Episode 346

<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
<v Speaker 1>not intended for all audiences.
<v Speaker 2>Listener discretion is advised.
<v Speaker 3>I said, you're not going to be successful to kill
<v Speaker 3>them all. Take you out, and then I'm going to
<v Speaker 3>have to explain to people that I'd rather be tried
<v Speaker 3>by twelve than carried by six.
<v Speaker 1>If you follow true crime and have for a while,
<v Speaker 1>then there's a place in Florida you might be familiar with.
<v Speaker 1>It's right in the heart of Florida, and it's far
<v Speaker 1>from the beaches and tourist traps. It's a little place
<v Speaker 1>called Polk County. It's mostly farmland, chain restaurants and retirement
<v Speaker 1>communities like the rest of Florida, but you may be
<v Speaker 1>familiar with the tough on crime press conferences that the
<v Speaker 1>share to hold, many of which have gone viral over
<v Speaker 1>the last couple of years. In Bulk County is the
<v Speaker 1>small city of Auburndale, nestled between Lakeland and winter Haven
<v Speaker 1>to shitholes by the way. It takes pride in being quiet, friendly,
<v Speaker 1>and the kind of place where neighbors recognize each other.
<v Speaker 1>Inside the gates of the Hamptons, a fifty five plus
<v Speaker 1>country club style retirement community are golf carts, manicured lawns,
<v Speaker 1>and rows of tiny, pre manufactured homes. At sunset, neighbors
<v Speaker 1>wave from their front porches as golf carts hum down
<v Speaker 1>the street. It's quiet, safe, or well it should be.
<v Speaker 1>But on September eighth, twenty twenty four, just after six
<v Speaker 1>in the evening, that calm was shattered behind the white
<v Speaker 1>siding of seventy seven Hewlett Drive. A boy's frantic voice
<v Speaker 1>reached another one one operator.
<v Speaker 4>My mom now bleeding out.
<v Speaker 5>He helped your mom enjoy what my mom's bleeding out?
<v Speaker 6>He's bleeding out?
<v Speaker 7>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>On the call was seventeen year old Colin Griffith. He
<v Speaker 1>told the dispatcher that his mother needed EMS because she
<v Speaker 1>was now bleeding out.
<v Speaker 4>How do I with someone?
<v Speaker 5>I didn't get into the hospital with someone?
<v Speaker 4>Okay?
<v Speaker 7>He called number one, So we're going to be an angelus.
<v Speaker 4>He doesn't have time. He's leaking at she chee's fucking nails.
<v Speaker 6>Here's that time.
<v Speaker 1>So now the ambulance couldn't get there fast enough. Colin's
<v Speaker 1>panic was obvious as he pleaded for them to help
<v Speaker 1>his mother. She didn't have a lot of time.
<v Speaker 7>He's bleeding out.
<v Speaker 1>She's bleeding from my mother, Colin's thirty nine year old mother,
<v Speaker 1>Kathy was bleeding from the neck and fading fast.
<v Speaker 4>No peak, unconscious, breathing, No, no.
<v Speaker 1>If you's not, I don't think why you said she
<v Speaker 1>was non responsive and not breathing before he said I
<v Speaker 1>don't think she's alive. Colin's voice trailed off as he
<v Speaker 1>realized his mother might already be dead. The dispatcher guided
<v Speaker 1>him through performing CPR. Colin got his mother flat on
<v Speaker 1>her back, positioned his hands over her heart, and started pumping.
<v Speaker 1>The dispatcher counted him down.
<v Speaker 4>Wine true screen or wine true straight horror wine too
<v Speaker 4>fore moment.
<v Speaker 1>As the dispatcher relayed information to first responders, Colin continued
<v Speaker 1>to pump his mother's chest.
<v Speaker 8>The knife to go on it.
<v Speaker 1>I know it's difficult to understand, but Colin said, we
<v Speaker 1>got into a fight. She lunged at me with a knife,
<v Speaker 1>and she fell on it. He explained it was a
<v Speaker 1>long and drawn out argument that ended with his mother
<v Speaker 1>trying to attack him with a knife, but instead she
<v Speaker 1>tripped and fell on it. She now had a gaping
<v Speaker 1>wound that was spilling blood until there wasn't any left.
<v Speaker 2>There's no more blood coming out of the moon set off.
