Face-Eating Attack Possibly Prompted by ‘Bath Salts,’ Authorities Suspect
Miami police say face-eating attack similar to other “bath salts” incidents.
ByABC News
MIAMI, May 29, 2012 — — Miami police suspect that what caused a 31-year-old man to rip off his clothes and viciously gnaw on the face of another man in a daylight attack on a busy highway is a new and extremely dangerous street drug known as “bath salts.”
A Miami police officer shot Rudy Eugene Saturday after repeated pleas for him stop eating another man’s face. His demands were met with only growls. Eugene continued, and it took four bullets to kill and finally stop him as witnesses watched in horror.
According to police little remained of the victim’s face, with 75 percent of it eaten away rendering him almost unrecognizable. One source says all that remained was blood and the victim’s goatee. ABC News affiliate WPLG identified the victim as Ronald Poppo.
Police have not officially connected Eugene’s behavior to “bath salts,” but experts say he was exhibiting the classic signs of someone high on the drug.
Armando Aguilar, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of police, who has been in contact with the officer who killed Eugene, says the similarities between this and other recent cases involving “bath salts” are striking.
“The cases are similar minus a man eating another. People taking off their clothes. People suddenly have super human strength,” says Aguilar. “They become violent and they are burning up for the inside. Their organs are reaching a level that most would die. By the time police approach them they are a walking dead person.”
According to WPLG, the victim was a 65 year-old, apparently homeless man who was living near the causeway where the attack occurred.
Eugene, who was believed to be homeless, left few clues behind as to what led to the attack. Court records show that although he was arrested several times, they were for minor offenses. His ex-wife described him as having violent tendencies, but is shocked by the attack.
As investigators pour over surveillance video and continue soliciting the public’s help in solving this case, many are looking to “bath salts” as the potential trigger of this vicious attack.
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According to Aguilar one of the recent cases in Miami involving “bath salts,” which is becoming increasingly popular in the party scene, involved someone trying to bite another, but police were able to get there in time. Most have involved individuals behaving incredibly irrationally and nearly impossible to control.
“There was another incident after the popular Ultra Festival where a guy was walking around naked, and was hit by a taxi. He jumped on top of the taxi, beat the people inside. It took 15 officers to stop him, and as he was being tasered, he was begging them to shoot and kill him,” says Aguilar. “But because we had that many officers we were able to subdue him and take him to the hospital where they basically froze him.”
Dr. Paul Adams, an emergency physician at the Jackson Memorial Rider Trauma Center in Miami where the cannibal victim is being treated, says instances of virtually uncontrollable patients being brought in exhibiting signs of psychosis due to this new drug have spiked during the last year.
“You can call it the new LSD. It’s a recreational drug,” says Adams. “They [patients] seem to be unaware of their surroundings. They are not rational, very aggressive and are stronger than they usually are. In the emergency room it usually takes four to five people to control them, and we have had a couple of people breaking out of restraints.”
Adams says he believes there have been at least several hundred South Florida cases alone in the last year of people coming in usually in their twenties and thirties on the drug.
“We have seen people going out in pools outside of our hospital to try and cool down. They usually have to be chemically or physically restrained for six to eight hours,” he said.
College Student Kills Couple, Found Biting Face of Victim in Florida: Sheriff
Investigators say the killings appear to be a random attack, and are investigating whether the suspect may have taken substances like bath salts.
Austin Harrouff, left, is accused of killing John Joseph Stevens and Michelle Karen Mishcon.NBC Miami
Aug. 17, 2016, 5:13 AM GMT+7 / Updated Aug. 17, 2016, 11:05 AM GMT+7
By Eli Panken
2 Dead in Gruesome Florida Stabbing
01:27
A 19-year-old student fatally stabbed a couple in their garage in Florida Monday night and was biting the dead man’s face when officers subdued him, authorities said Tuesday.
Police believe Florida State University student Austin Harrouff attacked the couple at random shortly before 9:20 p.m. using “weapons of opportunity,” and also wounded a neighbor who attempted to intervene, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told reporters at a press conference.
