TAMPA, Fla. (Court TV) — Investigators offered new details about the disappearance and possible murders of two University of Florida graduate students as they confirmed the bodies of both victims have now been identified.
Hisham Abugharbieh booking photo. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, in the deaths of Zamil Limon, 27, and Nahida Bristy, 27. Prosecutors have said they have not been able to identify any motive in the killings to date, but said that Limon was one of two students who shared an apartment with the defendant.
Friends noticed the victims’ disappearance and reported them missing on April 17 and 18; Limon’s body was found days later in a black trash bag near the Howard Frankland Bridge. “He was literally left on the side of the highway like a piece of trash,” Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said at a news conference discussing the case on Friday. “When I talk about gruesome, he had been stabbed several times, which was ultimately his cause of death. He was bound in front of his hands and at his ankles. His legs, up towards his buttocks area, were almost completely severed, so he could be bent together and made easier to place in a trash bag.”
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Deputies are seen searching in the water. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
Two days later, deputies got a call that two kayakers out on the Pinellas County side of the bridge had made a disturbing discovery. One kayaker’s fishing line snagged on a bag. That boater told officers when he approached, the smell was “indescribable,” and he saw what appeared to be a human body in a plastic bag. The remains in that bag were too decomposed for fingerprint identification, but Chronister said they were confirmed to be Bristy using both DNA and dental records. The clothing Bristy was wearing also matched what was seen in surveillance video showing her leaving her office on April 16.
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Chronister said that investigators immediately zeroed in on Abugharbieh as a person of interest. “His stories are inconsistent, almost to the point where he will talk about anything, loves to talk about himself and this continues and carries throughout the entire investigation, except when we want to talk about either of our two victims,” Chronister said. “Then he immediately starts becoming elusive and deceptive.” Abugharbieh allegedly was unable to explain why he had a deep cut on the back of his left arm that required stitches. In interviews with officers, Chronister described the defendant as “callous” and showing “zero emotion, even when we confronted him with information.”
Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
While Abugharbieh has no criminal record, Chronister said that he had a history of erratic behavior and that students had previously asked for him to be moved out of the apartment complex because “of his pattern of behavior and the comments that he would make.” Prosecutors have accused Abugharbieh of premeditating the attack, citing a number of disturbing searches online in the days before the alleged murders, which included, “Can a knife penetrate a skull?”
Detectives are currently working to release both bodies to the victims’ families in Bangladesh.
Abugharbieh is being held without bond; no future court dates have been scheduled.
