A college student, who officials say killed a southern Florida couple and was eating the face of one of the victims when he was Tasered by police, may not survive according to law enforcement authorities.
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Michelle Mishcon and John Stevens were found in a driveway with multiple stab wounds, and when a neighbor tried to intervene, he was also attacked and injured.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said Harrouff was visiting his hometown of Jupiter and some of his Florida State University Alpha Delta Phi fraternity brothers, the Herald reported. Harrouff is being tested for a variety drugs, including bath salts and Flakka, CBS 12 in West Palm Beach reports.
Snyder said the hospital tested Harrouff for the presence of heroin and opiates and the test results were negative, but he suspected that Harrouff might have used Flakka or bath salts.
Snyder told reporters he can’t be sure if the suspect was on any drugs until the full toxicology report comes back, but said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the synthetic drug Flakka was involved.
The teen took off some of his clothes during the attack, Snyder said, but did not have the raised body temperature characteristic of flakka use.
Michelle Mishcon, 53, and John Stevens III, 59, were stabbed multiple times, police said.=.
Other neighbors told authorities that the couple regularly sat in their garage with the door open.
But Harrouff left to walk home alone, taking a turn onto the street where the two victims lived, police said. Officers didn’t fire on Harrouff because they didn’t want to harm Stevens who they weren’t certain was dead.
The sheriff said Harrouff was biting the victim on the face, removing the victim’s flesh with his teeth.
“If there was something going on, there would be John and Michelle waving from their garage, watching the game or having fun”, Lourie said. When police arrived on the scene, they found Harrouff “grunting” and gnawing on Mr. Stevens’ face. Less than a hour earlier, his family said he stormed off from dinner at a nearby restaurant, apparently agitated by slow service.
A classmate says Harrouff was shy in high school.
In this case, the young man, Ausin Harrouff, was a student at Florida State University with no criminal record and no relationship to his victims.
“It’s inexplicable”, Snyder told the Associated Press.
“The coaches would always try to get him mad and play angry, and he never had it in him”.
Snyder said deputies did not fire their guns to try to stop Harrouff because the bullets could have hit the Stevens.
Later during the call, as he was telling police he didn’t see the knife, the neighbor’s wife said he had three puncture wounds “in the back, in the neck, in the head”.
Tequesta is a small, affluent community on the Atlantic coast about 20 miles north of Palm Beach.
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“Although we know a lot about what happened last night”, Snyder said, “there are some things we do not yet know, and there are some things that we will not be able to release just yet”.
