TAMPA, Fla. — The body of a missing University of South Florida student was found Friday on the Howard Frankland Bridge and authorities continued to look for another as they arrested a man described as a suspect in the case.

Zamil Limon, a doctoral student who’d been missing eight days, was found dead Friday morning along the bridge that spans Tampa Bay, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Joseph Maurer said.

Nahida Bristy, Limon’s friend and fellow student who disappeared the same day as he did, remained missing as of Saturday morning, though an announcement from the sheriff’s office indicated they believe she is dead.

The sheriff’s office announced in an early morning news release that Hisham Abugharbieh now faces two charges of first-degree murder with a weapon “in the deaths of Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy.”

“Evidence was presented to the State Attorney’s Office, resulting in further charges against Abugharbieh,” the news release from the sheriff’s office states. “To protect the integrity of the investigation, we will not be commenting on the findings in the case.”

He and Limon had lived together in an apartment north of the USF campus, where Limon was last seen April 16.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Abugharbieh after a brief standoff at a home in the Lake Forest neighborhood, off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in North Tampa, Maurer said. Investigators had questioned him Thursday about the disappearances of Limon and Bristy. He spoke with them but then “ended the interview,” Maurer said.

Deputies were called for a report of “domestic violence” about 9 a.m. Friday at his family’s home in North Tampa, the chief deputy said. The family was able to leave the home unharmed as Abugharbieh remained inside, refusing to come out, Maurer said.

The sheriff’s office’s SWAT team arrived. Deputies blocked the neighborhood entrance as a standoff ensued. A robotic dog and a remote-controlled vehicle could be seen moving about the neighborhood as a drone circled overhead.

Amid orders to surrender, Abugharbieh walked outside, shirtless and wrapped in a blue bath towel with his hands raised.

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.

He was not initially charged with murder, but that changed with the announcement Saturday morning.

It was unclear what evidence investigators had to link Abugharbieh to the deaths. Maurer said he could not answer some questions, stressing that he did not want to jeopardize the ongoing investigation.

A spokesperson for USF told the Tampa Bay Times that Abugharbieh pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in management from spring 2021 to 2023, but that he is no longer enrolled as a student.

Hillsborough court records show that Abugharbieh was twice arrested in 2023 on domestic violence charges, but both cases were later dropped. That summer, his brother filed a petition for an injunction prohibiting him from coming near him or his home. The document described an incident in which Abugharbieh allegedly attacked his brother and their mother.

“From late April to May 8, he would start screaming in the middle of the night about how he is God and we should all bow down to him,” the petition states. A judge granted a two-year injunction barring Abugharbieh from contact with his brother.

The brother sought a new injunction last summer after the first one expired, but that request was denied.

Bristy and Limon, both 27, went missing within hours of each other on April 16. Both were international doctoral students from Bangladesh who were in the U.S. on student visas. The locations where they vanished are a little less than a mile apart.

Limon was last seen about 9 a.m. at his apartment in the Avalon Heights student housing complex off East Fletcher Avenue, north of USF’s Tampa campus.

His brother, Zubaer Ahmed, described him as “very responsible and punctual” in a message to a Times reporter. Limon had previously earned a degree in urban and rural planning from a university in Bangladesh.

He came to USF in 2024 and was pursuing a doctorate in geography, environmental science and policy.

“He was scheduled to submit his thesis paper the day after he went missing, which makes this situation extremely unusual for us,” his brother said.

Bristy was last seen about 10 a.m. the same day in USF’s Natural and Environmental Sciences building, near the center of campus, according to USF police.

She spoke by phone with her parents in Bangladesh shortly after noon April 16, her brother, Zahid Hasan Pranto, told the Times. She was in her office, a campus laboratory, and spoke of how busy her days were.

“Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary,” Pranto said.

That was the last time anyone heard from her. She missed a 3 p.m. class that day. She was supposed to go grocery shopping with a friend at 5 p.m., her brother said.

Bristy left her laptop, iPad, bag and lunchbox in the lab, her brother said. Her purse and phone went missing with her.

A person described by authorities as a family friend reported the pair missing the next day.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office took the initial report about Limon’s disappearance. The USF Police Department handled the initial search for Bristy.

Limon’s brother told the Times that by Sunday, investigators had traced the pair off campus.

On Wednesday, the Hillsborough sheriff’s office took the lead in the investigation in an effort to “streamline” and “expedite” efforts to find the students, the office said.

Sheriff’s deputies this week went door to door in the USF area handing out flyers about the disappearance.

Law enforcement officials had previously described the pair as “missing,” but changed that description to “endangered” late Thursday without releasing more details. By then, the search spanned Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and drew assistance from several other law enforcement agencies.

The Florida Highway Patrol early Friday morning closed two northbound lanes of the Howard Frankland after Limon’s body was found.

USF police Chief Chris Daniel, speaking at Friday’s news conference, said campus officials “do everything we can to make the campus safe.”

“This is the last thing that we want to happen,” Daniel said. “Our hearts go out to the families, to the students at USF that knew these other students.”

Hillsborough sheriff’s divers continued searching for Bristy in the waters near the bridge late Friday. Maurer said on Friday afternoon that investigators had no indication of whether she is alive or dead, but that obviously has changed with the agency’s announcement Saturday morning.

Pranto described his sister as “a very jolly person” who got along with people.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in applied chemistry at a school in Bangladesh. She applied to USF’s doctoral program in chemical engineering last year and was accepted with full funding, her brother said.

She is a talented singer and had professional musical training as a teen. She was supposed to perform in a Bengali cultural program in Orlando, her brother said.

Her family did not know Limon, Pranto said. She’d shared that she liked someone, but he didn’t want to take the relationship further. They learned after her disappearance that she and Limon had been in a relationship for a while but had drifted apart. They remained friends.

“She was emotionally attached, but was trying to move on,” Pranto said.

Her family remains in Bangladesh, their lives on hold as they anxiously await news from half a world away.

“We can’t just go there and be physically present there,” Pranto said. “So we are helpless and relying on others to get the updates. My parents are devastated and we are going through a very difficult time.”

Anyone with information regarding Bristy’s whereabouts is asked to call the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office as 813-247-8200.

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(Times staff writers Divya Kumar and Chris Tisch contributed to this report.)

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