The Frat boy Who Killed and Ate the Face of His Victim
By: Max Ngamla
Tags: Mental Health, Mental Illness, Crime, Short Read, True Crime

The Frat boy Who Killed and Ate the Face of His Victim

Photo source: Associated Press

Austin Harouff was a 19-year-old college student when he committed the murders. He played American football, had a passion for bodybuilding, and his parents describe him as a good person and a Golden Boy. So what prompted him then in August 2016 to attack two people with a knife and eating the face of one of the two victims?



In the beginning, it was thought Austin used drugs such as the famous flakka or “bath salts”, but after tests were carried out no such substances were found, only small traces of marijuana.

So what exactly happened on August 2016?



On August 15, 2016, the day of the attack, Austin was behaving in a strange way. He was restless, talking nonsense and his mother (Mina Harrouff) found him eating cooking oil mixed with cheese.

After the unusual meal, Austin left the house, and his mother, worried, alerted the police.



Here’s what she said to the 911 operator: “My son has left the house and I’m worried about his safety. He’s acting weird. He seems a little delusional. Today he was out for dinner with his father and he ran away. He says he feels immortal, like a superhero. I don’t know what’s happening to him. He has a switchblade knife.”



And it is with that knife that Austin killed a couple who were standing in the garage, watching television. The victims are John Stevens, 59, and his wife Michelle Mishcon, 53.



Shortly after Mina Harrouff's call, the Police found Austin, without pants, bent over John’s lifeless body, intent on eating his face. The policemen ordered Austin to move away and they tased him several times. However Austin did not detach himself from the corpse and he started to bite pieces of skin from the belly.

It was only after the intervention of a police dog that started biting Austin when four cops managed to take him away.

After being stopped by the police, Austin said: “Help me, I ate something bad.”

Then he admitted that it was human flesh and he spat out a piece of John’s skin. Austin had esophagus burns caused by the ingestion of some chemicals found in the couple’s garage and was hospitalized for two months.



The family admitted Austin’s behavior had changed in the two weeks before the attack. For example, the young man had moved his bed to the garage as he claimed the house was full of demons.

Austin’s sister gave the investigators an audio file in which her brother says: “All this pain and this sadness because I solve the problems people have.”



Then she says he found him one night hanging around the home, claiming to have the power to open locked doors without keys. A friend, on the other hand, tells of how Austin told him he was half human and half animal, the day before the attack. Maybe the tragedy could have been avoided if Austin’s parents and friends had alerted the authorities first or if they had taken him to the hospital.

Austin’s family said he is very sorry for what happened and claims that the “True” Austin would never have done such a thing. Given the absence of drugs in his blood, the only other plausible hypothesis is a mental illness.

On October 3, 2016, Austin was released from hospital and sent to Martin County Jail on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

In jail, Dr. Gregory Landrum evaluated Austin’s mental health and found that he was suffering “an acute psychotic episode” when he killed his victims, and “was unable to distinguish between right from wrong.” Prosecutors have dropped the death penalty.

His murder trial, which was previously rescheduled for May 2020 has been postponed indefinitely.