Father of 'face-biting' teen says son showed 'psychotic' symptoms weeks prior to alleged attack

Dr Wade Harrouff appeared on 'Dr Phil' and explained that his son was poisoned and his health is deteriorating

The father of the 19-year-old man accused of beating and stabbing a Florida couple to death – before gnawing on the male victim’s face – said that his son showed “psychotic” symptoms two weeks before the alleged attack.

Speaking on Dr Phil, Wade Harrouff said he believed his son, Austin, suffered a “psychotic episode” before his rampage that ended with the deaths of John Stevens, 59, and Michelle Mishcon, 53, outside the couple’s home in Tequesta.

“He’s had the symptoms for about two weeks prior,” he told Phil McGraw this week. “I just thought he’d snap out of it. He went from a happy person to, he can’t sleep, pacing the floors. He could barely work, he was tired. There’s no question he had mental problems.”

Mr Harrouff added that his son’s health has significantly deteriorated since the attack. He speculated that his son drank some kind of poison before the attack, resulting in his burned oesophagus.

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It took three Martin County Sheriff’s deputies to pull the younger Mr Harrouff, a former student athlete and bodybuilding enthusiast, off Stevens when they arrived at the scene. He withstood multiple jolts from the Taser and resisted a police dog, according to reports.

He was taken to a West Palm Beach hospital, where he lost consciousness for 11 days.

“It’s very puzzling, because I read all the things about how they pulled him off the people that he killed and all this and that, but he was poisoned,” Dr Harrouff said. “He had an inflamed oesophagus, stomach. His metabolites were way out of whack, and he almost died. I don’t know what happened. The biggest question I have is – where did the poisoning come from? How did he get poisoned? I can’t figure it out.”

According to Dr Harrouff, his son left a restaurant abruptly and walked to his mother’s house two miles away, where he tried to drink a bottle of cooking oil. Austin Harrouff’s mother took him back to the restaurant, but he stormed off again.

Surveillance footage captured the Florida State University exiting the restaurant 45 minutes before the alleged attack.

Investigators are still working to determine what caused Mr Harrouff to commits the attacks that evening. Hospital blood tests found no evidence of methamphetamine, cocaine, or heroin in his system. Sheriff William Snyder speculated that the suspect could have been under the influence of the hallucinogenic drugs “bath salts” or “flakka”, but lab results are still pending.