A 17-year-old boy stabbed his mother to death in Florida just one year after he shot and killed his father in Oklahoma, according to police.
Collin Griffith called 911 on Sunday night and claimed that his mother, 39-year-old Catherine Griffith, was stabbed in the neck during a fight after she lunged at him with a knife and fell on it, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
Police rushed to the home, where Catherine was pronounced dead.
Deputies asked Collin what had happened, but he became “uncooperative” and demanded to speak to a lawyer. Investigators quickly discovered that the evidence at the scene did not match the situation the teen described to police over the phone.
Witnesses told detectives that Collin and his mother were shouting at each other outside of the residence when they saw the boy grab his mother by the hair and drag her inside as she repeatedly pleaded “Let me go.”
“He opens up the door and there’s a few arguments. Don’t know exactly what the words were because I was sitting on my front porch. Next thing I know he grabs her and pulls her inside the house,” Nancy K. Jones, who lives across the street, told WFLA. “He just grabbed her — looked like he grabbed her by the hair.”
Collin’s grandmother — who was not present during the stabbing but owns the home where it happened — told police that the teen has been physically or verbally confrontational with his mother in several instances in the past, WFLA reported.
The grandmother reportedly told Jones before that Collin “had problems.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office’s autopsy revealed that Catherine Griffin died of a deep penetrating knife wound to the neck. The stab wound was deemed to be inconsistent with an accidental injury.
The teenager is now an orphan as he allegedly killed his dad as well.
Collin fatally shot his father, Charles Robert Griffith, in 2023 during an altercation at their Oklahoma home on Valentine’s Day, claiming self-defense, according to an arrest affidavit. He was 15 years old at the time.
The teen told police he had been cornered by his dad in the bedroom of the house so he picked up a gun and shot him twice — once in the chest and once in the head.
Collin’s mother paid $50,000 to bail him out of jail, records show. The charges were later dropped, as self-defense could not be ruled out, according to the Lincoln County, Oklahoma District Attorney’s Office.
He was reunited with his mother exactly a year after he shot his father, through Florida’s Department of Children and Families.
He first threatened to kill Catherine at that time, before allegedly killing her on Sunday.
“Collin Griffith is a violent predator — he has now killed both his father and his mother,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a statement. “We will hold him accountable in Polk County — we will do everything we can to keep him separated from civil society.”
The 17-year-old is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and violation of a no-contact order.
