[The Pact]

In Tampa Florida the investigation into two missing University of South Florida Ph.D.. students exploded into a chilling new dimension this weekend, when prosecutors revealed that the prime suspect had allegedly been consulting ChatGPT about how to dispose of a human body in the days before the pair vanished.

Zamil Limon and his girlfriend, Nahida Bristy, disappeared on April 16. Within hours, suspicion fell on Limon’s roommate, 26‑year‑old Hisham Abugharbieh. By Friday, the horror surfaced: Limon’s body was discovered beneath a bridge. A second body was recovered from a nearby waterway, believed to be Bristy.

Then investigators opened Abugharbieh’s AI Chat GPT chat logs — and the story lurched into the surreal.

Court records filed Saturday describe a digital trail that reads like a villain’s monologue. Days before the students were last seen, Abugharbieh allegedly asked ChatGPT what would happen if a human body were stuffed into a garbage bag and tossed into a dumpster. He asked whether he could alter his car’s VIN. Whether he could keep a gun without a license. The chatbot reportedly warned him that his questions sounded dangerous.

After the couple vanished, the questions grew stranger. “Has there been someone who survived a sniper bullet to the head.” “Will my neighbors hear my gun.” Days later: “What does missing endangered adult mean.”

By Tuesday, Abugharbieh was charged with two counts of premeditated murder and ordered held without bond.

The case now sits at the crossroads of crime and technology, raising a question that feels ripped from dystopian fiction: What happens when a killer uses artificial intelligence as a sounding board — and when those conversations become evidence?

OpenAI says it is cooperating with investigators. It has reason to. Florida’s Attorney General recently launched a criminal inquiry into whether ChatGPT may have provided guidance to a gunman in last year’s Florida State University shooting. Prosecutors claim the shooter asked the chatbot about weapons, ammunition, and the best conditions for maximum casualties.

OpenAI denies responsibility, saying the answers were factual information anyone could find online.

But the investigations are widening. The FSU case now includes Abugharbieh’s.

Across the country, courts are confronting the unsettling reality that AI chatbots are showing up in criminal cases, suicides, delusions, violent acts. A Connecticut murder‑suicide. A wrongful‑death lawsuit against Google. Even the case of former NFL linebacker Darron Lee, whose ChatGPT messages were used as evidence after his girlfriend was found dead.

In Tampa, the shock is still fresh. Two students were murdered. Their roommate stands accused of planning their deaths with the help of a chatbot. And the justice system is suddenly staring at a future it never prepared for. One where the digital conversations of artificial intelligence become part of the crime scene.

https://apnews.com/article/missing-grad-...1fb4dee6ca