The sheriff’s office responded to the home in Tequesta after a neighbor called 911, and a deputy found Harrouff on top of the male victim’s body in the driveway biting off pieces of his victim’s face, Snyder said.
“It’s inexplicable,” Snyder said. “One of the first things we try to do at a crime scene is try to understand the motive of the offender, because it is the motive of the offender that gets us going in the right direction. In this case, we can’t establish a motive.”
Snyder said Harrouff joined his parents for dinner at a nearby restaurant around 8:30 p.m. but stormed off when he was agitated by the slow service. About 50 minutes later, police responded to the neighbor’s 911 call of a man attacking the couple in their garage.
The victims, Michelle Mischon, 53, and John Stevens, 59, were pronounced dead on the scene, Snyder said. Martin County deputies were initially unsuccessful in getting Harrouff off of the victim with a stun gun and police dog, he said.
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“The suspect in this case was abnormally strong,” Snyder said. “We will be doing sampling of his blood to see if there was flakka or bath salts, which are known to cause what we call the excited delirium, and he did have some indications that we might be working with that.”
Related: ‘Devil’s Drug’: Flakka Is Driving Florida Insane
Snyder said initial drug test results for the suspect showed no signs of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin or other common drugs in his blood. Snyder said Harrouff was making “animal like sounds” after he was arrested and was incoherent. The bites caused substantial trauma to the victim’s body, Snyder said.
Deputies did not shoot Harrouff because they were concerned about striking the victim, Snyder said.
Harrouff was being treated at a Palm Beach County hospital Tuesday. Snyder said at a later press conference that his condition has deteriorated significantly, and he may not survive.
“It is possible that he’s ingested something that is causing some kind of intestinal problem. We’re just not sure. The hospital says that he’s in grave condition and he is not at all stable,” he said.
Police Search of Answers in Face-Eating Killing
02:13
Both victims were sitting in their garage with the door open when they were attacked, Snyder said. Investigators have found no known connection between Harrouff and the victims and it appears to have been an unprovoked and random attack, he said.
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The neighbor, 47-year-old Jeff Fisher, was stabbed and was taken to a nearby hospital for surgery, police said. He is expected to survive.
Snyder said Harrouff doesn’t have a criminal past and was apparently getting good grades at school, and investigators were trying to determine a motive in the killings. Harrouff lived with his mother a few miles away from the scene of the killings and his father lives in the neighborhood, Snyder said.
Why Harrouff attacked the couple may never be known, Snyder said.
“To all of us, none of this makes sense. There’s just not one thing in this case that seems to makes sense,” Snyder said. “As we grasp to kind of get out footing and try to understand exactly what happened, we can’t get our footing in understanding the motive or how did this happen.”
A similar attack occurred in Miami in 2012 when a naked man chewed the face of a homeless man for unknown reasons. The attacker was shot dead by police and the victim survived but suffered serious facial injuries. Bath salts had been suspected in that case, but an autopsy showed the attacker only had marijuana in his system, NBC Miami reported.
What Is Flakka? All About the Drug that May Be Behind Florida Man Allegedly Stabbing, Attempting to Eat Couple
A Florida State University student allegedly stabbed a couple to death after possibly taking flakka, Monday
By
Char Adams is a former reporter at PEOPLE. She left PEOPLE in 2019.
and
Published on August 16, 2016 06:50PM EDT
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Authorities have speculated the drug “flakka” could be connected to the gruesome case of a Florida couple who were fatally stabbed Monday before the 19-year-old suspect allegedly tried to eat one of their faces.
Austin Harrouff, a Florida State University fraternity brother, was found allegedly attempting to bite off chunks of John Joseph Stevens III’s face in a Tequesta neighborhood, law enforcement officials confirmed to PEOPLE. Stevens, 59, and his 53-year-old wife Michelle Karen Mishcon had been allegedly stabbed multiple times by Harrouff, authorities said.
Harrouff was “abnormally strong” during the alleged attack, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said during a news conference.
Harrouff was also making “animal-like” noises, including “grunting” and “growling,” Snyder said. He has since been hospitalized after a prolonged arrest in which he allegedly resisted multiple officers.
