.
The captain desperately reached out to the Coast Guard for help. He also sent out a distress call to other vessels in the area. A German cruise ship that was nearby received the message and could locate the scalloping vessel.
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Two members of the crew were brought on board for treatment, where the doctor on the cruise ship pronounced the stabbing victim to be dead.
Meave, a Mexican national, stayed on top of the scalloping ship’s mast till he was arrested by the Coast Guardsman. Officials reported that besides second-degree murder, Meave admitted to the charges of attempting to assault and murder with a dangerous weapon. On June 28, he is going to appear to the court for his sentence.
Meave who was in the country illegally, had earlier been arrested near Virginia’s Newport News for abduction, court records mentioned.
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