Rotten Mango - #204: The Man Who Eats Faces - Cannibal Frat Boy

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

The two police officers ran out of their car. They knew there was time was of the essence when they saw the stream of blood running down the residential driveway. They had their guns drawn and started making their way into the garage where they heard animalistic noises. A dog perhaps? They didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t this. On the ground they found the victim laying flat on their back, arms spread, blood everywhere, looking up at them. The victim pleaded with them, “please help me.” And next to the body of the victim was another man. He was latched onto the victim’s body using both hands to hold the victim’s face in place…so he could bite off his face flesh. He chewed. He swallowed. He was eating the victim’s face in front of the police officers. He was like a real-life parasite attached to the victim’s face. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to this week's mini-sode of Rotten Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue. Now, I'm not sure how much the police knew when they were heading over to the house. They should have gathered that two people had been stabbed. One of the victims was still with the killer. Meanwhile, the other victim escaped and called 911 and was waiting in the safety of his house from across the road. But what they didn't know till they got there was, what about the car?

They heard something about the car door. Was this some sort of robbery gone wrong? A car jacking gone wrong? Did these people know each other? Was it a random stabbing? These are all the questions that they probably had going to the scene, but they would soon find out that the truth was so much worse than what anyone could have imagined. When they get out the police car, let's call the officers Mark and Kate. They were running

up the driveway into the garage and they had their guns drawn. There is a literal stream of blood flowing down the pavement from the garage. It's being drained down the driveway as if some sort of storm is taking place, like rain gathering at the bottom of the driveway, but instead of water, it's all blood, crimson, red blood. The scene was shocking and gory. Near the car in the driveway, both officers looked down and saw the homeowner, John, lying on the ground, his arms spread open, his eyes wide, looking at the police, from mark to cake to cake to mark, and he whispered, please help me.

The person next to him, there was a man right next to him, like his body was completely pressed up to Johns, and his name was Austin. Austin did not even care that the police were standing over him. He proceeded to hold Johns face with his hands, shoving his fingers into Johns mouth to grab the soft, unprotected, fleshy part of Johns' cheek from inside his mouth. He pulled it so hard it was sticking out of John's mouth and he got close, bit down, bit off a portion of his cheek, John's cheek, chewed and swallowed it. Wait so Austin was also on the ground?

Yeah, laying next to John who was asking the police to help him like some sort of parasite attached to his body, eating his face. The police had their guns drawn, but they were in shock. They noticed that John had literal chunks of flesh missing from his face, and Austin was laying there, literally eating his face, chewing, and swallowing his face. When he was finally arrested, a picture of Austin was taken,

and he had a giant piece of John's face stuck between his teeth. As always, full show notes are available at rottonminglepodcast.com. There's a lot of show notes for this one, including documents released by the court, psychiatric evaluations that were released, so please go look at those in full, because this is a crazy case.

With that being said, I'm just gonna get into it because it's a lot to unpack. It's one of those cases that feels incredibly unsettling. You will find yourself left for days thinking about this case and thinking about how fragile the human mind is. And it really begs the question, how close are all of we on a daily basis to spiraling into madness.

It seems not that far. Austin had been acting really strangely, the whole family knew it. The night that everything went wrong was probably the height of his weird behavior. They had all gone out to dinner at a place called Duffy Sports Grill. Austin's sitting there with his dad, his little sister, his best friend,

and his dad's girlfriend. And he's talking about how he feels the presence of the Grim Reaper. He can feel the Grim Reaper. Listen, Austin had been acting strange all summer. He had come home from college and he was just being weird. The family didn't really know how to respond to it, so he just kept going. He said that he felt like the angel of death and the angel of life was nearby. It was only a few minutes into being seated that Austin

jumped up from his chair at the booth and started walking towards the direction of the bathroom. He didn't excuse himself, he wasn't like, hey guys, I gotta go use the restroom, give me a second. Nope, just got up and left. Instead of going to the restroom, CCTV cameras caught Austin leaving the restaurant. He stands outside the restaurant for a split second and then walks back in. He sits down with his friends and family and acts like nothing just happened. But then less than 10 minutes later, he stands up again, abruptly, I don't know where, and he starts walking away from the table.

Austin would not be back for another hour or so. And it was the strangest thing. When he sat back down in front of them, he had a completely new change of clothes on. I mean, there was like a moment of silence at the table because they didn't know what happened. It felt like they were in a parallel universe or a different Austin sat down in front of them.

The whole table just went silent. There's no response. He didn't sit down like, hey guys, sorry, this is what happened. Like, how do you just disappear for an hour at the restaurant where you're eating dinner with your family and friend? And now you come back no warning

in a new pair of clothes sitting back down as if nothing happened. So for a few moments, the whole table is in silence because how do you make sense of that? It was so strange. But when the family found out what Austin had actually done when he was missing from the table, it was even stranger. Austin had gotten up and walked two miles to his mom's house.

Two miles. His mom had heard noises coming from the kitchen and she went to investigate. She saw Austin grabbing handfuls of Parmesan cheese, shoving them into his mouth and downing it with vegetable oil. He was drinking vegetable oil from the container. He was covered and oil and the cheese was sticking to him everywhere. His mom screamed at him to stop and ordered him back upstairs to change, before dropping him back off at the dinner with the rest of the family. That is why Austin had a change of clothes. And you're like, wait, that's so confusing, that answered nothing Stephanie, the pressing question

I guess would be why? Why did he eat Parmesan cheese and down it with oil? Why did he walk to his mom's house to do that? Well Austin said, it was because he was an animal, and it felt natural to him. You see, Austin felt like he was a centaur. Because his zodiac sign is a Sagittarius, which, side note to my, but a centaur is a creature from Greek mythology, and it is often associated with the symbol for Sagittarius's. It's a half man, half horse.

The head, arms and torso of the centaur are human, and at the waist area, the body of the horse comes in. So it's like a four-legged creature. It walks in trots like a horse, but the top is a man. Centars typically live in forests and are very mysterious creatures from their depictions. At least that's off in their show now. But in the look of Greek mythology, centars were wild animals. They were directed as villains in the story. But for some reason, people are drawn to sentars. I mean, they're intriguing. They're half human, half beast. It's supposed to

represent the primal side in everyone. Everyone's raw animalistic impulses and instincts and, you know, your ability to overcome them. Centars don't really get along with people in civilization, according to Greek mythology, and many times that they were served wine, they would lose themselves to their animalistic urges and enact violence on people. Which is why some people say it's a warning to people that are Sagittarius, which, um, it's said that the Sagittarius ruling planet is Jupiter, and the centaur has a darker side of being restless and pulsive, hot-headed. And I know this all sounds confusing, and it is. But bear with me, because this case, I don't know how to best describe this case, other than the fact that it feels like you're descending into madness.

It feels like you're going down Alice's rabbit hole. Most cases that we've covered, we almost get annoyed by the insanity plea, because it feels like people trying to use mental health as an excuse to not be held accountable for their crimes, but in reality most killers are motivated by greed, revenge, sick love, obsession, and in the case of serial killers just straight up bloodlust, right? But this is the first case in a really long time where honestly, I don't know how to feel, but I do know it feels like I'm seeing the complete and utter breakdown of someone's mind. This case feels like a window into the fragile state of a human being and how easily the

mind can break free from reality. I mean think about how terrifying that is. So with that being said, let's get into it. The story takes us to Jupiter. I know, is it because Jupiter rules seduetarius? Well, no, really. It feels like you're gonna be in space. Sometimes it feels out of this world,

but really we're going to Jupiter. Jupiter, Florida. Jupiter is this rich town, maybe 90 miles north of Miami. It is considered suburban paradise. The homes are big, beautiful. They are walking distance to beaches. Most homes in the area have a big pool in the backyard. According to latest statistics, the median price of a house in Jupiter is $633,000. Meanwhile, the national average is around $433. So it's a pretty rich area. It's like 20% more than

the national average. 50% more, sorry. Yeah. Is the type of town a lot of wealthy people will migrate to during retirement? It is named the 9th best southern beach town and 12th best beach town in the US by Wallet Hub. It's a pretty conservative place. It's a very traditional place, which comes into play later in the story. This is all important. One of the biggest scandals in Jupiter was because one of the residents wanted to display a US flag in his front lawn. But the homeowners association was like, you can't hang a flag like 20 feet in the air in front of your house. That doesn't meet our regulations.

