48 Hours of Terror

The Sinister Saga of Suhail Abbas

It was just after 4 a.m. on July 16th, 2017 when the piercing blasts of gunfire shattered the tranquil night in a Tampa, Florida suburb. By the time the smoke cleared, two innocent victims - an apartment building maintenance worker and a bystander - lay mortally wounded in the complex's parking lot. Fleeing the chaos was the shooter, a 24-year old man named Suhail Abba who had just committed the first in a chain of cold-blooded murders that would unfold over the next two days.

Less than 36 hours after that initial outburst of violence, Abbas struck again - this time in broad daylight. Around 5 p.m. the following evening, the ruthless killer ambushed a 60-year-old man out for a routine walk near a local park. Drawing his gun, Abbas gunned the stranger down in the street in a chilling act of random savagery before slipping away once more into the warm Florida shadows.

By now, local police and federal law enforcement were in a frenzied pursuit, desperately working to identify the disturbed gunman behind this sudden scourge of terror plaguing the peaceful community. Tragically, their efforts would prove too late to stop Abbas from completing his short, but devastating, spree of carnage.

The suspected murderer saved his most horrific act for last, committing a final double-homicide the next afternoon on July 18th. Around 2 p.m., Abbas forced his way into a Turkish couple's rented mobile home before opening fire at point-blank range. Mustafa and Soadat Arifhuseynov, aged 48 and 46 respectively, were slaughtered in cold blood with their three young sons - ages 5, 9, and 12 - bearing witness to the brutality. Miraculously, despite being struck at least 7 times, the 9-year-old son survived, later identifying Abbas in a police lineup.

Within hours, this seemingly random yet calculated string of violence finally came to an end with Abbas' capture following a frantic manhunt. At first, authorities cautiously speculated the spree may have been motivated by some form of personal grievance or illicit business dealings based on the killer's initial apparent ties to mobile home residents. However, as Abbas' disturbing background gradually began emerging, those theories faded into an even more frightening revelation - his murderous acts appeared to be the culmination of years of psychological deterioration and decent into complete depravity.

Born in Pakistan, Abbas descended from what relatives described as a once wealthy, well-respected family that had begun fracturing over time through a series of bitter internal rifts. At some point in his youth, the young man started embracing extremist ideologies and conspiracy theories, with his hatred for Western society calcifying during stints spent living abroad in places like Saudi Arabia and Australia. By the time he immigrated to the U.S. in 2012 at age 19, Abbas' mental state was described by those who knew him as "completely gone" - yet he still managed to build a veneer of semi-functional life, taking jobs in I.T. and real estate.

That facade couldn't last forever, however. Court records show Abbas' darker obsessions first bubbled to the surface in 2015 with an arrest for assaulting an employee at a Walmart. In 2016, he faced felony battery charges for attacking his Dominican Uber driver. Fueled by unraveling psychological issues and inflamed extremist ideals, Abbas' disdain for certain ethnicities, religions, and Western society itself intensified over those final two years prior to his killing spree.

Despite those warning signs, nothing could properly prepare those in Abbas' path in July 2017 for the evil he would suddenly unleash. While the motivation behind the specific victims or locations remains unclear, Abbas' rampage exposed the cold-blooded disregard for human life he had embraced while privately succumbing to hatred, violence, and likely severe mental instability.

In the aftermath, Abbas demonstrated the same unrepentant callousness for his actions, refusing to provide explanations or show any remorse for the grieving families. He was swiftly convicted on four counts of first-degree murder in 2019 and handed seven life sentences to ensure he remains locked away forever.

While his reign of terror lasted just over 48 hours, Abbas' chilling spree of violence over that span inflicted deep scars on a community. His sinister saga stands as a harrowing reminder that true evil can fester even among those who seem unassuming on the surface - until it finally pierces society's fragile veil as a cruel, devastating reality.