A Florida mother who was stabbed to death by her 17-year-old son on Sunday, police said, posted a poignant final message online just hours before he was killed, quoting lyrics from the Taylor Swift song “It's Time to Go.”
The day before she was killed in a vicious knife attack in Auburndale, Katherine Griffiths, 39, posted the lyrics to this song alongside a photo of a remote footbridge leading into woodland.
Witnesses said she and her son, who is said to have a history of mental illness, got into an argument outside his grandmother's home. The son then dragged his grandmother by her hair into the house, and the grandmother could be heard pleading with her son to “let go,” the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.
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Katherine Griffiths and her son. (Instagram @cathygriffith1985)
At the time, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference Wednesday that a 17-year-old boy “stabbed his mother in the neck with a knife, the knife going through her.” Judd also called the boy a “psychopath.” The boy told police that he and his mother got into a fistfight and that his mother fell on top of the knife.
The boy has been charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and violating a restraining order. Judd is asking for the boy to be tried as an adult, but the local attorney general's office told Fox News Digital they won't be able to comment on the case until next week.
The fatal incident came 19 months after the boy was charged with shooting and killing his father in Oklahoma, though the charges were later dropped.
Griffiths' post may suggest that she was not in a good state prior to her death.
“That old pain in my body, that little crack in my soul,” the Taylor Swift lyrics read, “I know it's time to go… Sometimes giving up is the strongest thing.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference Wednesday that he is asking for Griffith to be tried as an adult. (Polk County Sheriff)
Griffith's Instagram page is filled with photos of fun times with her son, including a photo of the pair taking a cruise in front of the U.S. Capitol on the Fourth of July and another of her and her son dressed in their graduation uniforms for his senior year.
Another photo shows her son sitting in the passenger seat of a 2024 Volkswagen Jetta, which Griffith wrote was an early graduation gift for her son.
However, it seems that their relationship wasn't always smooth sailing.
The boy's grandmother, who was not present at the altercation, He told WFLA The boy had had multiple verbal and physical confrontations with his mother.
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Judd said that when investigators “began to peel back this onion,” they “found[found] It reminded me that this isn't just a one-off incident.” Last year, the boy's father also died by his hand.
“February 14, 2023, Valentine's Day, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. [he] “The father pointed a knife at him, so he shot and killed the father,” Judd said. “He shot the father, once in the chest and once in the head, and claimed self-defense.”
Oklahoma authorities dropped the charges against the boy less than a month after the shooting because they couldn't disprove his “claim of self-defense,” Judd said.
The boy's mother paid $50,000 to have him released from prison. New York Post He then moved into her home in Charlotte County, Florida, and within a month, he was involuntarily hospitalized for mental health reasons, according to the report.
Around this time, he made threatening statements, saying he was going to “kill himself or shoot or stab his mother,” according to Judd.
In November 2023, the teenager said: [his mother] Judd said he threw her to the ground and stomped on her after she took away his video game privileges. He was arrested and again claimed self-defense, but this time his claim was unsuccessful and he spent time in jail, the sheriff said.
Katherine Griffiths and the son suspected of stabbing her to death. (Instagram @cathygriffith1985)
After another argument with his mother in February of this year, the boy fled to his grandmother's home in Auburndale. Around that time, the boy's mother and grandmother contacted the sheriff's office, saying they felt unsafe around the boy, at which point he was turned over to family services, Judd said.
But despite multiple threats to kill his mother – and again just two weeks later – the boy was eventually reunited with his family, Judd said.
According to the sheriff, the boy had been involved in an “argument over household chores,” which prompted him to “run away from his mother's home. [go to] The suspect killed the boy at his grandmother's home on September 6. The suspect's mother drove to his grandmother's house the next day, where she and the boy got into an argument that left the mother dead.
Judd said the boy initially told 911 dispatchers that his mother had been “under a knife” after a “very lengthy struggle” on Sunday.
Judd said officers who arrived at The Hamptons, a 55-and-over community in Auburndale about 50 miles east of Tampa, where the boy's grandmother lives, found the boy “calm, cool, collected and with blood on him.”
Murder weapon. (Polk County Sheriff's Office)
The 17-year-old reportedly became “uncooperative,” showed “absolutely no remorse” and no sense of urgency towards his seriously injured mother.
“He looked the deputy in the eye and said, 'I know my rights. Call an attorney,'” Judd said.
The boy claims he had been in a protracted argument with his mother before she died, but the home was “tidy and clean.” [with] “We don't see any evidence of prolonged fighting,” Judd said.
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“When I look at this kid, I see him as a child,” Judd said. “I see him as a psychopath. I see him as a completely out of character behavior, shooting his father at 17, getting away with it, and then stabbing his mother so hard the knife went through her neck.”
“He killed two people, he killed his own parents, and based on his actions I can say beyond any reasonable doubt that if at the end of this he goes to live with his grandmother and she betrays him, she would be his next target,” Judd added.
Judd said any information uncovered during the police investigation that could incriminate the boy in his father's death will be provided to Oklahoma authorities.