We have a curb appeal, you know? He was upset that his patriotism was not being appreciated. So he erected a 25-foot flag pole instead, hung his US flag outside the house, and the whole ordeal caused so much drama, caused such a stern Jupiter Florida that President George W. Bush had to get involved. He signed into law, the freedom to display the American flag act of 2005. Which stated that all residents can display the US flag on their residential property despite any H.O.A regulations. Which like, okay, yeah, love it. Nothing about this whole scandal is inherently

bad, nor is wanting to hang the US flag in front of your front lawn, but I think it just gives you a good idea into the vibe of this town. Very traditional, predominantly white, it's kind of like you're all American Florida town. And that is where Austin Haroof was born. So Austin was born in this upper middle class family. Both of his parents did pretty well for themselves.

They worked in the medical field. So his dad Wade was a dentist in the area and his mom Mina was a pharmacist and Austin had a younger sister Haley. She's just one year younger. They were more like friends than they were siblings. And from what I can find, Austin's childhood, unadventful, okay? Unadventful. And I mean that in the best way possible. He was a normal kid. They had a very normal upbringing. There were no warning signs so to speak when he was young. He was sociable, polite, sweet, pleasant. I mean, overall, he seemed like the most well-behaved child that other parents would be jealous

of. There's nothing at all that I can find that would remotely indicate that something sinister was going on behind the scenes. The whole family just seemed so freaking normal. So when Austin's 13 years old, he probably has his first traumatic life-altering experience, which is the fact that his parents are getting a divorce. Listen, it's a tricky time. Austin's just entering into puberty and look, things can get really messy, really weird

in divorces. Sometimes the parents don't know how to be parents during a divorce. They start trying to use the kids to get back at their former partners, or maybe they try to turn the kids against each other. I mean, it can have the potential to get really, really ugly, very fast. But honestly, Austin's parents didn't do any of that. Both Wade and Mina made it a priority to remain cordial for the kids. The divorce was completely amicable, mutual,

Austin's dad moved out, but he got a house in the same neighborhood. So they're all living really close. They're all just active in each other's lives. Even after the divorce, Wade and Mina started dating, but all their partners were pretty well blended into the family. For example, Wade had a long-term girlfriend named Carrie, and she's gonna kinda be important to this story. She would hang out with the kids, go to family dinners, and it seemed like I wouldn't

say Mina approved of Carrie, but there was no nastiness. It's just a blended family. Their divorce was honestly as healthy as possible for the kids. Austin even said that his life got better after the divorce. Not because the divorce itself, but he was starting high school, which is a million times better than middle school. Middle school was tough for Austin. He'd been a bit of a bigger kid.

He was tall. He called himself Chubby, plus he had acne all over his face and he was always bullied for that. And I used to have acne growing up everywhere and they used to call me pizza face. So why are kids so cruel? I will never understand. Now the summer after eighth grade, Austin decides,

I'm gonna take charge of my life. I mean, sure, the skin, maybe I can get on proactive to your Prima-Kat proactive. Maybe I can get on some proactive, but other than that, I just wanna make sure high school doesn't go down the same path as middle school. So all summer after eighth grade,

this guy is working out non-stop. I mean Austin is over six feet tall after the eighth grade. He's now entering as a freshman in high school, but he's 200 pounds of lean muscle. The dude is built. I'm assuming most bullies would be too scared to bully someone of that stature. And naturally, with that physique,

the football coach was salivating over Austin from the minute that he walked in through those high school doors. I guess he squeezed in through those doors. Even the wrestling team wanted him, but out of the two, Austin liked football more. He just enjoyed it. The actual game itself was fun, but the training, not so fun.

Austin said that his football coach would try to get him to be a lot more aggressive on the field, to the point where he would pull Austin aside and try to hype him up before the games. Okay, he would try to get him mad. Angry. He'd be like, get out there and you fucking kill it. They think you're a loser. Are you a loser fresh meat?

Are you gonna lose? But no matter what the coach said, Austin always remained chill on the field. I mean, he played the game, but he was always mindful to not hurt anyone on the field. Even if it meant not winning the game, he was just kind of a mellow dude. Not that he wanted to be,

even Austin wished he was more assertive. He felt painfully awkward andive. He felt painfully awkward and shy, he felt passive, he had this crazy social anxiety and it looked like all the other football players out there were just living it up, talking to girls, making friends, going to parties. Why did he feel so awkward around everyone? He wrote about it after his junior year of high school and it seemed like his shyness didn't disappear after freshman year, like it stayed for the entirety of high school. He titled the journal entry, Self-Identity Investigation. He wrote, The way I see myself may or may not be different from the way others see me, I view myself as

happy, shy, nice, positive, and I never give up. I view myself as happy because I usually have very few things to feel sadder to pressed about. One of the main things I dislike about myself though is that I'm shy. I want to be more confident and assertive. I mean, I'm not that shy around my close friends because after I get to know someone I start to open up towards them, but with others. I also see myself as nice because I'll go out of my way to help people. I usually am not very mean unless someone or something makes me very angry. I also don't give up because I just don't, even when I'm in a difficult situation. I love being creative and imagining things, but I just want to be more confident and social. I also want to be more well-known because right now I feel like as if I'm unknown

He sounds like a very nice normal kid. Yeah, oh it gets weird So Austin really really wanted to be more social to the point where in high school He started smoking weed. He thought maybe it would help him be less socially anxious around everyone Make it easier for him to be confident and make friends and after high school Austin gets admitted into Florida State University. There he gets accepted into the four-year pre-med program, like life is great for this guy. But he would later switch it up and switch his major to exercise science, like that was his passion. He freaking loved exercise. He loved eating healthy, nutrition.

That's what he wanted to get into. His parents were supportive. Even the lost in was their first kid. They knew that they were going to be seeing less and less of him because he's living at the dorms. They knew that as parents, you got to be ready for these moments where you let your child go and experience their own lives and for them to try and be independent without you. And they were supportive. And at least in the beginning, it seemed like the Haroops had nothing to worry about. Austin goes to college, he's adjusting well. He didn't continue to be involved in sports,

but he was very dedicated to his major. He was very dedicated to work out, and his little routine of eating healthy hit a really strict diet. He had good grades, finishing his freshman year with a 3.3 average. And near the end of his freshman year, he even found time to post fitness YouTube videos.

And if you're wondering how the hell did this guy have all this energy and this mental capacity to keep up with all those things, the answer is pretty simple. Vyvans. Okay, Vyvans is like Adderall. They're both in Theta means controlled substances that are used to treat attention deficit disorder. Sometimes Vyvans is prescribed to treat moderate and severe binge eating disorder as well, but mainly for ADHD and alike. And like Adorol, it's a federally controlled substance because viavans can be highly addictive.

It has the potential to kill you if misused. So Austin wasn't diagnosed with ADHD. So it was illegal? Yeah, I mean, it's no secret that a lot of college students will find vivans or add all to help boost their studying and that seemed like what Austin was doing. But it didn't really just stop there. Austin was also abusing alcohol. And yeah, even though it's illegal, you can still easily abuse alcohol. I thought it was weird because usually most health obsessed people I know, like the ones that are on strict diets

I'm talking chicken breast all day every day. The ones that work out a lot. I never really see them drink alcohol frequently Aside from like maybe a glass or two at dinner or functions, but Austin said he joined this fraternity Alpha Delta Phi and his fat brothers were just pressuring him to drink. Non-stop. Here's the thing about fraternities and the way that they drink. They have a bizarre drinking style. I don't know if any of them were ever taught that they can just drink a few beers and have a good time and go to sleep, but the method for most fraternity brothers is if you start drinking, you don't stop till you're black out drunk.

