ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A man accused of killing two University of South Florida students from Bangladesh will be kept in jail without bond, a judge ordered Tuesday, just days after a SWAT team descended on his parents’ house to arrest him.
Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, also is prohibited from having any contact with witnesses or the victims' relatives, Hillsborough County Judge Logan Murphy ordered during a brief hearing in a Tampa courtroom.
Abugharbieh faces
two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon as well as other charges, according to state court records. Abugharbieh could get the death penalty if convicted, although prosecutors haven’t yet indicated whether they would seek capital punishment.
Abugharbieh was not in the courtroom during Tuesday morning's hearing. Public defender Jennifer Spradley said Monday that her office would not comment.
Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, both 27-year-old doctoral students from Bangladesh, were considering getting married, a relative said, before they disappeared April 16. Limon was last seen at the off-campus complex where he shared an apartment with Abugharbieh and another roommate.
Detectives used cellphone location and license plate reader data to track Abugharbieh’s car and Limon’s phone to the bridge where Limon’s body was found Friday morning. Limon had numerous stab wounds and appeared to be bound, according to a report filed by prosecutors.
Deputies continued searching for Bristy. On Sunday, the sheriff’s office announced a body had been found in a waterway near the bridge. The body had not been identified, the sheriff’s office said.
The medical examiner's office said Tuesday that autopsy reports for the body were pending.
When detectives questioned Abugharbieh and the other roommate several days after the couple went missing, investigators noticed Abugharbieh's pinky finger was bandaged, but he denied any involvement with Limon’s disappearance, according to the prosecution's pretrial detention report.
When an apartment manager gave them access to the apartment, and to Limon's locked bedroom, the third roommate told detectives Abugharbieh had used a cart overnight on April 16 to move cardboard boxes from his room to the trash compactor. That's where detectives found Limon’s wallet and campus ID badge, credit card, eyeglasses and clothes that appeared to have blood on them.
Returning with a search warrant, detectives found blood residue leading from the kitchen to Abugharbieh’s bedroom, and more blood that soaked his bedroom carpet. In Limon’s bedroom, they found Bristy’s campus ID and credit cards.
Days before they went missing, Abugharbieh had asked Open AI's ChatGPT what would happen if a human body was put in a garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster, according to a report filed by prosecutors over the weekend. ChatGPT responded that Abugharbieh’s question sounded dangerous, according to the report.
An investigation the office of Florida’s attorney general launched last week over whether ChatGPT offered advice to the suspect accused of killing two people last year at Florida State University will be expanded to include the killings of the USF students, state Attorney General James Uthmeier said Monday on social media.
Open AI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said Tuesday that the company was looking into the reports on Abugharbieh and would support law enforcement in any way with their investigation.
“This is a terrible crime, and our thoughts are with everyone affected," Pusateri said in an email.
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