Until he exploded in cannibalistic rage late Monday night, Austin Kelly Harrouff appeared to be a gentle giant: a good student at Suncoast High School in Riviera Beach, a powerful athlete on the wrestling and football teams. He was about to enter his sophomore year at Florida State University, where he was studying exercise science. 
 
 “Austin used to be a quiet kid,” a fellow student at Suncoast and FSU who knew Harrouff at both schools said in an email Wednesday. “He’s actually nice, which is why this is so shocking to everyone …not the type of person you would expect this from. Overall his life seemed healthy and on the right track.” 
 
 But there were also signs of trouble for the 19-year-old student. A YouTube channel containing multiple videos of Harrouff contains the statement: “I’ve got a psycho side and a normal side. I’ve lost my mind help me find it.” 
 
 “I know what’s right for me. I don’t need drugs,” Harrouff says in a video on bodybuilding on the channel, which features music videos under the name AustiFrosti. A friend confirmed that the videos were of Harrouff. 
 
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 “I used to think I needed steroids to be a bodybuilder, to be this thing, to be this symbol, to be this lie.” 
 
 On Monday evening, Harrouff stormed out of the Duffy’s restaurant where he was having dinner with his parents in Jupiter, then trekked three and a half miles in the August heat to brutally attack a middle-aged couple, John Stevens and Michelle Mishcon Stevens, whom he encountered in their garage hangout in their Tequesta home. Three police deputies had to wrestle down Harrouff, grunting and making animal-like noises as he gnawed at Stevens’ face. 
 
 On Wednesday, Harrouff, according to a spokesperson for the Martin County Sheriff’s Department, was stable and conscious and under armed guard in an unidentified Palm Beach County hospital, where he had hand surgery. Martin County Sheriff spokesperson Tricia Kukuvka said they were working to charge Harrouff with two charges of first-degree murder and aggravated battery on a Good Samaritan — Jeff Fisher, a neighbor of the Stevens whom Harrouff stabbed multiple times when he tried to help the couple. 
 
 The Sheriff’s Department said in a release that initial tests showed no sign of street drugs such as marijuana, heroin or cocaine. Harrouff’s blood, DNA and hair have been sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for further testing, including testing for the synthetic drug commonly called Flakka. Test results normally take one to three weeks, although deputies have asked for expedited results. Autopsies of John and Michelle Mishcon Stevens showed the cause of death as multiple injuries and blunt force trauma, the sheriff’s department said. 
 
 There were signs of trouble leading up to Monday night’s breakdown. Harrouff’s parents are divorced, and neighbors of the home where Harrouff was living with his father, dentist Wade Harrouff, this summer, say he seemed aggressive and rowdy. One neighbor told the Herald they often saw Austin partying with friends in the backyard. Another said father and son had screaming fights in front of the house. 
 
 Harrouff’s mother, Mina, called 911 after her son abruptly left the restaurant Monday. Harrouff’s mother told police her son had gotten into an argument with his father at Duffy’s and that he had been acting strangely for approximately a week, saying that he “was immortal,” had “super powers” and “was here to protect people,” according to the Jupiter police report. 
 
 “It’s like he just — changed,” his mother told the 911 operator. 
 
 He was last seen in white shorts, a blue polo and a red Make America Great Again baseball cap. 
 
 But Mina also told police her son did not have a history of mental problems and was not a heavy drug user; the mother as well as Harrouff’s sister told police he was a “nice young man who would not hurt himself or anyone else.” 
 
 That gentle portrait clashes with what happened Monday night. Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said Harrouff attacked the couple as they were relaxing in what they had called their “Garage-Ma-Hall.” The muscular student stabbed the 50-something pair multiple times with a large pocket knife he often carried, as well as other instruments he found in the garage. When police arrived, Michelle was already dead, and Harrouff kept tearing at Stevens’ face despite multiple Taser shots and the use a police K-9. The attack appeared to be random, Snyder said. 
 
 Harrouff gave a very different impression in a statement on a college athletic recruiting website during his senior year of high school, while he was attending a rigorous International Baccalaureat program at Suncoast, a highly rated U.S. high school in Palm Beach County. He said that he had a 3.35 grade point average, was 6-2 and weighed 200 pounds, could bench press 365 pounds, and wrote that he was “one of the strongest” on the school’s football team, where he played offense and defense. He was on the weightlifting team and captain of the wrestling team. 
 
 “I would be a great asset to your football team,” he wrote. “I love the competitiveness of the game and I have the drive to improve.” 
 