So that's what Austin did. Three times a week, he would get so drunk he blacked out. He said he remembered waking up so many times in random places thinking what the four crowd did I get here? Which side note, being blackout drunk is honestly terrifying when you think about what your brain is doing. Okay, yeah, the idea that you might have a blank space in your memory from the night before is utterly terrifying, but just think about the actual functions of the brain. You think it's

because, oh, I just don't remember because I was so drunk, I don't remember. Nobody really knows what happens when you're blackout drunk. But the truth is, there's a part of your brain called the hippocampus, and the hippocampus plays an essential role in forming memories. When you drink too much, the hippocampus essentially turns off. So you're not much, the hippocampus essentially turns off. So you're not asleep, you're still moving around. Some people even still seem sober enough when they're actually black out drunk. It's not like you can just say, wait, guys, someone helped my hippocampus turned off. It's just off. You don't even know until the next day,

which essentially is almost like a zombie like state. It's very creepy when you think about what the brain is actually doing when you're blackout drunk. Sometimes it can last a few minutes or a few hours. And if you get blackout drunk frequently, I mean, some reports show that you can start developing weird memory loss symptoms that are consistent with Alzheimer's disease and dementia because of the long-term damage to the hippocampus. Could not have been great that he was blocking out that frequently. Add to that, Austin started experimenting with more hardcore drugs around this point.

He starts dabbling in hallucinogens, like acid, mushrooms, MDMA, which side note, don't do drugs, but of all the drugs that are dangerous and highly addictive and potentially life threatening, psychedelics are really crazy. They don't usually result in a psychotic break, especially not the kind that Austin would have. So I'm not saying, oh, this is all a crime from drug usage. That's not what I'm saying at all. It's kind of safe to assume that Austin had underlying mental health issues that were just exacerbated by the drug use. But it's not caused by the drug use, so I just feel like I need to point that out. The drugs probably did contribute to Austin's eventual spiral, though. So all the psychedelics he was on, usually what happens is when you're on them,

you feel this high, and it's described to be euphoric. You feel like you've never even understood anxiety. It feels like you've never felt anxiety your whole life. It just washes away. It feels foreign to you. You feel like you're on top of the world. Life is beautiful. Everyone is beautiful. No one's judging you.

You're not judging yourself. Anything is possible. You can do anything. You're unstoppable. And then when the drug. You can do anything, you're unstoppable. And then when the drug wears off, it's followed by a crush. People describe it as short-term intense depression. It's the coming down from your high. Maybe you feel lethargic, depressed, tired, exhausted.

This is because your brain chemicals are trying to stabilize after such a unnatural high that you just experienced. So think of it as extreme highs, extreme lows. And for Austin, it was especially damaging because he was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which some people liken to a drug high and low. You may have these manic episodes where you feel similar highs to the ones induced by drugs, then you feel the lowest of the lows, like intense depression that seems unbeatable. So adding drugs to this mix, I mean, it's only going to cause more imbalance to the brain chemistry.

For somebody who has bipolar disorder, the ups and downs, this is not good. Even Austin could feel he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. By the end of freshman year of college, he was staying up into the hours of the night, googling some very alarming Google searches. He would Google things like, I think I'm crazy. What do I do? How do you know if you're going crazy?

How to deal with obsessive thoughts? And I don't know. To me, this sounds more ominous and even creepier, but he's searched. Do I need sleep? What happens if I don't sleep? So side note, the vi-vans and the Adderall probably made it incredibly difficult for him to sleep, which we all know how important sleep is to a healthy brain. So just think of all these things piling on top of each other, ready to tumble over. He's getting blackout drunk three times a week. He has undiagnosed, untreated bipolar disorder. He's abusing and fetamines like Adderall and Vivans.

He's abusing hallucinogenic drugs like mushrooms and acid. He's not getting enough sleep. He's feeling pressure from school, work, and pressure to hang out with his frat brothers. He's away from home, away from family. This is like a recipe for a disaster. After a freshman year Austin goes back to Jupiter to spend the summer with his family, and it seemed like nobody suspected that he was on the verge of a mental collapse.

I mean, I guess maybe Austin seemed fine on the outside. His family assumed he was okay. They thought he went to college, got good grades, met new friends, joined a fraternity, got a girlfriend. I mean, on top of that, he's coming home for the summer so he could work as a dentist assistant for his dad who's a dentist. I mean, the future is looking bright. What if comparing car insurance rates was as easy as putting on your favorite podcast? With Progressive, it is.

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Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No, who's gonna catch us? What a police. It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat?

100% I saved my soul just like everybody else does. investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100%. I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy man, but I love being a dirty mother f***er. I will say that Austin and his family seemed really close, but there was still some sort of tension. One being that it seemed like his parents really wanted Austin to get into the medical field.

They were really pushing pre-med, they were pushing dentistry, and Austin, he just wanted to get into exercise science. He wanted to follow his passion. The only reason he even got a job at the dentist's office was because his dad wanted him to. It's not something he wanted. He just did it because his dad expected it. Another way that this showed was Austin's dad was

so into fishing and he just expected Austin would want to go fishing with him and he would enjoy fishing as much as he did. He would straight up force Austin to go fishing with him, and he would enjoy fishing as much as he did. He would straight up force Austin to go fishing with him, even though Austin did not care for fishing in the slightest. It's interesting, because they have a good relationship. Austin said he was close to his dad, but there's this huge disconnect. For example, Wade would go around talking about how much Austin loved helping people, and

how Austin would get this big goofy grin on his face when he talked about becoming a doctor. And his like this cute heartwarming story except Austin never wanted to be a freaking doctor. So just feels like Wade convinced himself that his son wanted to be a doctor but he really didn't. In any case other than that disconnect the two get along really well and Austin was always close with his mom Mina, who he describes as being very gentle and kind. He even got along with his little sister. So, yeah, the whole family, super tight-knit. Which is why I have trouble digesting the rest of this information. Because you would think that such a tight-knit family would notice such blaring red flags in his mental health.

But for some reason, maybe they're trying to figure it out, maybe they're trying to figure out what to do, or maybe they were ignoring it, I don't know. Nobody had a clue. They knew, but they didn't get him help. So that summer of 2016, when he came home after freshman year, progressively through the summer, he would spiral into madness and his family just Kind of watched it happen So this was right after freshman freshman year just one year in the college one year one summer everything spirals Wade would later say I did notice Austin started to get weird And I just thought that he would quote snap out of it in hindsight

They all realize it was a bad decision to sit back and see how it played out. I do see a lot of people online blaming the family. And I just want to say in their defense, first, okay, yeah, I probably would have done things differently. I mean, I hope so. But maybe they were confused and lost. Maybe Austin's behavior was so out of left field and so out of nowhere, they probably

had no idea what was going on with them. And they probably had no idea what the best course of action was. So they chose no action. Maybe they were scared to act because if they got it wrong, maybe it would only push them away. I'm not sure. So keep all of this in mind while I run you through the summer of 2016 because there's going to be a million times.

You sit there and you're like,'re telling me nobody did it like hello So throughout the summer Austin starts going through a lot of different phases in a short period of time in the beginning of summer He told his mom that he wanted to be a rapper Okay, it was so out of left field She didn't even know that he was into music like that let alone rap music to the point of wanting to create it. So she told him what any other mom would say, which is, okay sweetie, that sounds really good, but why don't we do that as like a hobby on the side? And we focus on school, right? But Austin really, really wanted to rap. He started calling himself Oste Frosty. So it's his new rap name. And he made a YouTube channel called A Frost,

which side note all the videos are still up on the channel and it's very unsettling to go through them all. It really does feel like a descent into madness. So most of the songs that Oste Frosty released were pretty standard home productions. They weren't particularly good or bad, just standard soundcloud rap music vibe. Obviously there was a lot of

profanity involved and Austin's mom told him that it's not appropriate. She asked if he would take down the videos or change the lyrics to something more tame but he told her chill out mom this is what all the kids are listening to. So looking back it does kind of feel like Austin's parents were more concerned about what others would think of them in their family, more than Austin's sudden desire to become Ostephosti. Like it was less of, huh, this guy is going through something that's so out of nowhere and bizarre. And more of, oh, well, don't curse online, hold your role, Ostephosti, what will the neighbors think? Or at least that's what a third party looking in feels like. Again, I don't mean

to accuse them or jump to conclusions. I'm just saying, mean as concern was the use of the profanity in his music, but just by listening to his songs, you can clearly see that something is wrong with him. So he has this one song called Forest Trump. So it's like a play on Forest Gump, but Forest Trump. And everything from the lyrics, the music, the description of the video is absolutely unhinged. First of all, he's singing in this exaggerated low pitch. I'm gonna try to insert it here if I don't get copyrighted, just like two seconds of it,

but... Deep in the Jeep! The lyrics all over the place. The intro of the song is, deep in the Jeep Jeep, balls deep deep in little bow peep, you want something to eat, got some high quality meat, skeet skeet skeet skeet skeet,

which side note that it's very disturbing considering we know he ends up eating someone's face. That's just the intro. Then he starts yelling skir and ski in this manic high pitch voice, and then he starts using auto tune to sing running from the intro. Then he starts yelling skir and ski in this manic high pitch voice, and then he starts using auto-tune to sing running from the law. And the description is so unhinged. It says, Ostefrosti forest trump. Jenny, Donald Trump wrote to a love note to express his love for your earrings, which are 15 carat salad diamonds. If you can't run as fast as forest gump,

then you can't run from the law. Per rental advisory explicit content. What? Exactly, it doesn't even make sense. So that's what I'm saying. I think it's weird that his family was just like, hey, don't curse in your videos. Because if a family member of mine posted a video

where the description was that unhinged, I would be more concerned. I'd be like, what does this mean? Like, what are you trying? Is this like a cry for help? And I just want to say, though it may seem comical in the sense that it's so confusing that it doesn't make sense, there's nothing funny about the song. Like, the song is incredibly sad.

