Remains recovered near Tampa Bay area bridge identified as second missing USF student, officials say

By Rebekah Riess, Isabel Rosales, Holly Yan, CNN

(CNN) — The human remains recovered near a Tampa Bay area bridge Sunday have been identified as the second missing University of South Florida doctoral student, Nahida Bristy, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said Friday.

“The details of this investigation are gruesome, and the actions of the suspect are nothing short of pure evil,” Chronister said.

Bristy and fellow doctoral student Zamil Limon, both 27 and originally from Bangladesh, were last seen on April 16 in Tampa. Limon’s body was found on April 24 on the Howard Frankland Bridge.

Two days later, a black trash bag was spotted on the shoreline just south of where Limon was found.

Inside, investigators discovered another set of human remains in an “advanced stage of decomposition,” according to an arrest affidavit.

The bag was tied in a knot, in the same manner as the one containing Limon’s remains. Investigators also noted the body was wearing “similar clothing based on the unique style that Nahida Bristy was last seen on video surveillance,” according to the affidavit.

Like Limon, Bristy suffered multiple stab wounds. But the motive for the killings remains unclear. Detectives are “anxiously searching for that,” Chronister said.

Limon’s roommate, Hisham Abugharbieh, is in custody and has been charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder with a weapon in Limon and Bristy’s deaths. He also faces charges of unlawfully moving a dead body, failure to report a death with intent to conceal, tampering with physical evidence, false imprisonment and battery, in connection with Limon and Bristy’s deaths, the state attorney’s office said.

Abugharbieh, 26, will remain in detention as he awaits trial, a judge ruled Tuesday. Prosecutors had asked that he be held in jail due to the “brutal and violent nature” of the alleged crimes.

A medical examiner’s report said Limon suffered a deep stab wound to his lower back that penetrated his liver, among other wounds, according to court documents filed in Hillsborough County Court.

In addition to several stab wounds, Limon “was bound in front at his hands and at his ankles,” Chronister said. “His legs up towards his buttocks area was almost completely severed so he could be bent together … (making) it easier to place in a trash bag. He was left on the side of the road. As gruesome as this murder was he was literally left on the side of the highway like a piece of trash.”

Investigators had called Bristy’s family in Bangladesh last week to say they believed she may be dead, based on the amount of blood found in the apartment Limon shared with the suspect, Bristy’s brother told CNN affiliate WTSP.

Abugharbieh was arrested the morning of April 24 at a home in Lutz, Florida, after law enforcement responded to a domestic violence incident involving a family member, the sheriff’s office said.

Bristy was a doctoral student of chemical engineering at USF. She had a master’s of engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and a bachelor’s of science in applied chemistry and chemical engineering from the Noakhali Science and Technology University in Bangladesh, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She was a “talented and promising student,” Professor Mohammad Ismail, the NSTU vice chancellor, said in a post on social media and the university website.

“Her untimely death is an irreparable loss to the university and the nation,” Ismail wrote.

Bristy’s dream “was to come back to Bangladesh, work here, do something big and contribute to society,” her brother Zahid Pranto told CNN Monday. “She was the perfect sister. She was the perfect daughter of her family.”

Shortly after Bristy’s remains were publicly identified, Limon’s family said they hope the young woman’s loved ones “may find some measure of peace after receiving this confirmation.”

The gruesome killings of two students who traveled halfway around the world for higher education “contradicts everything what Florida and the United States stands for,” the sheriff said.

“People come here because everything is better here than in anywhere else in the world. And to have to make contact with the families and tell them that their their loved ones are missing, to call them back later again and tell them that we found them but they’re deceased, and then describe some details that they wanted to know how they were killed because they were stabbed, as many times as they were – it goes against every grain that Americans stand for.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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