Florida mom Catherine “Cathy” Griffith, 39, was found stabbed to death in her Auburndale home by police who were called by her son, Collin, 17. He called 911 telling them, “I’ve had a very, very long fight with mom, and she fell on a knife, and she’s bleeding from the neck.” The teen was standing in front of the house covered in her blood. She was found with multiple knife wounds to her neck.

Deputies arriving on the scene described Collin as showing “zero emotion” after allegedly killing his mother. Neighbors told police that they had witnessed Collin grab his mother by her hair and pull her into the house as she repeatedly pleaded, “let me go”.

Catherine’s death comes a year and a half after Collin was charged with fatally shooting his father, Charles, in their Lincoln County Oklahoma home on February 14, 2023.

No one else was home at the time. The then-15-year-old called 911 and stated there had been an argument, and Charles had pulled a knife on him and chased him through the house. Collin told police that he had shot his father once in the chest and once in the head in an act of self-defense. Investigators’ attempts to interview the then-15-year-old proved fruitless after he continually invoked his Fifth Amendment right to counsel. The murder charge was dropped by Oklahoma authorities after they could not find any evidence disputing Collin’s version of events and claim of self-defense.

Following this, he moved to Florida to live with his mother. On September 11th, 2023, a school officer called the sheriff’s office to do a mental health check at the Griffith home. The school officer stated that Collin told her that he and his mother got into an argument that morning, where his mother pulled a gun on him. Collin told the officer his mother said she would kill him, threatened to kill herself and asked him to take the gun from her to kill her. Catherine told the deputy that the story was not true, saying that Collin was mad at her for taking away his phone and Airpods since he was failing his classes. She said that her son has severe PTSD because his father held him captive for 1,041 days when they lived in Oklahoma without human contact.

After interviewing Catherine during that home visit, Collin was placed into protective custody for a mental health evaluation under the Baker Act. The next day, a Juvenile Intervention detective spoke with Catherine. Collin’s mother told the detective she had contacted mental health facilities across the state to find one to help Collin. She said Collin told staff at his current facility that he was going to kill himself or her if he returned home. Catherine mentioned that he was seeing a therapist but also threatened to kill them if she diagnosed him with anything. Catherine said the therapist diagnosed him with PTSD and a personality disorder.

Catherine revealed that her and Collin’s father divorced and Collin went to live with his father in 2019. She said she never got to see her son after that. Collin told her in their few phone calls that he told his father he was gay, and then his father wouldn’t let him go to school as punishment. Catherine stated that Collin was isolated at home, didn’t go to school and ate one meal a day.

Collin was released back to his mother after spending eight days in the mental health facility but as he was leaving he told staff, “I will kill myself or my mom if I go home.” He added he would “throw them out of the car, shoot or stab them, I’ve done it before, to my dad, I know I can do it again.”

The staff reversed their decision and kept him in the facility. Catherine got him into a long-term facility near their home for more treatment. He spent a few months there but later returned home to live with her.

Local law enforcement arrested Collin for the first time in November 2023 and charged him with domestic violence after he allegedly beat and stomped his mother. Collin’s grandmother said she witnessed Collin pull his mother’s hair and knee her in the groin. In jail, he told deputies if he has to get in the car with her (mother) if he’s released, he’s going to kill her. After about seven months in therapy, Catherine said, “I don’t think he can come home though, because I don’t feel safe with him coming home saying these things.”

Months later, in February 2024, he ran away to his grandmother’s home in the Hamptons, Florida after he and his mother had an argument.

“The grandmother said, ‘Hey, we don’t feel safe with him around,’ so our deputies, who found him up here as a missing persons reported in Charlotte County, turned him over to DCF,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a press conference.

“Two days later, on the 14th of February, the anniversary of him killing his dad a year ago, he’s reunited with his mother.” Judd continued: “Collin made the statement that, ‘I don’t want to go home. I’ll use any force necessary to avoid it, including killing my mother.’”

On the day of Catherine’s death, Collin fled to his grandmother’s home after arguing with his mother over chores. His grandmother was at her second home in Florida Keys at the time. Catherine arrived at the grandmother’s home to pick her son up and two hours later was dead.

“Collin Griffith is a violent predator — he has now killed both his father and his mother. We will hold him accountable in Polk County— we will do everything we can to keep him separated from civil society,” said Judd.

Collin has now been charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and violation of no-contact order. Brian Hass, the state attorney for the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Florida announced that Griffith would be tried as an adult “based upon the egregious facts and circumstances of this case.”

Horrible, horrible stuff.

When he says he is going to do horrible stuff he shouldn’t be sent back home! Ugh.

Thanks for reading,

-AJ