Austin Harrouff in police custody
A Florida college student accused of randomly killing a couple in their garage and chewing on the dead man's face told television psychologist Phil McGraw he was fleeing a demon-like figure named Daniel and only had a vague recollection of the slayings.
In a 22-minute interview released Tuesday by prosecutors, Austin Harrouff said he lost his wits as he walked back to his father's home after storming out of a restaurant where they had an argument.
McGraw asked about "the devil talking to you," and Harrouff went on to describe a "dark figure" he called Daniel.
"I got scared out of my mind," Harrouff told McGraw, who interviewed him by computer when the former high school wrestler and football player was still hospitalized last fall.
Harrouff, 20, was arrested upon release from the hospital for the Aug. 15 deaths of John Stevens, a 59-year-old landscaper, and his wife, Michelle Mishcon, 53. Both had been beaten and stabbed. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.
Comment: While this isn't the first story we've read about people disintegrating and engaging in violent and bizarre behavior, some things do stand out in this case. The first is that no drugs were found in Harouff's system. The second is that, if his story is to be believed, Harouff
sounds as though he was demonically possessed. His claims of being "spoken to" by an entity named Daniel, seeing a dark figure, being scared of demons and not knowing what happened during the murders could be a case of psychosis (or his lying about it) but the details mentioned do give one pause to consider other possibilities.
See also:
Comment: While this isn't the first story we've read about people disintegrating and engaging in violent and bizarre behavior, some things do stand out in this case. The first is that no drugs were found in Harouff's system. The second is that, if his story is to be believed, Harouff sounds as though he was demonically possessed. His claims of being "spoken to" by an entity named Daniel, seeing a dark figure, being scared of demons and not knowing what happened during the murders could be a case of psychosis (or his lying about it) but the details mentioned do give one pause to consider other possibilities.
See also: