FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida sheriff's office said Friday that a college student caught trying to bite the face off a victim after stabbing the man and his wife will be charged with first-degree murder, meaning he'll face capital punishment or life without parole.
Austin Harrouff, 19, will be charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and burglary, according to a statement from Trisha Kukuvka, a spokesman for Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.
He also will face an attempted first-degree murder charge for allegedly stabbing their neighbor, Jeff Fisher, who came to their aid.
The Florida State University student is conscious but heavily sedated and under armed guard in a hospital, according to the sheriff's office. Snyder suggested earlier in the week that he's in no hurry to make the charges official, since the man's family or insurance must pay his hospital bills until he's formally charged.
Snyder also has said that investigators "know the who, the what, the when, the where and the how" of the attack, but the why remains a mystery.
Solving that mystery doesn't matter so much to the children of John Stevens III, 59; and his wife Michelle Mishcon, 53, who were stabbed in the garage and driveway of their house in a quiet community north of Jupiter. Stevens' children said they want him to face execution.
"It is not super important to me what his mindset was," John Stevens IV told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday. "I just want to see the prosecutor ask for the death penalty. I want him to go through that process and to pay for what he did."