A 17-year-old boy stabbed his mother to death in Florida, just one year after shooting and killing his father in Oklahoma, police said.
Collin Griffiths called 911 Sunday night, claiming he was stabbed in the neck during a fight after his mother, Katherine Griffiths, 39, lunged at him with a knife and he fell on top of it. According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.
Police rushed to the home and confirmed Katherine had died.
Officers asked Collin what had happened, but he became “uncooperative” and demanded to speak to an attorney. Investigators soon discovered that evidence at the scene did not match the description the boy had given police over the phone.
Witnesses told detectives that Collin and his mother were yelling at each other outside the home when they saw the boy grab his mother by her hair and drag her inside the house while she repeatedly begged them to let her go.
“He opened the door and a little argument started. I'm not sure exactly what the words were because I was sitting on the front porch. Next thing I know he grabbed her and dragged her into the house,” said Nancy K. Jones, who lives across the street. He told WFLA“He just grabbed her. It looked like he grabbed her by the hair.”
Collin's grandmother was not at the scene of the stabbing, but she owns the home where it happened and told police that Collin had had several previous physical and verbal confrontations with her mother, WFLA reported.
The grandmother reportedly previously told Jones that Collin “had problems.”
An autopsy by the medical examiner's office determined that Katherine Griffin died from a deep knife wound to the neck, which was determined to be inconsistent with an accidental injury.
The boy also allegedly killed his father and is now an orphan.
Collin shot and killed his father, Charles Robert Griffith, during an argument at their Oklahoma home on Valentine's Day in 2023, claiming self-defense. According to the arrest warrantHe was 15 years old at the time.
The boy told police that his father had cornered him in a bedroom at home, so he grabbed a gun and shot his father twice, once in the chest and once in the head.
Records show that Collin's mother paid $50,000 to get him out of jail, and the charges were later dropped due to self-defense, according to the Lincoln County, Oklahoma District Attorney's Office.
He was reunited with his mother through the Florida Department of Children and Families exactly one year after shooting his father.
The suspect allegedly threatened to kill Katherine at the time and then killed her on Sunday.
“Collin Griffith is a vicious predator. He has now murdered 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 in our power to isolate him from civilian society.”
The 17-year-old boy is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and violating a no-contact order.