Austin was clearly spiraling. And this is just the beginning of summer that he posted this video. And nobody is registering his cry for help nobody So speaking of his YouTube channel and it almost becomes a cry for help at least in my eyes Let's do a deep dive on his channel shall we the first video he posted was May 2016 in the beginning of summer And it's called fitness challenges and overcome Someone is recording him talk about fitness as a whole and Austin says things like nothing in life with having is easy and he seems to be quote normal in the video. Although some people did point out that

he couldn't sit or stand still for more than two seconds, I don't know whether that be nerves or just natural uneasiness of posting your first YouTube video, I'm not sure. Then he starts posting his Aussie Frosty songs. Some freestyle videos, others were called Tennessee, Tennessee, TV dinner, sold my soul, King of Jupiter. The description for that one says, the King of Jupiter, Florida is me. I love diamonds, ice and snow, so give me a ho ho ho, you hoboo, homo erectus, nomenclature, biology, spinal structure, toxicology, chemical fracture, cook me a batch of your finest cookies, knees, dirties, knees from the skis, ladies love to look at these. So again, very unhinged. Then he has this boat Dave log, where he goes out fishing on a boat with his dad, Wade,

and his friends. And honestly, people are really reading into every little action in this video in the comments. Like at one point Austin brings a knife for his dad, and you can hear him ask, what did you want me to do with the knife? But a lot of people are saying, oh, he definitely wanted to kill his dad. Because he does do a shot where he's's holding the knife in front of the camera while he moves through the house to find his dad. And he kind of sneaks up on his dad

and his dad's back is turned because he's doing something. And I guess it's creepy, right? But it's a lot. Now, obviously, these comments weren't there six years ago when he posted the video, but it is unsettling. The videos that were being posted, that is. Aside from the rap tracks and occasional vlogs, most of the videos were short fitness-related content, but those are getting on Hinge 2.

They were near the end of his posting on YouTube, and for some reason, he is a weird accent in every video, like a new one. There are a few videos where he speaks in his normal voice with his American accent. Then you see an Australian accent that a British one, maybe a Russian one. And then for some reason, in a video titled Best Chess Dexercise, he seems to adopt the exercise for your chest muscles would probably be the bench press. And what's interesting is that he's filming the video while someone else is driving the car. I don't know if that's his girlfriend, a friend, a family member, but not only is he posting

this on the internet, and I'm sure his family members know his YouTube channel, but he's filming this in front of someone. So did they think that he was being funny? Maybe? I don't know. But the video description is a bit unhinged as well. It read, it ain't no joke man. The bench press is the best exercises for your chest and it ain't a lie.

If you disagree, go like a toad flavored mirror bra. It's just, I don't understand. By the way, his last video was posted August 12th, less than a week before Austin would experience his psychotic break. And in the last video, he talked about his opinion of other famous bodybuilders like Arnold and how everyone's fitness journey is unique and no one should religiously copy someone else's fitness routine. Then he talks in-depth about how steroids are bad for you, and how he would never use

steroids because they aren't natural, and if it's not natural, then it's considered unhealthy. Listen, steroid use is a frequent topic in his videos. Austin really wanted to emphasize that he did not use steroids, that he thought that they were unnatural and unhealthy. And this becomes pertinent later, and if you're like, wait, Stephanie, but he did all those drugs, like, I mean, I get it, steroids might be worse than those drugs, but why technically, vivants in Adroa are not natural? So over the summer, Austin became hyperfixated on fitness and health and the concept of nutritional

purity. He quit alcohol, weed, and any other substance that he didn't deem natural and healthy. And again, nothing is wrong with that. That might have been one of the best decisions he made all summer. But Austin was so fixated on this, like he took the idea of being nutritionally pure to an extreme he was obsessed. At one point Austin said that he no longer wanted to do rap music, which is why me may be see the shift into bodybuilder content on YouTube from music, he said he no longer wanted to be ostefrosty because he wanted to focus on Buddhism. So this is what I mentioned of these weird constant phases throughout summer, like too many phases. This guy went through a lot. He said he

wanted to clean up his act and he wanted to be taken seriously. Now, even though Austin was raised perspiration, he considered himself an atheist for most of his life. He was now fixated on Buddhism, he started reading about Gandhi, he was obsessed with world peace and social problems, he said he wanted to be a civil rights leader and activist just like Gandhi. But he wasn't even joking. Even though it sounds bizarre, Austin was very, very serious about this. He wanted to be taken seriously.

He believed that he had the special charisma that allowed him to be the next Gandhi. So since everything starts at home, and everything starts small, Austin starts trying to fix everyone's problems around him. For example, he's still working at his dad's office, and he would start pestering his dad's dental clients to ask about their personal problems. I mean, of course, people are kind of thrown off. I'm assuming Austin didn't do it in a way that felt natural or socially acceptable, like a natural flow of conversation. So most of them were just like, um, I'm okay. But Austin would keep pushing because he was not picking up on the social cues. He's like, no, tell me your problems in life. So they would just make up small and, um, I mean, healthcare, am I right?

So expensive. Or just something like that. So vague. Oh, traffic these days in my right, you know, life is hard. Like, very surface level. Nothing was a deep, dark, personal issue. But Austin would take all their complaints to heart. He would literally start bawling his eyes out at the dental office,

which would make the clients more uncomfortable. And at one point, Austin insisted that every patient give him their business card so that he could keep a stack of their business cards, which again was weird, but the intent was weirder. Austin said that he felt he had the power to protect anyone who's business card that he had in his possession.

But then later that day he changed his mind, and then he felt the opposite was true, and he felt like if he had their business cards, they would be in danger, so he ripped them all up. This was Austin's Gandhi phase. The next phase was the phase of Jesus Christ. Austin took it a step further, and he said, he was no longer going to be the next Gandhi, but he was going to be the next Jesus Christ.

And along with that became Austin's fixation on water. Austin believed that he had the power of water, which like if you grew up in a church, you know the connection between the Holy Spirit and water is like very strong. So he said that he could purify water with his hands. And he could do this because he was special and he had special abilities. He also drank a lot of water, like copious amounts of water, and he said it's because water was his fountain of youth, and every sip of water that he drank, he could literally feel his body becoming younger.

Every single time he drank water, he felt it. Listen, this is not in secret. He's telling people this, this is getting really alarming. And Austin's still living with his mom and sister over the summer. And they start seeing a lot of these alarming things other than the drinking water and him being weird in his mom's house. Austin said he had to move his bed from his bedroom into the garage because there were demons in his bedroom. He said he couldn't sleep there. He had to leave. Okay, I mean, I'm seeing so many red flags. I feel like this should have been very obvious to the family, but I digress.

Now, even more concerning is that Austin stopped sleeping altogether. He just became so paranoid about the quote, demons that he would literally not sleep. Instead, he would just patrol the house every single night and his family knew this. Because every two hours, he would knock on his family members doors and loudly announce that there was nothing to worry about because he was guarding them from the demons. Austin's family was so puzzled that they had no idea how to react so they did nothing. They simply locked their bedroom doors at night so that he couldn't come in and disturb their sleep. Listen, I can justify a lot of things.

Like I really can't. Because the last thing I'm going to be is one of those internet people that's like, oh, if that were me, I would have done ABCD and ENF. Listen, we don't know until we're in that position. And in these positions of high stress, we may act out of character. We may not behave with a clear mind that we always think that we're going to have. But this, this is kind of getting ridiculous. Like, if any family member of mine did this, I would absolutely try to reach out for psychiatric help.