<v Speaker 1>The wound was so large that the only thing CPR
<v Speaker 1>had done was helped pump the rest of her blood
<v Speaker 1>out onto the kitchen floor. Only then did the dispatcher
<v Speaker 1>instruct him on how to stop the bleeding, get a clean,
<v Speaker 1>dry towel, and apply pressure to the wound. The only
<v Speaker 1>thing was she had no blo blood left. It was
<v Speaker 1>already too late.
<v Speaker 9>It felt like he fells.
<v Speaker 1>Even though he himself thought it was already too late.
<v Speaker 1>Callin followed the dispatcher's instructions until first responders arrived and
<v Speaker 1>flooded the quiet retirement community with flashing lights and sirens.
<v Speaker 7>As I walked into the house, I immediately began to
<v Speaker 7>clear the house as my partner walked up to Colin Griffith.
<v Speaker 7>And then after clearing the house, is when I walked
<v Speaker 7>back into the living room area made it known that
<v Speaker 7>it was clear, and that is when my partner advised
<v Speaker 7>me to take Colin Griffith outside.
<v Speaker 8>And while walking into the kitchen, I saw a knife,
<v Speaker 8>a blood covered knife over in front of the washer
<v Speaker 8>and dryer. To my left saw the subject in the kitchen.
<v Speaker 8>In the kitchen, I saw a large pool of blood
<v Speaker 8>around the subjects head. In that area was spatter going
<v Speaker 8>up the side of the cabinet.
<v Speaker 1>Deputies cleared the house so fire and rescue could enter.
<v Speaker 1>Say they made contact with Colin and immediately noticed something odd.
<v Speaker 8>For doing normal CPR and everything everybody, assuming everybody's been
<v Speaker 8>taught and seeing videos on doing CPR from beside, the
<v Speaker 8>person never overtopped their head, blocking air, possibly blocking airways.
<v Speaker 1>The home was narrow, no larger than a single wide trailer.
<v Speaker 1>There wasn't enough room for Colin to kneel next to
<v Speaker 1>his mother, so he knelt over her head, but from
<v Speaker 1>the looks of her wound, it didn't matter if he
<v Speaker 1>was doing it the right way.
<v Speaker 10>The stabloon itself did not seem to be very wide.
<v Speaker 10>It was kind of narrow in size. Upon for inspection
<v Speaker 10>after starting the CPR, it was obvious that every time
<v Speaker 10>I did a compression there was air that's coming through
<v Speaker 10>the wound itself, so it was obviously pretty deep. It
<v Speaker 10>looked like a lot of the vastulature and the stuff
<v Speaker 10>inside of the wound itself was very obvious and could
<v Speaker 10>be seen, and that they had cut major areas such as.
<v Speaker 1>Ars amts rushed inside and surrounded her body, but there
<v Speaker 1>was nothing they could do. Only thirteen minutes after the
<v Speaker 1>nine to one one call started, Kathy was pronounced deceased,
<v Speaker 1>but her cause of death was questionable. The EMTs didn't
<v Speaker 1>have all the information from the nine to one one call.
<v Speaker 1>They didn't know about the long fight. All they knew
<v Speaker 1>was what they saw, and it seemed improbable that Kathy
<v Speaker 1>tripped and stabbed herself directly in the jugular. The knife
<v Speaker 1>entered the front part of her neck and exited the
<v Speaker 1>back left. The entire prospect was too cartoonish. Stranger still
<v Speaker 1>was Colin's behavior in the moments after her first responders arrived.
<v Speaker 7>When I first walked him outside, he was a little
<v Speaker 7>bit frantic, seemed like something was definitely going on. And
<v Speaker 7>then as he began to explain what happened is when
<v Speaker 7>he became very calm.
<v Speaker 10>His demeanor completely changed from my personal experience. It was
<v Speaker 10>a little odd in nature. He didn't seem very distraught
<v Speaker 10>or upset. He seemed kind of calm upon my entering
<v Speaker 10>the residence, and then upon exiting the residence he seemed
<v Speaker 10>to almost have a not a full argument, but somewhat
<v Speaker 10>argumentative with the deputies that were trying to assist him
<v Speaker 10>out of the residence.
<v Speaker 1>He was calm, too calm. He had just witnessed his
<v Speaker 1>mother die, but he wasn't distraught, He wasn't even panicked
<v Speaker 1>like in the nine to one one call. Before deputies
<v Speaker 1>could ask him any questions, he exclaimed, I know my rights.
