Austin Harrouff, who was visiting South Florida while on break, is facing charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of John Stevens III, 59, and Michelle Mishcon, 53.
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A college student caught biting a victim’s face after stabbing the man and his wife in a random attack dared deputies to test him for drugs, a Florida sheriff’s office spokeswoman said Saturday.
Investigators are waiting for Harrouff to become more alert for questioning and for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide the results of a drug test. Harrouff is expected to be released from St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach early this week, according to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. Fisher is recovering from his wounds.
Sheriff’s detectives are in a holding pattern to talk to Austin Harrouff, who remained hospitalized a week after he was accused of killing a local couple, officials said.
Kukuva also said Saturday that Harrouff also bit Stevens in the abdomen.
The couple’s neighbor, Jeff Fisher, tried to intervene in the attack but was stabbed multiple times, as well.
It will take longer to test for less common hallucinogenic drugs such as flakka or bath salts, whose abusers have been known to become suddenly and irrationally violent.
Harrouff told deputies as they arrested him that they would find no drugs in his system.
“There were things he could have consumed and that first night at the hospital, the hospital speculated based on what they were seeing in his body fluids, that perhaps he had ingested something caustic from the garage”, Snyder said.
Snyder says the toxicology reports will provide “a big piece of the unknown”.
What investigators do know is that Harrouff was having dinner with his parents about four miles from the couple’s house.
Authorities have released surveillance video of Harrouff walking out of Duffy’s, a Jupiter sports bar, shortly before the attack. Investigators said he apparently had words with his father.
Hours after the slayings, Harrouff’s mother called 911 to report him missing at 11:45 p.m.
There, in a fit of rage, he attacked a couple lounging in their garage with the door open, deputies said.
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The statement, obtained by PEOPLE, expresses Wade and Mina Harrouff’s “deepest sympathy for the pain and suffering caused by Austin Harrouff”, who remains in stable but critical condition at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, police say.