Like, this is not normal, quirky, temporary behavior. There is something going on. And the only thing we know about mental health problems without a doubt, definitively, is that they don't go away just because we ignore them. They get worse. So as Austin's weird and erratic behavior persist, his family is just convinced that he's on drugs. So they confront it. And he admits, you know what? I have been experimenting with drugs. And his family is like, aha, make sense now. I think that this gave them the answer that they needed. They thought, well, his weird behavior is from the drug use, but we're going to make sure that there's no more

drugs at home, so his weird behavior will go away. But at this point Austin had already been obsessed with purity. He had quit alcohol, he had quit drugs, he's not doing anything he deemed unnatural or unhealthy, so we can assume that he was already clean, yet he's acting unhinged. So August 2016 rolls around, and this is when his behavior starts really spiraling. This is two weeks before the murders. Austin's behavior was the most bizarre, most concerning it had ever been. He was fixated on the idea that demons were out to get him. He started associating anything dark with demons.

Literally, he could have not slept without the lights on. He hated his car simply because it was black. He always wore light colored clothes because it would repel the demons who were attracted to darkness. And when Austin did sleep, which was very rare, he would wake up to visual hallucinations of demons trying to get him, trying to grab him. He said he had no idea if he was still awake or still dreaming. He was so scared of sleeping, he started sleeping with the family dog or in his sister's room just to feel safer. And of course, he had to keep all the lights on. And an even deeper look into his fragile mental state was his Google search history. I mean, it was a complete mess in August. I'm gonna read off some of his searches. Five sure fire ways to overcome fear and anxiety. How to overcome chronic anxiety.

How to spot a guy on steroids? What, quote, am I crazy really means? How to know if you're going crazy? I'm going crazy. Depression, generalized anxiety, panic and bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, auditory hallucinations when falling asleep, difference between mania and peacefulness. He also searched, illuminati, what does it mean when people sell their soul to the devil?

And then, all caps, how to sell your soul to the devil. And then just devil, Lucifer, hell. According to Austin's family, Austin believed at this point that he had somehow hypnotized himself, and that's why he couldn't fall asleep. And the only way that he could sleep ever again was to sell his soul to the devil. I mean, none of that makes sense. It's not even connected. Most of what Austin said to his friends and family was straight up gibberish at times,

so it just didn't make sense. His text messages to his girlfriend were also alarming. August 12th, he texted, I don't think I'm going crazy. I'm just evolving, becoming more intelligent, thinking that I am worthy, and just to help others with the pain they have. That's all I want. Another text.

I'm no longer afraid of anything. I'm no longer afraid to die. Everyone will remember me as a great figure, but I'm just a living example of what we all do. True hell is trying to live forever. I'm just doing what I feel, you know? Another. I quit all the drugs and almost got trapped, but I found beauty in everyone else.

Then another. You helped me through my withdrawals. I don't need drugs anymore. Then another. I've been so weird these past few days I sort of lost myself but I'm back. I feel genuinely good. I'm not even sad anymore. Then the next day more text messages. I feel great. I got better sleep last night. Another text. I'm back baby. The frost and winter is back. Then August 15th, the day of the murders he texted his

girlfriend, bitch, and then shortly afterwards, just kidding babe. So before we get into the events of August 15th, let's backtrack a bit to other instances where Austin was displaying increasingly concerning behavior. The murders happen Monday, August 15th, but that Saturday, Austin went out to dinner with his dad and his dad's long-time girlfriend, Carrie. So it's the three of them. This is also the day that he ripped up all the business cards. Anyway, during dinner, Wade and Carrie noticed Austin was just chugging water, because

remember, he believed it was his fountain of youth. And he heard a group of dogs barking during dinner and Austin said he could feel the dog's souls asking for help, because he was a Sagittarius, which meant that he was half man half animal half horse half centaur But he was also half dog now Wade thought I aston was acting so strangely because he was anxious So he starts pressuring Austin to drink some alcoholic beverage so he could quote lighten up Which sounds like such a bizarre horrible suggestion like I don't know why Wade thought this would be anything but a horrible idea, but again, I don't know their family dynamic. I don't know Wade's relationship with alcohol.

But I believe that Austin did not drink anything. And dinner was cut short because Wade and Carrie got into an argument of some sort. I don't know if it had to do with Austin, I don't know. So when they get out of the restaurant, Wade refuses to give Austin his car keys, believing Austin is in no state to drive. So he had Austin walk home. Okay, this is the part. I don't know why Wade didn't give him a ride home. So you know how I usually don't give out theories? I'm gonna give out a theory today. And I'm not trying to put blame on anyone except for those who directly committed the crimes because they're not at fault.

That's not how it works. But I feel like maybe Austin's family didn't believe in mental health struggles or issues or treatment. That's the only thing that I can come up with. I mean, context clues. Jupiter, Florida affluent, predominantly white, traditional conservative area. His dad seemed to be very into fishing and all these things. I know that they played with guns a lot.

Maybe they felt like Austin was acting strange to either annoy them or get attention. Maybe they didn't think this was a real mental health crisis. Maybe they felt like Austin is just acting out. Because not giving someone their keys and making them walk home seems like a punishment. It seems like you would do that. I mean, I don't think you should ever do that to your children, but it seems like you

would because you're thinking, oh, you want to keep acting this way? Fine, walk home. Like, that's the vibe I'm getting. Because I just don't see how you can wonder if your child is having a mental breakdown and then force them to walk home without their car when you can easily give them a right home. So I think that maybe they didn't register this as a mental health problem.

Just my theory though. It also seems like maybe the parents cared a lot about what the community thought more than anything. Evidence by Mina being upset about the curse words and Austin's YouTube channel more than the content itself. And more on that later. But Haley, the younger sister said that she was so scared of Austin

when he started doing his little night patrols around the house at night looking for demons. She would lock her bedroom door out of fear, fear of Austin, not the demons. But in later interviews, the family claimed they were just hoping to, quote, ride it out. I don't know, it's hard for me to believe that they thought something like this would just go away on its own. Which side note, that's my theory given the context that I have. But I do want to reiterate, I do think that his family cared deeply about Austin. I just don't think that they

knew the right thing to do in the moment, clearly. Anyway, after dinner, Austin had a walk home. And on the way home, he starts experiencing hallucinations. He said that he saw a bicycle move backwards. He felt like there was this force field surrounding him, keeping him safe from the demons And when he was inside this force field, he had quote superpowers. But somewhere along the walk Austin had witnessed a street light go out and he started panicking thinking that evil forces were after him. So he ran to a nearby pizza shop where he sees a veteran wearing an Air Force hat and he was with his two teenage kids.

And he also felt like, okay, this guy must be safe. So he asked the family if they would give him a ride back to his neighborhood. And the family was so confused, but they let him in the trunk, truck, and they drove him home. Austin later said that was really out of character. He would normally have never asked strangers for a ride home, but he was so scared of evil spirits and demons that night he had to. The next day, after that really weird dinner in Wacom, Austin's dad and girlfriend Kari took Austin to a gun show and listened, new day,

but Austin's not feeling any better. In fact, his paranoia is only getting worse. He wore his grandma's stone cross around his neck as protection against supernatural forces. But his dad told him to take it off because the chain was too feminine. So this is kind of why I'm speculating that it seemed like the parents were very much into outside image. Like a lot of parents are. Anyway, at the gun show Austin walks up to multiple vendors asking about self-defense. He asked on advice on how to protect himself if he was ever attacked. Then he purchased a knife at the gun show.

The knife would later be used to commit murder. Austin bought a few other questionable things at the gun show. Snake jerky which he ate, he said he believed the snake jerky would protect him from evil. Because Adam and Eve they were tricked by an evil snake, right? The snake jerky symbolized evil and he ate the snake so the evil was now gone and it would protect him. He also bought a sticker for his car that said don't tread on me and it had a snake on it. And he put the snake sticker on the back of his black car because remember, his car was black and it attracted demons, but now with the snake sticker, it was giving him protection. Side note, Austin also bought a Fitbit recently.

