Austin Harrouff, the Florida Frat Boy Cannibal

They say the craziest stories come out of Florida. The story of Austin Harrouff, the Florida Frat Boy Cannibal is just one of those stories.

It was August 15, 2016. 19-year-old Austin Harrouff was having dinner with his family at a Duffy’s Bar & Grill when he suddenly stormed out and returned to his mother’s home where he reportedly drank cooking oil and was behaving strangely.

His mother found him, and drove him back to the restaurant, where he got into an argument with his father and once again left, this time walking across town until he came upon the home of Michelle Mishcon and John Joseph Stevens.

His mother contacted police, informing them that her son was acting strangely, he was claiming he had “superpowers” and “was here to protect people.”

It was around 9:15pm. Jeffrey Fisher heard female screams coming from the home across the street. The home, located at 19010 SE Kokomo Ln, Jupiter, Florida, 33458. Choosing to investigate, he never could have anticipated what he saw.

As soon as Fisher reached the garage, he found Michelle Mishcon. She was “lying in a pool of blood and was not moving or saying anything.” Her assailant, Austin Harrouff, was still there, and immediately began saying, “you don’t want to, you don’t want this, you don’t want any part of this.” Then Harrouff attacked.

Harrouff punched Fisher, knocking him onto his back before stabbing him multiple times. He did not die, however, and managed to escape. Fisher returned to his home and dialed 911.

When police arrived, Austin Harrouff was wearing nothing more than his underpants, and was busy attacking John Joseph Stevens, grunting like an animal. Deputy Grace Zopf described him as “choking and biting a male…” and “biting the victim and spitting out his flesh.” She pointed her gun at him, and despite this he “continued to bite and rip off the flesh from the victim.”

Zopf didn’t just stand there, she used her taser on him, but the electrical current did nothing to stop him. She moved in and tried to handcuff him, but he was able to overpower her.

Deputy Wayne Trocan arrived next, and even he tried to stop the attack. He tried to pull Harrouff off, but “the suspect kept biting the victim.” Trocan pulled his taser, but just like Zopf, it had no effect.

Trocan moved on to another, more direct approach. He “began kicking the suspect in the head area which temporarily caused the suspect to let go of the victim but the suspect grabbed the victim again and began to chew the victims face again.”

Next, a K-8 officer stepped in, deploying his dog. According to reports, “the dog was able to latch onto the suspect’s arm but the suspect continued to bite and rip off flesh from the victim.” Working together, the three eventually handcuffed Harrouff, during which he kept yelling, “fucking kill me, fucking kill me, shoot me now, I deserve to die.”

But why? What made Austin Harrouff, a student at FSU Tallahassee and member of the fraternity Alpha Delta Phi, snap?

Austin Kelly Harrouff was born on December 21, 1996 in Palm Beach Gardens and grew up in northern Palm Beach County, Florida. Though his parents divorced when he was 13, he maintained contact with them both, and even lived with his father in Jupiter, Florida. He described his father as “different, kind of loud, and a redneck,” and a “nice guy who has a temper sometimes.” His mother was “really nice,” and somewhat permissive.

He was an average student, wrestling and playing football in high school. He was 6-feet tall, weighed in at 200 pounds, and could reportedly bench-press 365 pounds. After high school, he moved on to attend FSU, Tallahassee. After a short time, he joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. Friends reported that he experimented with many drugs, including marijuana, ecstasy, and mushrooms. He drank to excess, with friends reporting that he would “drink till he passed out” regularly.

On the night in question, toxicology reports only found alcohol and trace amounts of marijuana in his system.

After he was successfully removed from the body of John Stevens, he was taken to a hospital, suffering from a burned esophagus. Harrouff remembered that during his attack, he drank a chemical found in his victims’ garage.

Upon his arrest, he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon, two counts of second-degree murder with a weapon, attempted first-degree murder with a weapon, and burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery while armed.

Looking into his internet history prior to the attack, investigators learned he had been googling things such as, “Am I crazy?”, “I think I am going crazy am I”, and “Schizophrenia”. A journal entry dated 1/6/14 reads:

“The way I see myself may or may not be be different from the way others see me. I view myself as happy, shy, nice, positive, and I never give up. I view myself as happy because I usually have very few things to feel sad or depressed about.”

“Do you know what it feels like to be so afraid to speak. Becoming a bully because all the bullies bullied me. Fuck man, I just wanted to be accepted. The anxiety I feel inside feels like I internally bleed. So much pain and embarrassment every fucking weak. Looking back it was all in my head. I was a trouble making kid. Made every single teacher flip their lid.”

“You say my big hearts gonna kill me one day, my head roller coasting with these drugs in my brain. So why do it anyways?”

A psychologist hired by the prosecution to assess Harrouff determined that he appeared to be legally insane at the time of the murders. “Forensically, given the above findings, absent evidence of drug usage at the time of the incident, and observations made by first responding law-enforcement officers, it is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Harrouff was experiencing a decompensated mental state associated with an emerging mood and/or thought disorder resulting in an acute psychotic episode,” said Dr. Gregory C. Landrum. “As a result of this condition, it is opined that Mr. Harrouff was unable to distinguish right from wrong.”

According to Landrum, Harrouff felt “as if God was talking to him” and “dog spirits were part of him.” His findings also said, “He recalls having a machete in his hand and stabbing her ‘and it was like she was covered in darkness’.” Also in his report he said, “He also remembers seeing a man and ‘he was like glowing white’.”

A psychologist hired by the defense claimed Harrouff suffered from “clinical lycanthropy” during the attack. “The fact that Mr., Harrouff persisted in biting the male victim in the presence of police officers, in spite of threats of being shot, being tased and receiving multiple kicks to the head, suggests that Mr. Harrouff was actively psychotic,” said Dr. Phillip Resnick.

According to Resnick, Harrouff expressed a close connection to canines, and “had the delusion that he could run ‘super fast’ because he was ‘half-man, half dog.’ He believed that other dogs’ hair was attaching to his face.”

Though Harrouff recalled attacking Michelle, claiming he believed she was a “witch”, he only recalled stabbing John. He did not remember biting him, or even the encounter with police where he was tased multiple times.

Despite his previous drug usage, Resnick determined that it was unlikely that his psychosis was drug-induced. Not only did he not have drugs in his system at the time of the attack, but the duration of the “manic episode” led him to believe it was a psychotic break.