A Florida teenager was “calm, cool and collected” when he told police his mother had died after falling on a knife, a year after he shot his father to death.
The 2023 murder charge against Collin Griffith was dropped a month after he shot his father Charles in the head and chest because the 17-year-old claimed he was acting in self-defense.
His mother posted $50,000 bail to get out of jail.
On Sunday night, she called 911 to say her mother, Catherine, had fallen on a knife while they were arguing at her grandmother’s home in Auburndale.
But witnesses reported seeing him dragging the 39-year-old woman out of the house by her hair two hours earlier and a medical examiner found she had been stabbed, twice, in the neck.
“When you look at this, you see a child,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference Wednesday as he held up Collin’s photograph. “When I look at him, I see a psychopath.”
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is asking the State’s Attorney to charge 17-year-old Collin Griffith as an adult after he killed his mother, a year after escaping a murder charge in the death of his father.
The mother, Catherine Griffith, had posted $50,000 bail to secure her son’s release, but he had warned officers he would kill her if he was forced to live with her.
“Everyone in his life who should be special to him is dead when they come across him.”
Griffith claimed his 43-year-old father pulled a knife on him before chasing and cornering him on a remote farm in Lincoln County, Oklahoma, on Valentine’s Day 2023.
But prosecutors “failed to disprove Colin’s claim of self-defense” and he was released after his mother posted bail.
Six months later, he was back in custody under Florida’s Baker Act after threatening to kill himself and stab or shoot his mother.
In November of last year he was arrested on domestic violence charges after kicking his mother to the ground when she tried to restrict his video game use.
She again tried to claim self-defense, but her grandmother had seen the attack and corroborated Catherine’s story.
In February 2024, she ran away from her mother’s home in Charlotte County and went to live with her grandmother.
He told officers he would “kill my mother” rather than be reunited with her, but was turned over to the Florida Department of Children and Families, which returned him to his home in Charlotte County a year after his father’s death.
Police yesterday released a series of chilling text messages Catherine sent hours before her death asking 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’m not opening the door,” she wrote in one post. “Collin hates me and I’m tired of this crap.”
“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 his death he told the neighbor: “I will meet with your parole officer on Monday morning if you are not home by ten o’clock today. He knows the time and the deadline.”
“He decided to skip the appointment and hide out at my mother’s house in Polk County, which also constitutes rape.”
In her final text she wrote: ‘He won’t listen. I’m going to drive around to get him and if he doesn’t get in the car then Polk County can take care of him.’
Griffith’s grandmother was not home when her mother arrived at 4 p.m. Sunday and the couple began arguing.
At 6:30 p.m., police were on the way after Griffith called to say his mother had hurt herself and showed “no remorse” when officers arrived.
“He looked the deputy in the eye and said, ‘I know my rights, I want a lawyer,'” Judd told reporters.
‘He stated that during this argument, his mother lunged at him with a knife and fell on top of him, causing a deep stab wound to his neck.
“The medical examiner said it’s not reasonable or plausible that she died the way he says she did. It just didn’t happen.”
“When you look at this man, you see a child,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference Wednesday. “When I look at him, I see a psychopath.”
A murder charge against Collin Griffith was dropped a month after he shot his father Charles in the head and chest because the 17-year-old claimed he was acting in self-defense.
Griffith was arrested for murder and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office is asking the State Attorney to charge him as an adult.
And a spokesman for the Oklahoma District Attorney’s Office said they were now considering whether to charge him again in his father’s death.
“If Oklahoma had been able to act, Catherine would be alive and well today,” Judd said.
“But because she took him in and tried to do what a mother should do and take care of him, she’s now dead.
‘He, already at 17 years old, shot and killed his father and walked away unscathed, and stabbed his mother in the neck so hard that the knife went completely through her.
‘He’s now killed two people, and he’s murdered his mother and his father, and I can assure you that based on his conduct, if he had gone to live with his grandmother at the end of this, and she had betrayed him, she would be next.’