You know, like an Apple watch, like a fitness tracker watch. And he started to believe that he was a centaur, that was half human, half horse. Sometimes he was half dog, but when he wore the Fitbit, he was a cyborg. He was like a robot. And he put protective significance on his Fitbit as well. Whenever he wore it, he was a cyborg. He was like a robot. And he put protective significance on his Fitbit as well. Whenever he wore it, he was a cyborg.

Okay, so with that being discussed, Monday, August 15th, 2016, the day of the murders. Austin woke up and put on his Michael Vick jersey. And there's context to this. Michael Vick was the former quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons football team, and he was found sponsoring inhumane illegal dog fights. A lot of pit bulls died by the time the ring was uncovered. It was a really disgusting scandal as someone who is a native Atlantaian or whatever. It was bad.

Michael pled guilty to his involvement, spent 19 months in prison, and he will forever be tainted by his very disgusting deeds against dogs. But Austin wore Michael Vick's jersey because he believed he was part dog, remember? And he also believed that Michael Vick repented for what he did. So now he was a good guy. So the jersey would somehow provide protection for Austin, who was half dog. And that day Austin felt, and I quote, really in tune with his animal side. So he went to the beach by himself to act like, and I quote, like a real animal.

He ran really fast, feeling free. He started hopping from rock to rock like an acrobat with special powers who could jump really high. Sometimes he was half dog, sometimes he was half horse. Whenever he ran into other dogs at the beach, he got super excited, just so happy. He believed that the dogs' hair would attach to his face and that was really cool. He said because he was in tune with his animal side, he had heightened intuition. He could tell which people were good and which

ones were evil in the same way that dogs can sense who is good and who wants to hurt them. So after the beach, Austin goes to his dad's house to get his car. So if you remember, Wade couldn't let Austin drive home after it, and so Austin's car was now at Wade's house, which is about three to four miles from the beach. And according to Austin, he ran the distance super fast. He said that day he had superhuman speed and agility. He walked in, ran in the middle of the street, and he didn't get hit,

because nothing could hurt him him because he was invincible, which wasn't true. It just wasn't that busy or fast of a road and all the cars saw him and they naturally swirved to avoid him, but he believed it was because he was invincible. He felt like he was becoming godlike on this run. He said he could literally feel his body changing, physically growing stronger, more muscular. He felt on top of the world in charge of his own destiny. And finally, he gets to his dad's house. He runs into Kerry, his dad still at work, and he had to now wait for Wade to get home for lunch break to get his keys. Meanwhile, he's helping Kerry around the house and acting normal, and when Wade comes home during his lunch hour,

they all eat lunch and Wade keeps trying to push Austin to take his annex but Austin is refusing he just wants the keys to his car. Wade said no not unless you take the Xanax Austin retaliates by jumping onto the hood of Wade's car and bouncing up and down on top of his car so at this point Wade is like flying take the damn keys and somehow Austin agrees to take the Xanax. He puts it in his mouth and weight thinks that he took it so he turns around. And Austin uses his time to dig it out of his mouth. And when he got back to his car, he used the pill to ride him a secret note for later. Don't trust. And he got it. And he drove to his friend's house. Sam.

So Sam knew Austin since the second grade, and they had been really close since then. And he was kind of surprised to see that Austin had shown up. Austin had always called or texted before he came over. And more concerning was that Austin was acting super strange. Like without a hello or an introduction or a prelude or anything, Austin just asked Sam, what year was I born?

What? 1996. Austin did not react. He simply turned around and started walking away from Sam. Sam wondered, maybe the guy's back on drugs? Like, is he high or something? That's dangerous. So Sam convinces Austin to hang out, but in reality, he just wanted to keep an eye out on Austin. They head to the beach, pick up Austin's sister, Haley along the way. At the beach, they ran into some of Austin's frat brothers. Then they hang out at a dude named Dave's house. There was drinking and smoking of weed, but Austin claimed he refused it all because he was pure. But he later said he did pour beer into the palm of his hands because just like water, he could absorb the beer through

his hand. So I don't know if that made it more pure if he absorbed it through his hand, I don't know. Eventually, Austin Sam and Haley leave the group to go back to Wade's house. Haley drove an Austin insisted that he sit in the hatchback trunk because he was a dog. And at their dad's house, Austin changed, put on a Trump hat, but he wore it backwards. Because he believed if he wore it backwards, it would propel him forwards. And when Wade got home, he's like, let's all go hiking, gang.

And Austin was super happy about this because remember that day he's party animal and nature is his element. So it's all going well until on the hike. Austin spots two empty turtle shells, which makes him think that his dad is moving like slow turtle, which meant that his dad was going to die because he saw two empty turtle shells. His dad is a turtle, turtle shell dead turtle dead dad. So he starts looking around panicked. He felt fearful that there was an evil spirit around them trying to get to his dad.

So he took out that knife that he bought at the gun show and he started walking in front of the group as a de facto leader and protector. But his dad was like, Hey, put the knife away like what's wrong with you. And out of nowhere Austin just sprints away from the group. He said he jumped over a wall, which I don't know what wall or fence or I don't know, okay, they're hiking. It's also strange. He said he jumped over a wall and everything went black. And the next thing he remembered was Carrie picking them all up to drive to dinner, to Duffy's sports grill. So the whole group goes out to eat. So you have Austin, Austin's dad, Carrie, the girlfriend, Sam the friend, and Haley, the younger sister. They were sitting

near the black where CCTV had a pretty good view of their table. So after they all get seated, Austin gets up and leaves and then comes back in. Remember? Then less than 10 minutes later, he gets up again. And this time instead of going near the bathroom or even pretending to use the bathroom, he gets up and leaves the restaurant. Again, I have no idea if the family knew that he left, but they would soon find out. He walks two miles back to his mom's house.

And when he gets there, he… So Mina starts hearing a commotion coming from her kitchen which is weird because she's home alone. Maybe one of the kids came home. She goes to investigate and she sees Austin just grabbing handfuls of Parmesan, shoving them in his mouth and downing it with vegetable oil. So she's like, Austin, stop! She grabs the bottle of oil from him and tries to stop him. He's covered in oil and cheese. And in that moment, I don't know. I feel like that's the perfect moment to pack it up, drive to the nearest clinic for a mental health evaluation.

At least he's under watchful care and attention where someone is looking at him so he can't hurt himself or others. But no, she just let Austin go to his room to clean up a change. And then for some reason, she just drove him back to Duffy's, dropped him off, and left. So Austin came back to sit down with the rest of his family, and completely knew close from the ones he was wearing an hour ago, and the whole table went silent, because it's weird. Like, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for that?

The whole table was silent. And Wade just looked at Austin, sighed at a complete loss for words, and he said, ìOstern, what is wrong with you?î And Austin snapped. He lunged at his dad, threw his palms up to Wade's face, pushed him backwards, and they were sitting in a booth so Wade didn't fall out of his chair but he got pushed into the corner of the booth, and then Austin just stormed out of the restaurant. His friend Sam was there awkwardly witnessing this all go down between the family, he tried to run out and check on his friend, but by the time that he got out of the restaurant, Austin was long gone to God knows where. So he went back inside, and this is when Wade and

Kerry decided to call the police. I think they finally realized that Austin was a danger to himself and potentially to others. So they called the police and they hoped that the police would handle it. I don't know if they thought that them looking for Austin would only trigger Austin more or what, but it feels like they were kind of really leaving it up to the police to handle it. I think they were hoping for the best. But the very absolute worst would happen. Austin said he left the restaurant with every intention of going back to his

dad's house. He said he wanted to walk back to his dad's house to quote, teach his dad a lesson to prove that he's not crazy. But he would end the night doing the exact opposite. He said that he was using the stars to walk home. So he was following the stars, and he ran into a dark figure with a white face. The figure started talking to him and it said, Hey Austin, and he said he knew the voice. The voice was a friend of his cousins that he had known from childhood, and the guy's name was Daniel. But Austin didn't like Daniel. He thought Daniel was a bad guy. He went as far to say that he believed Daniel was trying to kill him.

