Florida Man Eats A Person

The Shocking Case of Austin Harrouff – A Crime Beyond Explanation

On August 15th, 2016, a man in Florida was just about to head to bed when he heard a terrible scream from across the street. Jeff Fisher then stopped in his tracks. He knew that the couple across the street, Joseph and Michelle Stevens, often watched TV in their garage in the evenings to try and escape the Florida heat, and that they would usually leave the garage door open while they did so. Everyone in their neighborhood knew that, too. Joseph and Michelle were well liked and often invited neighbors to come and sit with them or just waved to say hello as they were passing by the garage door.

But Jeff had never heard anyone scream like that and, perhaps most importantly for this case, he had never heard Michelle scream like that before either. He immediately knew that something was wrong and, wanting to be a good neighbor, Jeff headed off across the street to see if he could help.

There he found Michelle lying on the garage floor in a pool of blood. It looked like she had been attacked and possibly brutally killed in her own home. Jeff was shocked and desperately tried to help Michelle, but quickly found himself the victim of an attack.

A young man pounced on Jeff and in his hand was a knife.

Jeff was then left in the impossible situation of trying to help Michelle while also defending himself, and ended up running through Michelle and Joseph’s house to get away from the attacker. He could hear the young man close behind him, and he first ran through the house and then around it to get back to the safety of his own before he was able to take stock of the situation.

Jeff then called the police, and it was only while he was on the phone with dispatchers that Jeff realized that he had been stabbed multiple times as well.

The situation was grim, but somehow it managed to get even grimmer by the time that first responders made it to the scene.

Michelle was still lying, silent and motionless, where Jeff had last seen her, but now her husband Joseph was with her too. It looked like he had also been stabbed, but most shocking of all, the young man who had attacked them was wrapped around Joseph and tearing chunks of Joseph's face and chest away with his teeth.

Joseph cried out as the young man bit into him, meaning that despite the chaos and carnage unfolding in front of them, there was still a chance for first responders to save him.

The police officer on the scene tried to pry the young man off of Joseph, but the attacker was strong, far too strong for one policeman to handle alone.

The police officer called for backup and pulled his service weapon, only for the attacker to ignore him and continue biting Joseph. The officer threatened to shoot, but he couldn’t actually risk catching Joseph in the crossfire, and so he had to wait for backup. 

More police officers arrived and tried to wrestle the young man away. They tased him several times and deployed a K9 unit, but every time they managed to get Joseph free, the young man would break away and get right back to it.

He snarled and growled like an animal and ignored the K9 biting his own arm.

Eventually, it took four officers to get the scene under control and by then, both Michelle and Joseph had, unfortunately, passed, leaving their neighbor Jeff to be the only surviving victim that day.

The Florida streets were stunned into silence after this brutal and gruesome attack, an attack that at first glance seemed to be the horrible result of drug taking gone terribly wrong.

But tests on the young man all came back negative, excluding small, trace amounts of marijuana, and once the investigators were able to track down the identity of this manic killer, this case only grew more tragic.

Austin Harrouff was born in December 1996, and was now a nineteen-year-old studying at Florida State University. Growing up, he wrestled, played football and now that he was in college, he was in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He worked out and wanted to be a bodybuilder, and seemed to always be trying to better himself.

But, perhaps, he had his reasons for wanting to do so.

After talking with Austin’s parents, the investigators were able to catch a glimpse of what was going on with Austin below the surface.

As a teenager, he had often suffered from bouts of depression and now that he was a young adult, the situation only seemed to be getting worse. Now, Austin suffered from massive mood swings. He would get depressed and withdrawn, only to suddenly burst into a rapid bout of activity, during which he claimed to see and hear things that others didn’t.

During the weeks leading up to the attack, Austin told others that he had started to feel like he was like Jesus and would later be worshiped. He claimed he had superpowers and was invincible and to prove it, he started walking out into the streets to show people that the cars passing by wouldn’t hit him.

At home, he felt like he was in danger. He kept the family dog with him at nights for protection, and then began patrolling the halls, banging on bedroom doors to tell the people inside that he was there, and he would keep protecting them all the way through the night. He told family and friends that he was seeing evil figures, all dressed in black with white faces, and yet most of the people around him believed that Austin was simply going through something and would eventually come out the other side.

Austin was left alone to do his own research on his situation, most of which was done on his phone and computer, and involved searches like: “Must I sleep?” “I think I’m going crazy, am I?” and “What am I?”

The day before the attack, Wade Harrouff took his son to a gun show, where he bought Austin a switchblade knife.

The following day, Austin and Wade got into a fight when Austin wanted to leave the house in the car. Wade refused to give Austin the keys until he’d taken a Xanax, and in protest, Austin climbed up on top of Wade’s car and jumped up and down on the roof until Wade gave him the keys. 

Austin then disappeared for a while and met up with friends. He then met up with his father, his father’s girlfriend and Austin’s sister at a local restaurant. Austin appeared agitated as soon as he arrived. He stayed for a while, argued with his family, and then left the restaurant without saying where he was going.

He went to his mother’s house, which was a short distance away. He said that he was thirsty and then drank a whole bottle of cooking oil before disappearing again. He went back to the diner, argued with his family again, and then left.

It was shortly after that he began stalking the streets. He claimed to have seen a dark figure following him and talking to him… a dark figure he called Daniel.  He also saw a witch screaming at him from one of the houses he was passing by, and after that, the rest was just blank.

It was during this black-out that Austin attacked Michelle. He stabbed her with his new switchblade before finding other objects around the garage that he could also use as a weapon to attack her with. He then chased and stabbed the neighbor Jeff when he came by and it is believed that Joseph had been out walking the dog only to come home and find Austin attacking Michelle. It was then that Austin moved onto Joseph and did what he did.

When first responders managed to get Austin to the hospital, they found that he had extensive internal injuries from drinking what they believed to be bleach, and they were unsure whether he was even going to survive, let alone go to trial.

He did, but psychiatric evaluators from both the prosecution and the defense found that Austin hadn’t been sane at the time of the attacks. He was later diagnosed as Bipolar with “psychotic features.” 

He was acquitted by reasons of insanity, but has been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Joseph and Michelle’s families say that they are deeply hurt by the court’s findings and believe that Austin should have been punished to the full extent of the law.

In later interviews, Austin cries and shows remorse for his actions. He claims to have no idea what happened during the attack, and that coming back to reality was like waking to a nightmare. He told both his sister and friends that day that he believed that he was a centaur and that he was half-dog.