<v Speaker 1>I want an attorney. On the nine to one one call,
<v Speaker 1>he claimed her death was accidental after he and his
<v Speaker 1>mom got into an argument that got out of hand.
<v Speaker 1>Then he asked for a lawyer before any questions could
<v Speaker 1>be asked. But later he would offer up another explanation.
<v Speaker 1>He said he was on the floor and his mother
<v Speaker 1>was on top of him with a knife. She was
<v Speaker 1>bearing down, ready to stab him, when at the last second,
<v Speaker 1>he turned the blade towards her and she fell on it,
<v Speaker 1>just like in the movies. You know, Colin was placed
<v Speaker 1>in the back of a patrol car as the nervous
<v Speaker 1>neighbors looked on. Every law enforcement officer who witnessed the
<v Speaker 1>scene knew Kathy didn't fall on that knife, but the
<v Speaker 1>only person who could tell them what happened that just
<v Speaker 1>lawyered up was Kathy, a deranged mother in a homicidal rage.
<v Speaker 1>Was she mommy dearest? Or was Colin a cold and
<v Speaker 1>calculated killer. Only a thorough investigation would provide that answer.
<v Speaker 1>Inside the Hampton's, a quiet retirement community in Auburndale, Florida,
<v Speaker 1>seventeen year old Colin Griffith called nine to one one.
<v Speaker 1>A teenager in panic, He begged the dispatcher to save
<v Speaker 1>his mother as she bled from a wound to the neck,
<v Speaker 1>But when deputies arrived minutes later, they found it different. Colin,
<v Speaker 1>his mother, Kathy, lay in the kitchen. It was too
<v Speaker 1>late to help her, and the boy who sounded so
<v Speaker 1>desperate on the phone was now composed cold. Even what
<v Speaker 1>started as a call for help had become a homicide investigation.
<v Speaker 1>The scene inside the house was grim, but outside, others
<v Speaker 1>had seen and heard things that would soon cast Colin's
<v Speaker 1>story in more doubt. Neighbors along Hewlett Drive told investigators
<v Speaker 1>what they witnessed that evening.
<v Speaker 11>Let me start from the very starre Yeah, I got
<v Speaker 11>a phone call yes yesterday from the lady that owns
<v Speaker 11>the property, Because I do.
<v Speaker 10>When you see the property, what property are you referring to?
<v Speaker 4>The white house?
<v Speaker 12>Okay, the one that's directly across where the dead bees
<v Speaker 12>are at.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, what is the name of the lady you spoke with, Susan?
<v Speaker 4>Susan Durkham. I don't know how she's got a weird
<v Speaker 4>last name.
<v Speaker 1>The owner of the home was Colin's grandmother, Susan Debtman.
<v Speaker 1>She called her neighbor the day before to let her
<v Speaker 1>know Colin would be arriving and not to worry.
<v Speaker 11>My grandson is going to be coming to stay at
<v Speaker 11>my house. I just want to let you know if
<v Speaker 11>you see a black car in the driveway, it's my grandson.
<v Speaker 11>And I said, oh, okay, yeah, I know Colin. Yeah,
<v Speaker 11>no problem. That was the end of the conversation.
<v Speaker 1>Like any good neighbor, the residents of the Hamptons looked
<v Speaker 1>out for each other. I mean, they have a lot
<v Speaker 1>of free time on their hands. It is, after all,
<v Speaker 1>a retirement community.
<v Speaker 4>Now, that white car didn't show up till today.
<v Speaker 12>Do you know whose white car that is?
<v Speaker 4>As a young lady with dark hair.
<v Speaker 12>Have you ever seen her before?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I've sent her over there before.
<v Speaker 10>And you don't know who she is.
<v Speaker 4>Susan said, it's her daughter.
<v Speaker 1>Almost immediately after Colin's mother arrived, they started arguing.
<v Speaker 11>This car shows up today and she pulls in the driveway,
<v Speaker 11>and the kid comes out, and she backs out of
<v Speaker 11>the driveway and she pulls it right there, and she
<v Speaker 11>gets out with her purse and walks up there, and
<v Speaker 11>him and her started arguing and then start throwing stuff
<v Speaker 11>in the black guar.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know what it was. Looked like clothes and stuff.
