Student Questioned in Florida Slayings

An 18-year-old University of Florida freshman charged with beating his grandmother was held on $1-million bond Friday, and police investigating the deaths of five students sealed his apartment.

Task force investigators refused to say whether he is considered to be among the potential suspects in the slayings.

“At this particular time, we continue to have a pool of suspects,” said Alachua County sheriff’s Lt. Spencer Mann. “To say that we have a prime suspect or prime two suspects or three suspects is very premature.”

Edward Lewis Humphrey was arrested Thursday at his grandmother’s house in Indialantic, 180 miles to the southeast, and charged with aggravated battery, authorities said.

Two Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents spent 12 hours at the jail in Sharpes where Humphrey was held, and Brevard Circuit Judge Dean Moxley increased Humphrey’s bond to $1 million from $10,250 about an hour before the agents departed Friday.

About 600 law enforcement officials are involved in a hunt for the killer, who investigators have called a “methodical maniac” with a sick grudge against petite brunettes with shoulder-length hair.

Authorities have said that they are interested in an Ohio fugitive wanted in a mutilation slaying there. Mann said police were also looking for a man wearing camouflage pants who ran away when a state trooper tried to question him in Gainesville early Friday.

Investigators are interviewing or watching three or four other potential suspects, police said.

The victims--students at either the University of Florida or Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville--were stabbed to death in off-campus apartments in three attacks discovered since Sunday. Police said three of the four women were mutilated.

Gainesville police sealed off Humphrey’s apartment Thursday and questioned anyone attempting to enter the property.

“We have investigators interested in that location. We have task force members who are interested in the area,” said Lt. Sadie Darnell, a police spokeswoman.

Six detectives wearing rubber gloves and green smocks combed through six garbage bins at Humphrey’s apartment complex and removed some undisclosed items.

“In this kind of investigation, it’s important not to overlook any possible kind of trace evidence,” police investigator Gary Manning said.

Humphrey had been under surveillance since Tuesday, when the latest two victims were found at the Gatorwood apartment complex. He had lived in Gainesville over the summer but was evicted from Gatorwood, the Orlando Sentinel reported.