While toxicology reports will determine whether Harrouff was on drugs during the alleged attack, Snyder said he “would not be surprised” if Harrouff was under the influence of flakka.
Snyder noted that Harrouff’s core body temperature was not elevated, as it would have been if flakka was involved. But he told PEOPLE that Harrouff exhibited several symptoms seen in flakka users, and initial reports found he was not on cocaine, marijuana or methamphetamine.
“When you see a case like this where someone is biting off pieces of somebody’s face, could it be flakka?” Snyder said at the news conference. “The answer is it absolutely could be a flakka case.”
What Is Flakka?
Flakka is a psychoactive stimulant that has been linked to bizarre behavior and drug overdoses, and it is also known in some parts of the country as “gravel” because it looks similar to the small stones used in fish tanks.
“It is a synthetic cathinone, which is the category of synthetic drugs that are often referred to as ‘bath salts,’ ” Jim Hall, an epidemiologist in the Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities at Nova Southeastern University, tells PEOPLE.
Flakka is a stimulant, which increases alertness, attention and energy, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Stimulants – which also include cocaine and ecstasy – are sometimes referred to as “uppers.”
“Many users didn’t like the bad effects they had from the drug,” Hall says, “but nonetheless were very compelled by compulsion to keep using the drug, as it’s addictive.”
Flakka was produced first in China, moving to the streets of Europe and the U.K. before eventually crossing into U.S. borders, Hall says.
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The drug is sold in white or pink crystal chunks, which are “foul-smelling,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Its street name draws from a hispanic colloquial term, which generally refers to a “slender, elegant woman who charms all whom she meets,” Hall says.
How Is Flakka Consumed?
Flakka comes in many forms, and is sometimes even laced in marijuana cigarettes, Hall tells PEOPLE.
It can also be vaporized in e-cigarette devices, Hall says, but is most typically dissolved in the mouth or snorted.
Hall says that the drug is particularly popular with people in their 20s and 30s, but is used across all age spectrums.
“The adverse effects were seen in individuals who had a long lifetime history of, in particular, crack cocaine abuse,” Hall says. “The drug is a cheap $5 drug intentionally marketed to what was traditionally the street drug crack cocaine market – specifically targeted to homeless populations.”
What Other Reactions or Side-Effects Can Flakka Cause?
Adverse effects of flakka, which Hall calls a “second-generation bath salt,” can include severe agitation, aggressiveness and a medical condition known as “excited delirium.”
Excited delirium, Hall says, is when “the body temperature climbs to 105 degrees or higher and the individual becomes extremely paranoid, and often rips off their clothes because of the high heat.”
“[The user] runs outside fearing they are being chased by imaginary wild animals or people who want to kill them, and they exhibit adrenaline-like strength which makes it difficult to capture them and to give them medical attention,” Hall says.
This extreme strength was exhibited by Harrouff on Monday as officers attempted, repeatedly, to restrain him, Sheriff Snyder said. Harrouff was also half-dressed when officers arrived.
Where Have We Seen Flakka Before?
Hall tells PEOPLE that flakka can be sold for as low as $3-5 a dose, and is quite addictive.
“Alpha PVP became illegal in early 2014 in the U.S. even before we had any major episodes with it,” he says. “It first really came on to the scene intensely in the fall of 2014 in Broward County, Florida, and then had a year-long period of active use and problems.”
In Broward County last year, a Florida man was reportedly found running through the streets, naked, after smoking flakka, according to the Sun Sentinel. The Sun Sentinel, reported, at the time, that the Drug Enforcement Administration said flakka cases grew from zero in 2010 to 670 by 2014.
Harrouff has been charged with one count of aggravated battery, and will be charged with home invasion and two counts of murder, authorities said.
He does not have a lawyer and has not entered a plea – but, Snyder told PEOPLE, he could die in the hospital as a result of either “sustained trauma” from officers or a drug overdose.
As one of Harrouff’s high school friends told PEOPLE exclusively, “Austin is a good kid. People always make mistakes in college and have fun. Whatever happened isn’t Austin. He isn’t himself now.”
