SHAWNEE, Kan. — A shocking murder, hundreds of miles away hits too close to home for one metro man.
A married couple was in their garage on Monday when deputies say a 19-year-old suspect savagely attacked them.
John Stevens III, 59, and his 53-year-old wife Michelle Mishcon were both stabbed to death.
A neighbor heard screams and ran out to help, but was stabbed as well. That neighbor was able to get away and contact police. When police arrived they said they found the suspect biting off parts of Stevens’ face.
When officers found the man attacking Stevens III, they used a stun gun on him, but it had no effect. A K-9 officer also bit him, but that also failed to stop him.
“The suspect in this case apparently was abnormally strong. So getting that excited delirium type increased adrenaline strength,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said at a news conference Tuesday morning. “Somebody not feeling pain, not responding to a dog bite, repeated stuns from a taser, taking three to four deputies and officer dog to get him off. That’s somebody with a lot more strength than you would normally encounter.”
The suspect was hospitalized; his condition has been upgraded to stable. He is conscious but is unable to speak due to a breathing tube.
Stevens’ son lives in Shawnee and spoke to FOX 4’s Melissa Stern about the sudden loss of his father.
John Stevens IV, 28, received the heartbreaking call about his father yesterday.
Investigators told him that his father was killed in a random crime outside of his Tequesta home in south Florida.
“On his way home, he stopped about a block short of where his parents lived, and my dad my liked to sit in the garage, and walked into the garage, and assaulted my stepmom and killed her,” said Stevens IV.
Police said his dad and stepmom were murdered by a 19-year-old sophomore at Florida State University.
“They fought, and at some point, the neighbor, Jeff, came over and tried to stop it,” Stevens IV explained.
Stevens said the neighbor who tried to help his father was also injured in the attack, but was able to get away and call police.
“When the cops got there, they found him on top of my dad,” Stevens IV said.
Stevens said investigators told him that the suspect was biting his father’s face when they arrived.
“This isn’t just a privileged, white kid who’s going to get it taken easy on him, because he doesn’t have any priors. He committed a double homicide and tried to kill somebody else,” Stevens IV added.
It happened just two weeks before Stevens was going to take his three month old daughter, Jameson, to meet her grandfather for the first time.
“He was going to meet her, and take her out on the water. He was really excited about it,” said Stevens IV.
He said his dad was finally where he wanted to be in life, with a boat, and fishing on his free time.
“That was always his dream. He worked his entire life to get there, so this was really the prime of his life,” Stevens IV said. “He couldn’t have been a happier or more kind guy.”
The 19 year-old suspect has not been formally charged with any crimes at this time. Detectives with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office are working closely with the State Attorney’s Office to determine the charges.
Detectives have served a search warrant for additional testing to determine if the man was under the influence of drugs. This testing has samples of blood, hair and DNA. This test will give a more in depth result of what was in his system other than your typical street drugs (marijuana, cocaine, heroin, opioids, meth, etc.) The standard blood test will test for those “street drugs.”
