Catherine Griffith, 39, was discovered by police stabbed all the way through the back of her neck in Florida after her son called 911.
The 17-year-old said they had a fight, and his mother accidentally “fell on a knife” and died. Before too long, deputies learned this was not his first victim. Less than two years before, he fatally shot his father in Oklahoma — once in the head and once in the neck — and walked away scot-free from murder charges, claiming self-defense.
This time, he’s in custody at Polk County Jail, being held on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and violation of a no-contact order. Brian Haas, State Attorney for the Tenth Judicial Court of Florida, is now considering prosecuting him as an adult.
“It’s important to understand, when you look at this, you see a kid,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd during a recent press conference, holding up a photo of the bespectacled teen. “When I look at him, I see a psychopath.”
The 911 call came on Sept. 8 from the suspect’s grandmother’s house in The Hamptons Golf & Country Club, a 55-and-over mobile home community an hour away from Orlando. The teen said his mother fell on a knife after they had a long fight and was bleeding from her neck.
“He used similar language to when he made the 911 call 18 or 20 months earlier when he shot and killed his father,” stated Judd.
When deputies arrived, the suspect met them in the front yard and reportedly showed no emotion.
“He was calm, cool, collected, not upset, and had blood on him,” said Judd, adding that he immediately asked to speak with a lawyer and stated that he knew his rights. Police recovered a bloody 12-inch kitchen knife from the home but noted the crime scene was “neat and clean,” with no apparent evidence of a fight.
As authorities began to dig into the teen’s past, they were shocked to learn about the separate violent killing of his father, Charles Robert Griffith, on Valentine’s Day, 2023. The teen was arrested in Oklahoma after he told police his dad pulled a knife on him, so he shot him to death. He was charged with murder in the first degree, and, according to the arrest affidavit, he was released home with an ankle monitor after his mother posted a $50,000 bond.
Within less than a month, the charges were dropped because the District Attorney’s office could not “disprove his assertion of self-defense,” stated Judd. Griffith’s neighbors told local station Fox 4 she had moved to Florida to escape an abusive relationship with her ex-husband.
After the murder charges were dropped, the teen was sent to his mother’s home in Florida, but trouble quickly followed.
His grandmother told detectives there had been many instances of verbal threats and physical abuse toward his mother, including multiple death threats, reported USA Today. By September 2023, he had been hospitalized under the Baker Act, which allows for a temporary detention for a mental health evaluation. After his release, Judd reported that the boy said, “I’ll kill myself, or I’ll kill my mother by shooting or stabbing her,” which prompted another three-day detention.
In November, he allegedly attacked his mother for taking away his video game privileges, Judd stated, adding, “he pushed her to the ground, and he stomped on her.”
Facing jail time, the teen tried to say it was self-defense, but his grandmother, who witnessed the attack, refuted his story. He later made another threat to his mother’s life on Feb. 14, 2024, the one-year anniversary of his father’s death.
In the days leading up to the killing, Judd said the teen argued with his mother about “home chores” and fled to his grandmother’s house, who was in the Florida Keys and not present at the time. After Griffith caught up to her angry son and brought him home, two days at the mobile home community, a fight broke out, according to witnesses, who say the teen grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the house.
“Let me go!” Griffith desperately told her son. Within the span of two hours, she was dead.
“He’s shown zero remorse — zero remorse” since being in custody, opined Judd. If enough evidence is found during the mother’s murder investigation, Judd said authorities in Oklahoma will reopen the closed murder investigation into the teen’s father’s death.