So he sprinted away, in quote, screaming in horror. He just started running in a random direction. He didn't even know that he ran for four miles before he finally stopped to catch his breath, and he looked around only to find out that he had no idea where the hell he was. It was getting dark outside. And if you remember Austin hated darkness anything dark so he starts feeling nervous and vulnerable and anxious and scared And he noticed that on this like on this residential street There was a brightly lit garage just down the street He said he was immediately drawn towards the brightly lit garage He felt like it was going to be a sanctuary that he was gonna go there to escape and the demon that was chasing him would not know where he was

That's how he felt. And honestly, for everyone else that garage was like a safe space until that night. It belonged to 59-year-old John Stevens and 53-year-old Michelle Mishon. The couple had transformed their garage into a living room because, you know, Florida has such great weather, they loved being able to hang out and I semi-open space in the evenings. It's perfect. Both of them had recently retired so they finally had more time to do the things that they had wanted to all their lives.

John retired from his landscaping job. Michelle from her job as a financial advisor. They were really excited about retirement by the way which I feel like just makes this case much more depressing. The couple felt really blessed and lucky to be able to retire so early and just spend some of the best years of their lives from now on enjoying life to the fullest.

And the garage was part of it. It was a place for all their friends to come over and they would spend the warm evenings having a blast. And listen, the garage honestly was a safe space for everyone who knew Michelle and John. Like the couple, they were very warm, they were inviting, they cared about the people around them. So it's to say that they were genuinely good people who made everyone feel welcome. They both had children from previous marriages, but their kids were grown up and out of the house

and to fill the void, John and Michelle doated over their dog. They were honestly just a cute couple. In fact, John was actually out walking the dog when Austin ran onto their property. Austin ran straight onto the couple's driveway and went for Michelle's car that was parked in the driveway. And he just stood there, started opening and slamming Michelle's car door, just standing there, not getting in it, not stealing something, just opening, slamming. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. I mean, it was a scary sight for Michelle who was standing in the garage. Is the garage door open or close?

It's open. And she saw this unhinge-looking man in the driveway and she screamed. The scream got the attention of her neighbor, Jeff Fisher. He had known John and Michelle for a while and he knew that they were good people. He had spent countless nice nights in the couple's garage, and he even dogs at the couple's dog when they were out of town. But after hearing Michelle scream, Jeff immediately runs outside to investigate what's going on. And he too saw Austin just standing there, opening and slamming Michelle's door. Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Jeff had no idea what was going on or what to think of it. Austin probably did look out of it like he was drugged down honestly, which, side note, Austin wasn't, and we'll get into that, because that makes this whole thing more unsettling and confusing. But anyway, Jeff had no idea what was going on. Jeff had never seen Austin before, and side on. Jeff had never seen Austin before. And, side note, Michelle had never seen Austin before either. There was no connection.

All of this was by pure coincidence. So Jeff makes a split second decision to run across the street and confront Austin. John was absent. He's out walking the dog and Jeff felt obligated to help Michelle. And as he's jogging across the street, Jeff witnesses Austin one jet Michelle, tackle her to the ground and started punching her repeatedly. Austin later said that he had to attack Michelle because Daniel the demon was still chasing

after him. And at first he thought Michelle's brightly lit garage was a sanctuary and Michelle was going to help deter the demon, Daniel, but after Michelle screamed at Austin, Austin changed his mind and decided that Michelle was a witch. She was alerting the demon of where he was, and so he had to attack her. Jeff ran across the street, and once he reached John and Michelle's driveway, Austin immediately stopped punching Michelle, jumped to his feet, pointed at Jeff and yelled, you don't want a part of this.

Jeff knew he had to do something. If he ran back home to call 911, he would be leaving Michelle with an apparent psycho, and he had no idea what Austin might do to Michelle in the meantime. So instinctively, he lunged at Austin. He tried to restrain him, but Austin was faster. He swung at Jeff, grazing his upper back and shoulder, and punching him in the face. Listen, these are both really big dudes. Austin was a big and strong guy, but so was Jeff.

So Jeff managed to stay on his feet without falling back. He composed himself, grabbed Austin by the collar of his shirt, and slammed him onto the ground hard. Austin fell face first. Jeff honestly did not expect Austin to recover from that. Like I said, yeah, Austin's a big dude, but that was a lot of force that was used. And Jeff has been around the block, okay? I mean, he would be very shocked to see someone recover from that. But he was shocked and he was scared to see. Austin slowly getting back up to his feet. And at the same time, Jeff felt searing pain on the side of his head, neck and upper back.

I think in the adrenaline of the moment, it didn't register, but now it did. He glanced at Austin's hand and he put two and two together. Austin was carrying a knife, which means he punched Jeff with a knife in his hand. The knife grazed Jeff's upper back, neck, face, and left five serious puncture wounds and left Jeff bleeding profusely. And in that moment, while he was watching Austin slowly get up, another realization washed over Jeff.

When Austin had been, quote, punching Michelle, he had actually been stabbing her. Oh my God. So now, Jeff is like, there's nothing else I can do in this situation, except make a break for it, because I can't even fight him right now He dashed into the door to Michelle's house from the garage So now he's inside Michelle's house. This was the closest door to him like the closest escape

He started frantically running through the house opening all the door all the cupboards throwing things behind him because he's Assuming that Austin is running out after him. He makes it to the back door, exits the property, loops around the house and runs back to his front door, slams and locks it shut, and not once the entire time did he look behind him. He just assumed Austin was chasing him. But he wasn't. Austin was still in Michelle's garage. Jeff ran home, called 911.

He let the operator know that Michelle was in trouble and he himself was bleeding profusely and that they needed medical attention ASAP. Then all he could do was wait. First responders would only need a few minutes to get there, but those few minutes felt like hours. Because from across the street, Jeff said he could hear screams. And he had no idea who the screams were coming from or how many people were screaming, but he said they were awful inhumane cries. And in between the screams, he heard this loud grunting noise that sounded carnal, like an animal. And he was sure that it was coming from the guy that had just stabbed him. Jeff had no idea what was going on in there. He prayed that help would

arrive in time to save Michelle, but... You don't know. Now let's talk about what happened when the police got there. There were two officers that first responded to the call, a female officer and a male officer. To keep it simple, let's call them Mark and Kate. They both ran out the police car, guns drawn, ran up the driveway, they noticed that stream of blood that was coming on down, and it wasn't looking good. They get to the garage, they look down stream of blood that was coming on down and it wasn't looking good.

They get to the garage, they look down and they see John Stevens laying on the ground, arms spread, whispering, please help me to them. And next to him, attached to his body like a parasite was Austin, pressed up against John's body, so his left arm was keeping John's face in place. His right arm was grabbing at the inside of John's cheeks, like the inner cheeks inside your mouth, the soft, fleshy part that's unprotected, yanking it out and biting down. He was biting off pieces of flesh and swallowing it. He was literally eating John's face, chewing and swallowing. I mean, it took a moment for both Mark and Kate to register that there were literal chunks of flesh missing from John's face because

Austin had eaten it. Kate had her gun aimed, but she couldn't shoot Austin because there was such a huge risk she would injure John in the process. They were that close. So Mark whipped out his taser and tried to taste Austin. He plunged the taser into his back and nothing happened. Austin had been tased but he had no reaction, which is not a voluntary thing by the way. I mean I'm sure you've seen those videos of police officers getting tased in the Academy for practice and each officer before they get tased. They've got like two officers holding them up so they don't fall over and pain and hit their heads. Like no matter what you decide, you're not going to just

mind over matter, manifestation the tays away. So the fact that Austin just ignored the fact that he was being tased is terrifying. He just laid there continuing to eat John's face. He didn't even register the police presence. So Mark stepped around Austin, and now he was directly in front of him and he stomped on Austin's head. The force had Austin's head flying back, hitting the pavement, temporarily separating him from John. But within a second, like a parasite, Austin recovered, lunged back at John, gripped his face in neck, and started eating his face again. Austin again did not register that there were police officers in front of him. Mark instinctively kicked Austin's face again, even harder this time.

And within seconds, Austin was latched back onto John's face. Mark kicked again and again and again. He was kicking Austin repeatedly because that was the only thing managing to keep Austin's mouth away from John's face. So even though he kept cleaning back onto John, at least he wasn't eating his face. Because anytime he tried, his face would get kicked again. They still couldn't shoot Austin because they were not managing to separate the two completely. More police officers arrive at the scene, including K-9 units.