<v Speaker 11>And next thing I know, he pulled her by the
<v Speaker 11>hair of the head and pulled her back into the house.
<v Speaker 1>This neighbor could hear the argument, but not what they
<v Speaker 1>were saying. Another neighbor heard a little more.
<v Speaker 4>Then I heard her say, let me go, let me go,
<v Speaker 4>and you got my head. You're hurting me. You're hurting me,
<v Speaker 4>and he drug her in the fills.
<v Speaker 1>Two neighbors witnessed the start of the argument. As soon
<v Speaker 1>as Kathy got out of her car, she started talking
<v Speaker 1>with Colin. The neighbors couldn't hear what they were saying,
<v Speaker 1>but their body language screamed argument. Then Colin grabbed a
<v Speaker 1>fistful of his mother's hair and pulled her inside as
<v Speaker 1>she yelled, let me go, you're hurting me.
<v Speaker 4>You know, I knew some problems as she had rid
<v Speaker 4>of runs.
<v Speaker 12>In before and those huh, what are those problems?
<v Speaker 11>Well, she said that the mother and the grandson were
<v Speaker 11>at each other last winter, and the grandson come and
<v Speaker 11>stayed here. I guess there was some problems here because
<v Speaker 11>the cops were out here two or three times last winter.
<v Speaker 1>Apparently this wasn't the first time Colin had fought with
<v Speaker 1>his mother. The previous year, Colin stayed with his grandmother
<v Speaker 1>to let things cool off between him and his mom,
<v Speaker 1>but the tension between them never left a simmering point.
<v Speaker 11>I called Susan. Sue's all this happened? I called Susan,
<v Speaker 11>I said, Susan's uth going on over to your house?
<v Speaker 11>I said, his cops everywhere. I said, you're great, and
<v Speaker 11>sons outside, it looks like he's crying. She said, where's
<v Speaker 11>my daughter?
<v Speaker 1>I said, I don't know that tension must have built
<v Speaker 1>and built, has it erupted in a fight in the
<v Speaker 1>driveway ending with Kathy being stabbed in the neck.
<v Speaker 11>And then while you guys are out there doing that,
<v Speaker 11>guess get what phone call?
<v Speaker 7>I get?
<v Speaker 4>His probation officer calls, who's that?
<v Speaker 12>Collins called you?
<v Speaker 4>Uh?
<v Speaker 13>Uh?
<v Speaker 4>If I heard the phone call in there It's from
<v Speaker 4>a nine four six number. And she says, is this
<v Speaker 4>kay Jones? I said yes.
<v Speaker 11>She said, well, I am calling so and so's probation officer.
<v Speaker 11>I'm a juvenile detention officer is calling okay? And I said, yeah,
<v Speaker 11>cop sitting out there talking to him. But I don't
<v Speaker 11>know anything else. And she said, did you hear any
<v Speaker 11>gunshots or anything?
<v Speaker 4>I said no. I said, what's going on? She said,
<v Speaker 4>is oh okay?
<v Speaker 11>And I said yeah.
<v Speaker 1>The neighbors at the Hamptons didn't know Colin's background, but
<v Speaker 1>a call from his juvenile probation officer hinted at him
<v Speaker 1>being a troubled teen. When his grandmother finally arrived home,
<v Speaker 1>she found her normally quiet street in chaos. Immediately she
<v Speaker 1>knew her daughter was dead, and she also knew who
<v Speaker 1>had done it.
<v Speaker 12>How was the relationship at the beginning.
<v Speaker 14>In the beginning, it was fine, okay, and then there
<v Speaker 14>started to be problems.
<v Speaker 12>Okay? Can you describe the problems?
<v Speaker 14>He didn't want to do what Kathy told him to do.
<v Speaker 14>Kathy would basically, you know, harp on him.
<v Speaker 1>When Colin attacked his mother and stomped on her hand.
<v Speaker 1>She was only trying to discipline her seventeen year old son.
<v Speaker 1>He hadn't done the chores she assigned him. She threatened
<v Speaker 1>to take away his xbox and cell phone. That's when
<v Speaker 1>Colin flipped out.
<v Speaker 14>So anyway, so I was there and he pushed her
<v Speaker 14>and stomped on her hand.
<v Speaker 1>Colin stood up, looked at his mother in the eye
<v Speaker 1>and said, let's go, before pushing her to the ground
<v Speaker 1>with a single move and stomping on her hand. Needless
<v Speaker 1>to say, the police were called.