 But at FSU, home of the Seminoles, one of the country’s top college football teams, Harrouff did not play football or participate in any other sports team. He joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, where the Instagram account for the FSU chapter features a video of a wild-looking “Animal House” party last April. A Twitter account registered to @AustinHarrouff has only eight entries. The FSU freshman became more outgoing. “He went from not saying a word to anyone to smiling and saying hi and talking,” his friend wrote in an email. 
 
 Harrouff’s father, an implantology and cosmetic dentist, has been disciplined four times by the State of Florida Board of Dentistry, for misdiagnosing or mistreating patients, with consequences that included fines and remedial courses. Wade Harrouff also has been arrested twice for DUI, in 2011 in Juno Beach and in 2012 in Lantana. In the Lantana case, he pleaded guilty, received a year probation and was fined, according to records from the Florida Highway Patrol. ||||| FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The mother of a university student accused of killing a couple outside their home and then biting the dead man's face told police her son had been acting strangely for days and claimed to have superpowers, according to a report released Wednesday. 
 
 Mina Harrouff called Jupiter police about three hours after Austin Harrouff, a 19-year-old Florida State University student, stormed out of a restaurant Monday night following an argument with his father, the report said. She told an officer her son had been acting strangely for about a week, said he had superpowers and that he was "here to protect people," the report said. She told Officer Luis Rocha her son had no history of mental illness nor heavy drug use. 
 
 "Mina told me that she does not believe him to be a danger to anyone or to himself," Rocha wrote. 
 
 She and Rocha didn't know that 45 minutes after he left Duffy's restaurant, Austin Harrouff had been arrested in neighboring Martin County by sheriff's deputies, who said they saw him mauling the body of John Stevens, 59. Sheriff William Snyder says Harrouff attacked Stevens and his wife, 53-year-old Michelle Mishcon, randomly as they sat in their garage. Autopsies show that both had been beaten and stabbed, though Mishcon died from the beating, not the stab wounds. 
 
 A switchblade believed to belong to Harrouff was found at the scene, and the couple's garage contained many "weapons of opportunity," Snyder has said. 
 
 It took numerous deputies and a dog to subdue Harrouff, a muscular former high school football player and wrestler who shook off electric shocks from a stun gun, Snyder said. He has said Harrouff was "abnormally strong," incoherent and making "animal-like noises." 
 
 Harrouff, who had no criminal record, was listed in stable condition at a hospital Wednesday and was scheduled to undergo surgery on his hand. He is being held under guard and has been unable to speak because of a breathing tube, Snyder said. 
 
 An attorney for Harrouff could not be found. 
 
 Snyder has said Harrouff tested negative for cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other common drugs, but that further tests would be conducted to see if he had ingested steroids or a hallucinogenic drug like flakka or bath salts. Results should be available in one to three weeks. 
 
 "The big question we want to know, the community wants to know, is the why. We know the who, the what, the when, the where and the how," Snyder said. "No one is suggesting that what happened at the restaurant was a psychotic episode. What happened during that walk that led to a level of violence that was unprecedented in normal police work?" 
 
 He said Harrouff's mental state is irrelevant and wouldn't speculate as to whether he had suffered a mental breakdown. 
 
 "His mental state is for his defense attorney and a jury to consider. It is not my job to give the defendant an alibi," Snyder said. 
 
 Harrouff has not been formally charged. Snyder said detectives are working with prosecutors to determine the charges. He also said the delay is helping local taxpayers. 
 
 "As long as he is not under arrest, the hospital bills are his responsibility and his insurance," Snyder said. "He's not going anywhere."
– "It's like he just—changed." That's how Austin Harrouff's mom described her son's behavior to a 911 operator Monday after the 19-year-old fled a Florida restaurant following an argument with his father, reports the Miami Herald. Mina Harrouff said her son had been acting oddly for a week, claiming he had superpowers and was "here to protect people," but said she didn't believe he was a danger to himself or anyone else, reports the AP. During his walk home, police say Harrouff fatally beat and stabbed two strangers—John Stevens, 59, and Michelle Mishcon, 53—in their garage in Tequesta. He allegedly used a pocket knife and several "weapons of opportunity" within the garage, before gnawing on Stevens' face, says Martin County Sheriff William Snyder. Though described as a nice, quiet kid in high school, Harrouff—now listed in stable condition at a hospital—had recently appeared aggressive and was known to party, neighbors say. "I've got a psycho side and a normal side," the Florida State University student wrote on his YouTube channel, where he posted rap videos and talked about his aversion to steroids in bodybuilding, per the Tallahassee Democrat. Tests show he wasn't on cocaine, meth, or heroin on Monday, though tests for steroids and flakka are pending, says Snyder. Harrouff will eventually be charged with two counts of first-degree murder and aggravated battery on a Good Samaritan, but "as long as he is not under arrest, the hospital bills are his responsibility and his insurance," Snyder adds.