Florida 17-year-old acquitted of mother's stabbing death a year after killing father

A 17-year-old from Florida was acquitted on first-degree murder and kidnapping charges in the stabbing death of his mother more than a year after he was found to have killed his father in self-defense.

Collin Griffith was found not guilty of killing his mother, 39-year-old Catherine Griffith, at his grandmother's home in Auburndale in Polk County in September of 2024.

It took 11 hours of deliberating for a jury to unanimously find the state did not prove what happened inside the home was murder, NBC affiliate WFLA reported.

The incident happened on Sept. 8, after the teen had run away to his grandmother's house. His grandmother was in the Florida Keys at the time.

His mother drove to him after Griffith refused to come home.

She arrived around 4 p.m., when neighbors said they saw the two arguing out front. According to witnesses, the teen grabbed his mother by the hair and dragged her inside the home.

About two hours later, the Polk County Sheriff's Office received a call from Collin stating, “he had a fight with his mom, and she is bleeding from the neck.”

Authorities said Griffith had used a kitchen knife to stab his mother in the neck twice.

Deputies arrived on the scene where they say Collin immediately told them, “I know my rights, I want an attorney.”

“I didn’t really feel safe there with myself and with her and that I didn’t know what’s gonna happen. I still don’t know what’s gonna happen,” said Griffith on the video.

The teen was living with his mother because, in February 2023, he shot and killed his father in Oklahoma. His attorney was able to prove self-defense due to the fact he was treated poorly by his father.

Griffith was not allowed to leave the farm they lived on and was only fed one meal a day. It was also proven that Griffith had PTSD and other health problems, according to NBC affiliate WBBH.

After the fatal stabbing, Griffith initially told dispatchers his mother fell on the knife, but five months later at his first-degree murder trial, his attorney, Amy Thornhill, argued he acted in self-defense.

She alleged his mother had a history of lying and threatening him, stating that at one point, she even pulled a gun on him.

“Isn’t it more reasonable given everything you know that Cathy picked up the knife, threatened Collin with it and he defended himself?” said Thornhill during closing arguments Tuesday.

Thornhill also said Collin Griffith and his mother had a “very disturbed relationship,” which he alluded to himself on body-worn camera video while speaking with deputies after another incident at their Charlotte County home in Nov. 2023.

Deputies had arrested Griffith for domestic battery against his mother. He spent the night in jail. But on his way home, a comment he made worried deputies.

“I'm trying to figure out why we would have a corporal at the jail that took you out, say that that you said, 'Don't put me in the car with her. I'm going to kill her,'” a deputy told Griffith.

The teen told those deputies that he wanted to be put in foster care.

“I'm in a constant state of fight or flight, and I don't know, if I think she's going to do something, even if she's not, I might act,” he said. “I'm not going to, like, go crazy or anything, but I'm not sure.”

The jury was made up of one man, and the rest were women. Griffith's grandmother and aunt were in the courtroom, both of whom were supportive of him, according to WBBH.