Mark screams to release the dog, and they do. Dog runs up to Austin as it was trained, and bites down on Austin's right arm. The one that was trying to grab the flesh to shove into his mouth, you know, the one that was pulling at John's face. Now remember, police dogs are trained to do this and they're huge. Like I would imagine it's probably a German shepherd being used, but when the police dog had Austin's arm between its sharp teeth, Austen didn't flinch, instead he yanked his arm right out of the dog's mouth, ripping out his own flesh and muscle in the process, and once again, even with his own arm badly injured, Austen

calmly returned to the act of eating John's face. And still, not even acknowledging or registering police presence. The dog bit down on Austen's arm again,, pulling Austin's arm away from John's face, and again, Austin simply yanked his arm away, seemingly unaware of the damage he was doing to his own arm, and he grabbed a John's face again. Now the third time, the dog bit down on Austin's arm, and Mark decided to simultaneously kick Austin in the head. So the force of the arm being pulled away by the dog, and his head being stomped on, finally broke Austin away from John completely.

Austin fell back onto the pavement, onto his back, and Mark reacted quick. He jumped on Austin, stomped on his face, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, swung one side around his wrist, and used the other side to drag Austin away from John. And it seemed like in this moment, Austin finally snapped out of his hypnotic trance. It finally registered him what he was doing and he started yelling, kill me, kill me, I'm eating humans, kill me. And despite the fact that he was severely injured, Austin was thrashing around and fighting back.

It took four full officers to finally handcuff and detain him. And that is when he started to feel the effects of his numerous injuries. So on top of that, Austin had, um, drank some lawn chemicals from John and Michelle's garage. He later said that he thought it was alcohol, which I don't know that doesn't really make sense because he claimed he stopped drinking alcohol. But then later he claimed he picked up a bottle of lawn cleaner, thinking it it was alcohol and drank it. The reason why he drank it is unclear, but just to clarify, he did drink a ton of lawn cleaner from their garage. And that seemed to be the reason that he slipped into a 11-day coma.

Due to medical intervention, Austin would make a full recovery, as would the neighbor Jeff Fisher, who was stabbed by Austin. Sadly, Michelle and John died on the scene. Michelle died from her numerous stab wounds that Austin had inflicted. John was alive when the police arrived, but he succumbed to his injuries before the medics could save him. So, of course, investigators initially assumed that Austin was on drugs when he attacked John and Michelle. Primarily, they thought he was on bath salts. So bath salts, there's still a problem for people in the US right now, but it was big around that time, like really big.

It almost became a meme when this case broke news, which I don't know how to feel about it, but there were always connections between bath salts, the drugs that make you eat people's faces, or bath salts, the drug that's linked to cannibalism. So you're like, what are bath salts, the drugs that make you eat people's faces, are bath salts, the drug that's linked to cannibalism. So you're like, what are bath salts? This is not Epsom salt that you pour into your bath or those wonderful sinus clearing blends for your bath. They're human-made stimulants.

They are known to be psychedelic, so they have psychoactive, mind-altering chemicals in there. There is no medical use for bath salts. It's literally a bunch of drug dealers where we're gonna create this substance full of chemicals and it's gonna get you high. They're marketed to users as chief substitutes for meth and cocaine,

and it's really scary because they're human made and drug makers that are not regulated by the FDA and even if they are, they're kind of suspicious, but especially these types of drugs that are illegal drugs, street drugs, they are not the most admirable scientific people, meaning each time you take bath salts, you could have a completely different blend of substances. You don't even know what's in there that you're putting into your body. But side effects of bath salts include paranoia, hallucinations, increased friendliness, increased sex drive, panic attacks, excited delirium.

It can cause extreme agitation and violent behavior, as well as self-destructive behavior. So the whole point of bath salts is that it's a human-made psychedelic, and it is terrifying. A lot of leaders of poison control centers have said, if you take all the bad attributes of ecstasy, PCP, LSD, cocaine, and meth, just all the bad ones, lump it together, that's bath salts. One user of bath salts said, this is the worst time I've ever had in my life, but the cravings are so bad I keep going back to it.

Bath salts can trigger schizophrenia or acute psychosis in young people with any underlying disease. Sometimes it gets so bad that you have to be taken to the hospital and put under intense sedatives for two weeks straight so you don't harm yourself or others. Because bath salts can stay in your system for two weeks straight. Most bath salts are 10 times stronger than cocaine. And unlike cocaine, the drug binds to the dopamine transporters in your brain,

and it doesn't go away as the drug wears off, which means that your neurotransmitters are gonna remain out of balance, and some bath salt users cannot escape the high for very long periods of time. Like this sounds like the worst idea ever, when you consider the fact that being high on bath salts includes being paranoid and hallucinating. So here are a list of crimes committed by some people who were under the influence of bath salts. There was a naked man who ate the face of a homeless Miami man. The man was described to be zombie-like. The naked New York woman who strangled her own dog and punched and choked her own child.

The half naked man had a golf course in Georgia who threatened to eat the police. In a very strange account, the accused had superhuman strength and a number of officers had to hold him while tasering him 14 times, all the while he was screaming about how he wanted to eat the officers. The naked man from Illinois who thought he could go surfing on the hood of a moving car. The man who was driving and then crashed his rental moving truck into a house while he had no pants on, then he fled the scene and ran home, but police found his wallet in a pair of pants he had left in the trunk. So, it kind of made sense that the police thought Austin was on bath salts.

Superhuman strength, full psychotic break, the tendency to want to eat someone's face, cannibalism, but here's the completely wild part. A blood test came back negative for known drugs. Austin was clean in terms of drug usage. The only thing in his system was the poisonous lawn chemicals he had consumed. So after an 11-day coma, Austin woke up in the police were eager to interview him. I mean, what was the reason? And this story he told them was unbelievable. It's the one I just told you.

The demon was chasing him. Michelle was a witch. He blacked out after John came home with the dog. Austin claims he has no memory of attacking Jeff Fisher, the neighbor, or attacking John Stevens, and he has certainly no memory of eating his face. The police had a really hard time believing that. They thought that he came up with all of this so that he could use the insanity plea in court. Austin was then interviewed by a world-renowned forensic psychologist, Dr. Resnick. And the report Dr. Resnick was told that Austin's whole family had a history of mental illness.

So Wade, Austin's dad, suffered from depression. Austin's aunt had electroconvulsive treatments, basically electrocuting your brain, and allegedly it was to treat depression. Austin told Dr. Resnick that he had an uncle who was never formally diagnosed but he was quote weird. Dr. Resnick concludes in his evaluation that Osten has bipolar disorder and he could be considered legally insane when he committed the murders. Dr. Resnick believes for the full reason that it's not the act itself, like it's not the

act of the heinous crimes he committed, but it's the fact that Osten was kicked multiple times in the in the head by the police. A police dog bit his arm multiple times, he had guns aimed at his head, yet Austin remained unflinching in his determination to eat John's face. So Dr. Resnick believes Austin did not have a survival instinct in that moment. Anyone saying even if they were on drugs, they would have a survival instinct when stakes become that high. But Austin was laser focused on eating John's face to the point where he almost seemed

possessed. Now, I know that's not a satisfying ending to the case, but that's where we are. Austin's case still has not been resolved to this day. His trial has been dragged out for over six years now. He is 25 years old. He has expressed remorse for his actions. He had a breakdown in an online interview with Dr. Phil. However, Austin has pled not guilty to two counts

of first-degree murder with a weapon for the murders of Michelle and John. And the reason that the trial is being so dragged out is there's ongoing debates between experts on whether Austin is legally insane or not when he committed the acts. And so far, the experts cannot come to an agreement, which is why the case has been stalling for so long.

I'm no expert. And I don't know if he was legally sane or insane at the time that the crime was committed. All I know is this is the most frustrating case ever, especially for the families of Michelle and John, I'm sure. Because to them, does it really matter if someone was saying or not? Does it really matter because Michelle and John didn't even know Austin, and they died. I mean, I think this case showcases just how unfair the world is. You know, Michelle and John did not know Austin.

They did not go out seeking Austin. They were in the comfort of their own home, their own neighborhood. They were viciously attacked. And I can't help but wonder if there are feelings of upset towards the Haroof family because could this have been prevented somehow? Like it just all seems so unfair. And that is the story of Austin Haroof, commonly referred to as the Cannibal Frat Boy. Let me know your thoughts on this case. I mean, it was just like I said, it's the one that I'm so confused but usually I don't agree with most pleas of insanity during crime because you know, it's usually not true, but this I'm so confused.

Let me know your thoughts and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye! for the main episode. Bye!