A Florida teenager was “calm, cool and collected” when he told police his mother died after being stabbed by a knife, a year after he shot and killed his father.
The 2023 murder charge against Collin Griffith was dropped a month after he shot his father Charles in the head and chest after the 17-year-old claimed he acted in self-defense.
His mother posted the $50,000 bail to get out of jail.
On Sunday evening, he called 911 and said his mother Catherine had fallen on a knife during an argument at his grandmother’s house in Auburndale.
However, witnesses reported seeing him drag the 39-year-old woman from the home by her hair two hours earlier and a coroner found she had been stabbed – twice – in the neck.
“When you look at this, you see a child,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told a news conference Wednesday as he held up Collins’ photo. “When I look at him, I see a psychopath.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is asking prosecutors to charge Collin Griffith, 17, as an adult in the murder of his mother — a year after he escaped a charge of murdering his father.
Mother Catherine Griffith had posted a $50,000 bond to secure her son’s release, but he had warned officers he would kill her if forced to live with her.
“Everyone who should be special to him in his life is dead if they get in his way.”
Griffith alleged that his 43-year-old father pulled a knife on him before chasing and cornering him near a remote farm in Lincoln County, Oklahoma, on Valentine’s Day 2023.
But prosecutors “failed to disprove Colin’s claim that he acted in self-defense” and he was released after his mother posted bail.
Six months later, he was jailed again under Florida’s Baker Act after threatening to commit suicide and stab or shoot his mother.
In November last year, he was arrested for domestic violence after he kicked his mother to the ground when she tried to stop him from playing video games.
He again tried to claim self-defense, but his grandmother had seen the attack and corroborated Catherine’s story.
In February 2024, he ran away from his mother’s home in Charlotte County and went to live with his grandmother.
He told officers he would rather “kill my mother” than be reunited with her, but they turned him over to the Florida Department of Children and Families, who returned him to the home in Charlotte County, exactly one year after his father’s death.
Police yesterday released a series of chilling text messages sent by Catherine in the hours before her death, in which she pleaded with a neighbour for help.
The 39-year-old was a popular teacher at Florida Virtual School
Police have released Catherine’s chilling text message exchange with a friend in the hours before her death
“Please don’t let Collin or the police in my house. I won’t answer my door,” she wrote in one of the letters. “Collin just hates me and I’m sick of this shit.”
“Where are you and how am I going to stop him?” the neighbor replied.
“Don’t give them the keys,” Catherine replied. “I’m at home in my room.”
On the day of her death, she told her neighbor, “I’ll meet with his probation officer Monday morning if he’s not home by 10:00 today. He knows the time and the deadline.
“He chooses to skip it and hide out at my mother’s house in Polk County, which is also a violation.”
In her final text, she wrote, “He won’t listen. I’m going to pick him up and if he doesn’t get in the car, Polk County can take him.”
Griffith’s grandmother was not home when his mother arrived at 4 p.m. on Sunday and the two got into an argument.
At 6:30 p.m., police were on their way after Griffith called to say his mother had self-harmed. When officers arrived, he showed “no remorse whatsoever.”
“He looked the officer in the eye and said, ‘I know my rights, I want an attorney,'” Judd told reporters.
He claimed that during the argument his mother lunged at him with a knife and fell on him, causing a deep stab wound to her neck.
“The coroner said it’s just not reasonable or likely that she died the way he said she did. ‘It just didn’t happen.’
“When you look at this, you see a child,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told a news conference Wednesday. “When I look at him, I see a psychopath.”
A month after Collin Griffith shot his father Charles in the head and chest, the murder charges were dropped. The 17-year-old boy claimed he acted in self-defense.
Griffith was arrested for murder and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office is asking the district attorney to charge him as an adult.
An Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office spokesman said an investigation is underway to determine whether he should be charged again in his father’s death.
“If Oklahoma had been able to act, Catherine would still be alive,” Judd said.
But because she took him in, did what a mother is supposed to do and took care of him, she is now dead.
‘He shot his father dead when he was 17 and got away with it, and he stabbed his mother in the neck so hard the knife went right through her.
“He’s now killed two people, and his mother and father. And I can assure you, based on his behavior, if he had gone to live with his grandmother after all this and she had stood up to him, she would be next.”