TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — A 26-year-old college dropout was ordered held without bond Tuesday for murder charges in the killings of two University of South Florida students, as a crowd of the victims' friends packed a Tampa courtroom to demand justice.
Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, both 27-year-old doctoral students from Bangladesh, disappeared on April 16. With their families still in Bangladesh, their classmates and friends stepped in to represent them during the case status hearing for the suspect, Hisham Abugharbieh.
The friends told me the international students are all very close.
"What you need to understand that we Bangladeshi people, we live as a family here," Abir al Hasib Shourav said. "We share meals, we go out sightseeing, we leave together."
The group decided to come to court on Tuesday to witness the legal process firsthand and share updates with their grieving community.
"We want to know what happens with our friends," Salman Sadiq Shuvo said. "We feel ourselves responsible, that we should be very closely integrated, and we have our other friends, and all the loving, all the people who are concerned about Zamil and Bristy's case, we want to tell them the experience we are seeing, observing here."
"It has a lot to process, because see when we come here, back from 8,000 miles away from home, they are our family or everything here, and we meet all at all the events," Rifatul Islam said. "It is not acceptable, and something that we are shocked that the place that is our safe place, our home, our own rooms, our own kitchens, they were murdered there, and I don't know, there is no words for that."
State Attorney Suzy Lopez also noticed the powerful presence of the students' support system.
"I wasn't expecting to see so many of their friends come, and we were also expecting one family member to come as well," Lopez said. "So it's so wonderful to know that other students' friends are embracing the two people that they've lost and want to be part of this process to get justice for them."
Hillsborough County Judge J. Logan Murphy ordered Abugharbieh to have no contact with any witnesses or the victims' relatives. Abugharbieh was not in the courtroom Tuesday morning. Public defender Jennifer Spradley waived his appearance and agreed to the pretrial detention.
Abugharbieh faces two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon, as well as other charges. Murphy set bond at $10,000 for battery, $50,000 for false imprisonment, $50,000 for unlawfully holding or moving, $100,000 for failing to report, and $50,000 for tampering. Abugharbieh remains held without bond for the homicides.
Prosecutors anticipate taking the case before a grand jury next Thursday, May 7. Abugharbieh could face capital punishment if convicted.
"Decisions will be made in the coming weeks," Lopez said. "We have to get through the grand jury process first, and then we will determine whether or not we will seek the death penalty."
Tampa Bay 28’s Jada Williams, who was in the courtroom on April 28, went to the University of South Florida-Tampa campus, where students are mourning the loss of their two classmates and speaking out about safety concerns on and off campus.
Court records detail the timeline that led to Abugharbieh getting hit with two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon as well as other charges.
The brothers of a murdered USF student and the suspect charged in the killings spoke with Tampa Bay 28 reporter Annette Gutierrez, sharing their devastation and demanding justice after the tragic stabbing deaths.
Limon was last seen at the off-campus complex where he shared an apartment with Abugharbieh and another roommate. Just days before Tuesday's hearing, a SWAT team descended on Abugharbieh's parents’ house to arrest him.
Detectives used cellphone location and license plate reader data to track Abugharbieh’s car and Limon’s phone to a bridge where Limon’s body was found Friday morning. Limon had numerous stab wounds and appeared to be bound. On Sunday, the sheriff’s office announced an unidentified body had been found in a waterway near the bridge.
"It's been absolutely remarkable, starting on Friday morning, when I stood on the bridge there were FHP, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office," Lopez said. "Everyone's been working together because we have had one common goal, and that was to bring justice to these friends and families of these two USF students."
When detectives questioned Abugharbieh and the other roommate several days after the couple went missing, investigators noticed Abugharbieh's pinky finger was bandaged. He denied any involvement with Limon’s disappearance.
The third roommate told detectives Abugharbieh used a cart overnight on April 16 to move cardboard boxes from his room to the trash compactor. Detectives found Limon’s wallet, campus ID badge, credit card, eyeglasses, and clothes that appeared to have blood on them in the compactor.
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 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.
"Through the discovery process, we have learned that this defendant used Chat GPT to ask some questions," Lopez said.
In a post on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) on April 27, Uthmeier shared the following statement: "We are expanding our criminal investigation into OpenAI to include the USF murders after learning the primary suspect used ChatGPT."
The University of South Florida issued a detailed response following the deaths of doctoral students Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, outlining steps to honor their memory and support their families.
The Bangladeshi Student Association is acting as a liaison for the community and has requested that USF erect monuments, award posthumous degrees, and hold annual commemorations.
It's a continuous process. We have started a process with the university, so let's see where it goes," Abir al Hasib Shourav said. "But right now, the main objective, the highest priority, is to get this guy into justice. That's all that matters right now."
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