USF doctoral student found dead on bridge, roommate faces charges

Zamil Limon’s remains were found on the Howard Frankland Bridge in Tampa, ending nearly a week of uncertainty for the University of South Florida doctoral student while investigators kept searching for his classmate, Nahida S. Bristy.

Limon, 27, and Bristy, also 27, were last seen on April 16. Limon was last seen around 9 a.m. at his residence on Avalon Heights Boulevard, while Bristy was last seen about an hour later in the Natural and Environmental Sciences Building on the USF Tampa campus. A family friend contacted authorities on April 17 after being unable to reach either student, setting off a search that widened across campus and into the Tampa Bay area.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office elevated both students to endangered status on Thursday, April 23, after information gathered in the case raised new concerns. Investigators have not said how Limon died, and an autopsy was being performed. Bristy remained missing.

Deputies responded Friday morning to a domestic violence call at a home in the Lake Forest community near USF, where Limon’s roommate, 26-year-old Hisham Abugharbieh, barricaded himself inside before surrendering to SWAT. He was taken into custody and faces preliminary charges including domestic violence, simple battery, false imprisonment, tampering with evidence, failure to report a death, and unlawfully moving a dead body. Sheriff officials said Abugharbieh acted alone.

The case has hit particularly hard because both students were building advanced academic careers at a major public university. Limon was studying geography, environmental science and policy, with a focus on the use of AI in environmental science, and his family said he was set to present his doctoral thesis this week. Bristy was studying chemical engineering. Both students were originally from Bangladesh, a detail that has deepened concern among international student networks connected to USF and the wider Tampa Bay community.

Authorities have not publicly connected Bristy’s disappearance to a confirmed cause, and her location remains unknown. What is clear is that the investigation has already crossed from a missing-person case into a broader criminal inquiry, with one student found dead, another still unaccounted for, and questions remaining about what happened inside a shared home and across the university campus where both were last seen.