Police said the random attack that killed 59-year-old John Stevens and 53-year-old Michelle Mishcon Stevens, and left a neighbor who tried to help injured, was random.
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It’s possible Harrouff was under the influence of an hallucinogenic drug such as flakka or bath salts when police say they found him biting chunks from the flesh on Stevens’ face, according to Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.
Harrouff’s health has deteriorated since being sedated at a hospital, and he is now in life-threatening condition, Snyder said. “Finally, after minutes of fighting, they were able to get the offender off of the victim, but the victim was dead”, Snyder said.
He tested negative for use of cocaine, methamphetamines, marijuana and opioids, but more blood work has been ordered, authorities said.
But turther tests will look for evidence of “flakka”, the sheriff’s office said Wednesday.
The drug – a more potent form of what was previously known as bath salts – gets its name from “la flaca”, Spanish slang for a lovely woman, according to CNN.
Speaking in a sometimes shaky voice Monday night to a Jupiter police dispatcher, the mother of Austin Harrouff is heard on a police recording saying her son was “a little delusional…and he feels immortal, like a superhero”.
Mina Harrouff said that the night of the killings her son stormed out of a sports bar where they were eating with some of his friends after an argument with his father.
“I think that is all he has on him”, she told the police dispatcher.
She told police that Austin had recently begun acting strangely. Even though officials said it was possible he took a drug like flakka, Mina denied that her son had a history of heavy drug use or mental illness.
Harrouff lived with his mother several miles away from the scene of the attack in Tequesta, authorities said. John Joseph Stevens III, 59, was pronounced dead in the driveway.
“The family would like to thank everyone for the concern shown Jeff”. Police later say Harrouff did not know his victims.
They don’t believe Harrouff knew the couple, but happened to see the two as they sat in their re-modelled garage with the door open when he passed by them in the Florida town of Tequesta. Both victims sustained massive trauma including blunt force injuries, stab wounds and slicing wounds, Snyder said.
Attorney Michelle Suskauer told WPTV she’ll be representing Austin Harrouff if he survives. “We don’t know if anything is going to show up on toxicology or not”, she told the station. Results should be available in one to three weeks.
The condition can cause paranoia and hallucinations that can make the user violent and raise a person’s body temperature to unsafe levels. “There was an enormous amount of violence inside that garage”, Snyder said.
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“It’s inexplicable”, Snyder said.
