On Monday night, police say 19-year-old Austin Harrouff fatally beat and stabbed a couple in their home near Jupiter, Florida, and was found eating the face off one of his victims. Harrouff, a white man, was not fatally shot by police. Officers instead deployed multiple officers, a taser, and a K-9 to subdue the guy who’s been dubbed “the cannibal killer.”
We don’t know the motivation for the attack, or whether Harrouff had drugs in his system at the time. We do know he was wearing a Donald Trump hat, though. And that he had posted some seriously strange videos on YouTube.
Under the name “A.Frost,” Harrouff has been posting videos for a month. He often refers to himself as “Austi Frosti,” and writes in his bio, “This that fuck around music y’all been hearing about. I’ve got a psycho side and a normal side. I’ve lost my mind help me find it.” The “music” is probably in reference to the multiple song covers he sings. Here’s one of him singing along to One Republic’s “Counting Stars,” shirtless.
In all fairness, he’s shirtless in most of them, like in this one, where he also takes on a Russian accent and talks about the importance of persistence in bodybuilding.
On August 10, five days before the attack, he shot a video while he was driving and spoke about why he doesn’t do steroids, while slipping in and out of a fake, over-the-top Southern accent. “I know what’s right for me, I don’t need drugs, I know that they can change me.”
The last video he uploaded was on August 11. He seems dazed, and it’s unclear if it’s another persona he’s using. He speaks about not wanting to follow in the footsteps of other bodybuilders, and just wanting to do what’s right for his body.
Harrouff’s mother says he wasn’t acting like himself in the week leading up to the attack and had claimed he had superpowers. He is currently “conscious but heavily sedated” at a local hospital, and is expected to be charged with first-degree murder.