Judge accepts plea of insanity for killer in face-biting case
judge in Stuart accepted a plea deal this week for a Jupiter man who randomly killed a Martin County couple in their garage six years ago and then chewed on one victim’s face. The deal will send him to a mental hospital for longterm treatment.
Austin Harrouff, 25, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges for the 2016 slayings of John
Stevens, 59, and his wife, Michelle Mishcon Stevens, 53. He also seriously injured a neighbor who tried to help them.
Harrouff, who attended Florida State University before the attack, will be committed to a secure mental health facility until doctors and a judge agree that he is no longer dangerous. If the trial had gone forward, Harrouff could have faced life in prison.
A number of family members of the slain couple expressed anger at the decision and made victim impact statements directA ed at Harrouff, his family, the defense team and prosecutors.
Cindy Mishcon, the sister of Michelle Mishcon and an attorney, laid out a methodical case of why she does not believe that Harrouff was insane when the killings occurred.
She said that reality set in for her as she listened to tapes of Harrouff’s jailhouse phone calls with family members and the reading of pages of text messages in the year prior to the killings, which were part of the court record. The text messages with his
friends outlined the life of a student who was smoking marijuana, taking other drugs and abusing alcohol during the year before killing the couple.
She said she realized “you don’t care about anyone but yourself” and that “the only victim you and your family see is you, and the Harrouff name.”
Two mental health experts, one hired by the defense and another by prosecutors, examined Harrouff and found he suffered an acute psychotic episode during the attack, and couldn’t distinguish between right and wrong.
Craig Trocino, a University of Miami law professor, said that finding Harrouff not guilty by reason of insanity would effectively be a life sentence because “it’s highly unlikely” that they would risk releasing a killer as notorious as Harrouff.