Arizona police arrest suspect in fatal hatchet attack

Arizona police on Thursday arrested a 33-year-old man suspected of killing another man with a hatchet in what officials said was an “unprovoked” attack at a home in Mohave County.

About 9:10 p.m. Thursday, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a hatchet attack at a home near the Arizona and California border about 100 miles south of Las Vegas, the sheriff’s office said Friday.

When detectives arrived at the home, 33-year-old Nicholas Umphress, of Mohave Valley, “approached them” and was detained.

When deputies went inside the home, they found Victor Hernandez, 33, lying on the ground with “obvious trauma to the head.” Water was also flooding the floor, “as if someone had tried to clean the area,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement Friday.

“Witnesses alleged that Umphress had been acting strange and pacing in the living room before the unprovoked attack,” the sheriff’s office said.

Investigators determined that Umphress hit Hernandez in the head multiple times with a hatchet, and then tried to “clean up the scene” before deputies arrived at the home, the sheriff’s office said.

Umphress faces a charge of first-degree murder. He remained in the Mohave County Jail in Kingman, Arizona, as of Friday without bail, online jail records show.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.