A neighbor who walked in on a frat boy eating his neighbors’ faces after he had stabbed them to death has retraced his steps in the garage where they were savaged as part of the young man’s trial.
On August 15, 2016, John Stevens, 59, and Michelle Mishcon, 53, were stabbed to death by 21-year-old Austin Harrouff in a random attack at their home in Tequesta, Florida.
The couple’s neighbor Jeffrey Fisher witnessed the attack and confronted the crazed attacker after hearing screams coming from the house.
What drove the him to carry out the grisly killings, which were some of the most gruesome in recent history, remains unclear.
Austin Harrouff was found by eating Michelle Mishcon and John Stevens (right together) in the garage of their home in Tequesta, Florida, in 2016
Jeffrey Fisher, a neighbor of the murdered couple, walked into their garage to find Harrouff mauling them. He is shown above reliving it for prosecutors in the very garage where it happened, gesturing to the spot on the ground where he found Harrouff standing over Michelle
It was suggested at first that he may have been high on flakka or bath salts because the substances had been linked to other murders in the area that had similarly gory details.
He was tearing his cheek like a dog
A toxicology report however found neither of those things in Harrouff’s system.
He had a small amount of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, but others were from drugs he was given in hospital after he was arrested.
He remains in custody awaiting trial for the killings. Last year, he entered a not guilty plea and his lawyers filed an intent to use an insanity defense.
They admit that he carried out the killings but say he should not be held responsible for them because he was not in control of his behavior at the time.
As part of the prosecution’s case, they asked Fisher to go on camera and retrace his steps on the night of the killing.
Fisher is shown pointing to where Harrouff had been mauling the woman. His face was not shown in the video which prosecutors will submit as evidence
Fisher fought with the attacker then ran past him, into the house to run through it and get back onto the street
He is seen in a video which was released on Wednesday by TCPalm standing where he did on the night of the attack when he first approached the house after seeing Harrouff throw Michele to the ground.
‘He was standing sort of like this and I actually saw Michelle laying here.
‘I got to be right there. He turned, looked at me and said: “You want no part of this, you want no part of me. One of the two. Then, from his right hand, swung,’ he said.
The pair then fought or, as Fisher described it, ‘pitter patter’.
‘It’s not like we were going toe to toe. He was flinging and I was blocking,’ he said, explaining how he blocked the man’s blows.
He then brought Harrouff to the ground.
Sheriff’s deputy Wayne Trocan was one of the officers who responded to the attack. He demonstrated how he arrived to find Harrouff straddling Stevens, attacking him
Trocan kicked the man several times in the head to get him off his victim. He also tasered him and had a dog bite his arm but it took several attempts to break his grip
Harrouff was found with some of his victim’s flesh still in his teeth. He was taken to hospital in restraints. The former University of Florida student is pictured immediately after he was arrested
According to police, Harrouff told them he’d been ‘eating humans’ when he was arrested and begged to be killed
Harrouff spent seven weeks in the hospital after the attack. He had no bath salts of flakka in his system as had been suspected but had small traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana
‘I was able to get a hold of his shirt and yanked him. He lost his balance and went down to the ground right there face first.’
Fisher ran out of the garage through the door which connected the house to it. He then went back out front and tried to catch his breath and heard screaming from inside the garage, presumably from Michelle.
‘The words were not making sense,’ he said.
He then watched from the front of his property as police arrived.
Martin County Deputy Wayne Trocan was one of the first on the scene.
He arrived to find Harrouff straddling Stevens in the driveway, a few yards from where he had just attacked his knife.
There was a large trail of blood in the driveway, he said.
‘He was growling,’ Trocan told investigators as he recalled the noises Harrouff was making.
He had his fingers in Stevens’ mouth and was pulling it to one side ‘like a fish hook’.
The knife that was used in the attack. When police found Stevens, he had been so badly savaged that his ribs were exposed
This was the scene inside the couple’s home after the attack. A trail of blood led through the kitchen. It is not clear whose blood it is
This was found in Harrouff’s possessions afterwards. His lawyers say he suffered a ‘psychotic episode’ and was not in control of his behavior
Harrouff is a former student of the University of Florida
Trocan kicked him several times in the head and used a taser to try to get him off of the victim but it nothing to stop his rampage.
Stevens, who was still alive at this point, whimpered: ‘Help me! Get him off!’
He even brought in a dog which bit Harrouff’s arm but he brushed the animal off.
‘The dog grabbed his arm and pulled it back but he ripped it out of the dog’s mouth,’ he said.
What finally tore him off the victim was one of 10 kicks to the head which sent it ‘swinging back, off his shoulder.’
It caused his arm to fly back, giving Trocan the opportunity to handcuff him.
‘I smacked the cuff on his hand and I dragged him to about here,’ he explained.
Deputy Trocan revealed that one of his colleagues, a female police officer, was standing over Harrouff as he fought with Stevens and wanted to shoot him but could not get a clear enough shot.
‘I didn’t want [her] taking a shot, the way he was grappled up into him, there was no good shot.
‘It would have went into him, into the victim.’
Mischon and Stevens both died of their injuries. They did not know Harrouff
By the time they pulled him off of Stevens, he had been so badly stabbed they could see his ribs and Harrouff was chewing on his cheek, ‘tearing like a dog.’
Harrouff’s lawyers filed papers in court in December which claimed he was suffering from a ‘full blown psychotic episode’ when he launched the attack.
They are asking that he should not be convicted of murder.
The former student gave a tearful interview to Dr. Phil while he was still in hospital recovering from injuries he sustained during his rampage.
He said he was not a bad person and did not mean to carry out the killings.
It was previously reported that after he told police he had been ‘eating humans’ when he was arrested and begged them to kill him.
Harrouff’s trial date is not known but lawyers are in the discovery process, which is why the videos were released this week.
His parents have since told how he was behaving strangely for weeks before the attack but that they thought he would ‘snap out of it’.