On 15 August, 2016, authorities were called to the house of John Joseph Stevens III and his wife, Michelle Karen Mishcon, who lived in Marion County, Florida. When they arrived, they discovered an absolutely abhorrent scene. 19-year-old Florida State University student, Austin Kelly Harrouff, was on top of Stevens, wearing just his underwear, he was making animal noises and tearing off portions of the flesh from his face and eating it. John and Michelle had both been brutally stabbed to death in a seemingly unprovoked attack. Austin was unresponsive to a stun gun and even a K-9 biting him. The neighbour who had called 911 sustained stab wounds as he attempted to stop the savage attack but thankfully survived.

Police originally theorised that the teenager was on the drug, flakka. However, it was later reported in his toxicology report that he had no hallucinogenic drugs in his system at the time of the senseless attack. In documents recently released, police revealed that when they finally got him off Stevens, he told him: “Help me, I ate something bad,” before admitting that it was “humans” he had ate and spitting a piece of flesh out. Before the brutal attack, Harrouff had been acting very bizarrely, his friends and family would later report to police.

He had recently moved his bed to the garage, explaining his reasoning he had said there were “demons” in the home. In addition, he had told his sister that he had the ability to open locked doors with his mind. On the evening of the murder, he had gone to dinner with his dad. Exclaiming that the food was taking too long, Harrouff walked to his mother’s home, which was nearby, and started to drink cooking oil and a bowl of cheese mixed with cooking oil.