By Alex Harris
The Miami Herald
TEQUESTA, Fla. — Something made a young man go mad.
He viciously stabbed a married couple twice his age, plus a neighbor who tried to intervene, deputies said. They found him crouched over the bleeding body of the man, biting chunks of his face off.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told reporters his deputies found the suspect late Monday in the driveway of a Tequesta home. Officers tried to pull the suspect off the victim to no avail.
“They used as much force as they physically were able to,” he said.
Even a police dog couldn’t get the man to release his victim.’
Finally, cops wrenched the suspect off the dead man. Inside the home they found his wife, also stabbed to death. The reason for the argument, or its fatal turn, is still unclear, as is the exact nature of the relationship between the victims and the suspect.
“They clearly knew each other,” Snyder said.
The neighbor who called 911 rushed to help the victim, Snyder said, but he was stabbed as well. He underwent surgery early Tuesday morning.
The suspect, who originally gave police a fake name, is being treated in a hospital in Palm Beach County.
The gory details mirror the infamous Miami face-eater case, a random and horrific attack on a homeless man that made international news and spawned countless jokes about zombies and bath salts. Contrary to popular belief, Rudy Eugene, the “causeway face attacker” only had marijuana in his system. And unlike the Tequesta couple, his victim lived.
Snyder told reporters he can’t be sure if Moore was on any drugs until the toxicology report comes back, but said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Flakka was involved.
Flakka, which has been linked to many drug overdoses and bizarre behavior, is a psychoactive stimulant technically known as alpha-PVP.
Deputies are waiting on a judge to OK a search warrant before they conduct an in-depth, forensic search of the home.
Deputies are looking for an associate of the suspect, Ivy Stevens. Snyder said she might be “an ex-girlfriend or something.”
“I think once we find the missing female... things will start to clear up,” he said.