Suspect in University of South Florida student killings to remain jailed, judge says

TAMPA, Fla. — The suspect charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of two University of South Florida graduate students will remain in jail while his case proceeds.

During a status hearing in a Tampa courtroom Tuesday morning, Hisham Abugharbieh’s public defender waived a pretrial detention hearing after prosecutors filed a motion seeking to keep him in custody. Judge J. Logan Murphy agreed to have Abugharbieh be held in jail without bond.

Abugharbieh, 26, did not appear at the hearing.

Nahida Bristy and her friend Zamil Limon, both 27, went missing on April 16, and authorities later announced they were considered endangered. Limon’s body was found Friday in a large trash bag on the Howard Frankland Bridge.

Rescue divers searched the waters near the bridge, and on Sunday night Hillsborough sheriff’s officials confirmed that they’d found a second body in the waters near Interstate 275 and Fourth Street North in St. Petersburg. The remains were taken to the Pinellas County Medical Examiner’s Office for identification.

As of midday Tuesday, authorities had yet to confirm that the remains are Bristy’s.

Bristy is already presumed dead. The Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office on Saturday announced that Abugharbieh was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection to her and Limon’s deaths.

Several friends and classmates of Limon and Bristy’s attended Tuesday’s hearing.

“We want to know what happens with our friends’ case,” said Abiral Hasib Shourav, adding that they also want to ensure that information is relayed to the students’ families and other friends.

Shourav said Limon was shy, modest and polite. Bristy was a good singer.

Limon and Bristy were part of the Bangladesh Students Association, a group of students from abroad who bonded like family at USF, attending events and breaking bread together, friends said.

Rifatul Islam said it was shocking and unacceptable that they were murdered in what the students considered “our safe place.”

“We believe in the legal system here,” Islam said. “Hopefully, justice will be served.”

Salman Sadiq Shuvo said the student association has talked to USF officials about erecting a monument for Limon and Bristy and posthumously awarding them their doctorate degrees. They are also working on arranging a vigil.

“Right now, the main objective, the highest priority, is to get this guy to justice,” Shuvo said of Abugharbieh.

Abugharbieh and Limon had lived together in an apartment north of the USF campus, where Limon was last seen. Limon’s body was found Friday discarded along the Howard Frankland Bridge. He was nude and had suffered numerous stab wounds, according to court documents.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Abugharbieh after a brief standoff at his family’s home in the Lake Forest neighborhood, off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in North Tampa, later Friday. Investigators had questioned him Thursday about the disappearances of Limon and Bristy, officials said.

He was later booked in jail on charges that included battery, false imprisonment, tampering with evidence, failure to report a death and unlawfully holding or moving a dead body. Two counts of first-degree murder were later added, along with additional counts of evidence tampering, failing to report a death and unlawfully moving a body in connection to Bristy’s remains.

Hillsborough sheriff’s investigators found what tested positive for blood in the apartment Limon and Abugharbieh shared with a third roommate.

A search warrant for Abugharbieh’s phone revealed several inquiries to ChatGPT starting about three days before the pair disappeared, according to court records. To the first inquiry sent on April 13 about placing a “human” in a dumpster, the popular artificial intelligence program responded that “it sounds dangerous,” according to the record. A follow-up message asked, “How would they find out?”

Other records obtained in the investigation indicated Abugharbieh drove across the Courtney Campbell Causeway to the area of Sand Key Park late on April 16, after the pair vanished, according to the record. His journey mirrored that of Limon’s cellphone signal, which pinged to locations on the causeway and in Clearwater at the same time before the signal dropped.

Detectives located further records and video footage showing Abugharbieh’s car, a Hyundai Genesis G80, being driven from the USF area across the causeway and through Clearwater and the Sand Key area before returning to Tampa late that night, records state.

In a follow-up interview, Abugharbieh told investigators the missing students had not been in his car. He denied any involvement in their disappearances and told detectives he’d gone to Clearwater to look for fishing spots, records show.

His story changed when detectives told him about Limon’s phone records. Abugharbieh then said Limon asked to be driven there with Bristy and he’d obliged. He said he’d dropped them off and left.

Abugharbieh’s phone records indicated he’d made a second trip across Tampa Bay after midnight on April 17. The path of travel spanned the Howard Frankland Bridge and into north St. Petersburg.

On Thursday, as news of the disappearances saturated local media, Abugharbieh once again turned to ChatGPT, according to the court record. He wrote: “What does missing endangered adult mean.”