<v Speaker 12>I'm in a constant state of thought.
<v Speaker 15>It by it, and I don't know if I think
<v Speaker 15>she's going to do something. Even if she's not, I
<v Speaker 15>might act. I'm not going to go crazy or anything,
<v Speaker 15>but I'm I'm not sure, honest.
<v Speaker 14>Yes, So then he was in the police squad. Cathy
<v Speaker 14>refused to go to the hospital for her hand mm hmmm.
<v Speaker 14>And he called me over to the police squad and said, Mama,
<v Speaker 14>you know she pushed me first. And I said, Colin,
<v Speaker 14>I was there, that's not what happened.
<v Speaker 4>I said, I.
<v Speaker 14>Agree that she was very aggressive to you. I said,
<v Speaker 14>but you pushed her and we talked about this, and
<v Speaker 14>then you stomped on her hand.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, tried to say she attacked him first, but his
<v Speaker 1>grandmother witnessed the whole thing. He was arrested and charged
<v Speaker 1>as a juvenile for domestic violence.
<v Speaker 14>So he was put on probation.
<v Speaker 12>Okay for that incident. Yes, was he charged with domestic violence?
<v Speaker 16>Yep, he was.
<v Speaker 14>He was. He was put on probation. He was supposed
<v Speaker 14>to be getting off of probation this month.
<v Speaker 1>Colin was processed, charged and sentenced to probation. The court
<v Speaker 1>recommended he remained separate from his mother for some time
<v Speaker 1>before going home, so he lived with his grandmother for
<v Speaker 1>a couple of weeks. As if that's a solution. Am
<v Speaker 1>I the only one noticing a lack of male paternal
<v Speaker 1>figures in Colin's life.
<v Speaker 14>When she came to pick him up, he ran away.
<v Speaker 14>So then he was gone for two days. We couldn't
<v Speaker 14>find him because she came and he looked at me
<v Speaker 14>and he said, you are fucking crazy. If you think
<v Speaker 14>that I'm getting in the car with my mom, you
<v Speaker 14>have gone completely nuts. And I went Colin, we talked
<v Speaker 14>about all this. He said, I'm not going back, and
<v Speaker 14>he took off. It was pouring down rain, So finally
<v Speaker 14>you all picked him up and took him to DHS
<v Speaker 14>or whatever it's called in this state, you know, the yes.
<v Speaker 14>So he ran away from df DSF dyslexic much he
<v Speaker 14>was out again. So finally he was picked up and
<v Speaker 14>law enforcement brought him home. And that's when they said,
<v Speaker 14>we're going to have lease coming, you know every so often,
<v Speaker 14>like every day, it's anywhere from I think seven in
<v Speaker 14>the morning to midnight, to check and make sure you
<v Speaker 14>guys are okay.
<v Speaker 1>After a couple of weeks, said his grandmother's, Colin refused
<v Speaker 1>to return to his mother's house. He ran off into
<v Speaker 1>the rain and was gone for two days. When the
<v Speaker 1>police finally found him, they took him into the Crisis
<v Speaker 1>Stabilization Unit CSU is a short term, specialized facility that
<v Speaker 1>provides immediate, round the clock psychiatric care and support for
<v Speaker 1>individuals experiencing a severe mental health crisis, such as suicidal thoughts,
<v Speaker 1>severe agitation, or psychosis. There, Colin was evaluated, deemed not
<v Speaker 1>a threat to himself for others, and released. They love
<v Speaker 1>their catch and release at these places because they just
<v Speaker 1>don't have the money, the funding, the beds to keep people.
<v Speaker 1>Why is that when we spend so much money in
<v Speaker 1>this country, so much more than we even make really
<v Speaker 1>in taxes every year. We can't even provide basic services.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder who's sneaking into the cookie jar when we're
<v Speaker 1>not looking. Anyway, the front doors opened wide for Colin
<v Speaker 1>and he walked straight out of that facility, cured supposedly.
<v Speaker 10>And when the doors opened, young man came straight up
<v Speaker 10>to me and approached me and said, I needed to
<v Speaker 10>be baker acting. Were you surprised to hear that?
<v Speaker 14>Oh?
<v Speaker 10>Yeah, busically people want to leave.
<v Speaker 17>Did you ask him why he said that, Yes.
<v Speaker 2>I did. It's unusual.
<v Speaker 10>He said, I need to be baker acted because I'm
<v Speaker 10>either going to go kill myself or and he said
<v Speaker 10>his mother.
<v Speaker 1>Colin didn't want to go back home with his mom.
<v Speaker 1>He went further, saying he would throw them out of
<v Speaker 1>the car, shoot them, or stab them. He also mentioned
<v Speaker 1>that his grandmother wasn't safe if he went home with
<v Speaker 1>her either. Maybe sometimes we should listen to these people
<v Speaker 1>when they're telling us exactly what they're going to do. No, okay,
<v Speaker 1>suit yourself. Colin was placed on a psychiatric hold for
<v Speaker 1>three more days. Eventually he had to go back home
<v Speaker 1>with his mom. Though anyway, for a while, everything was okay,
<v Speaker 1>A couple of officers were signed to him, and they
<v Speaker 1>would check in at random times every day to ensure
<v Speaker 1>he and his mom were okay. He even started to
<v Speaker 1>go to church with one of the officers. He graduated
<v Speaker 1>from high school a year early, got a job, and
<v Speaker 1>enrolled in college. Then the tension between him and his
<v Speaker 1>mom arose again. By September seventh, twenty twenty four, the
<v Speaker 1>day before Kathy's death, they were doing nothing but arguing.
<v Speaker 14>So Colin called me at one and said, my mom
<v Speaker 14>kicked me out. What am I supposed to do? I said,
<v Speaker 14>you need to go back home? He said, no, no,
<v Speaker 14>I don't feel comfortable.
<v Speaker 1>Kathy had kicked him out of the house, so Colin
<v Speaker 1>loaded up his car and went to Grandma Susan's. Susan
<v Speaker 1>was once again inserted into the middle of the argument.
<v Speaker 1>She spoke with Kathy and even though she kicked him out,
<v Speaker 1>she now demanded that he come home the next morning.
<v Speaker 14>She wanted Colin to be at home at ten o'clock.
<v Speaker 12>In the morning. In the morning, yes, okay, she said.
<v Speaker 14>If not, she was calling the police. She was training
<v Speaker 14>him in as a runaway. I said, he can't be
<v Speaker 14>turned in in a runaway. He's at my house. And
<v Speaker 14>Detective Lacey even said that's fine, and she said, well,
<v Speaker 14>he didn't tell his probation officer. I said, yes, he did.
<v Speaker 14>He left a message that he was going to his
<v Speaker 14>grandmother's house. Yes, she said, I'm going to come and
<v Speaker 14>get him. He's going to follow me with with his car.
<v Speaker 14>He didn't have gas. She had blocked his checking account,
<v Speaker 14>his check card, so he didn't have access to that.
<v Speaker 14>I told Colin, I said, your mom's going to be there.
<v Speaker 4>I said, don't touch her.
<v Speaker 17>Be nice.
<v Speaker 1>Sadly, Colin didn't take that advice. Kathy lay lifeless on
<v Speaker 1>her mother's kitchen floor in a pool of blood. Colin
<v Speaker 1>sat in the back of a patrol car, waiting to
<v Speaker 1>be taken to the station and charged with murder. In
<v Speaker 1>the days that followed, detectives spoke with the rest of
<v Speaker 1>Colin's family, trying to understand exactly what had happened between
<v Speaker 1>him and his mother. His grandfather wasn't surprised at all.
<v Speaker 2>He and his mom were having difficulties and when she'd
<v Speaker 2>set down limits on behavior, he would not just rebel,
<v Speaker 2>he would become violent. And they had asked me because
<v Speaker 2>Susan said, hey, can't. I can't deal with this and
<v Speaker 2>he can't be with Kathy because he's threaten to kill her.
<v Speaker 2>And I said, he's starting to kill you too, right, Susan?
<v Speaker 2>She said, well, yes, of course he has. I said, okay,
<v Speaker 2>And I told her multiple times I don't care what
<v Speaker 2>you have to do get rid of the boy. Well
<v Speaker 2>will you take him?
<v Speaker 4>I said, hell no, I just know, but hell no.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that boy is thrashed in the head. He is weaponized.
<v Speaker 2>He is going to kill you, your mother me.
<v Speaker 1>Colin's grandfather painted a frightening picture of Colin and Kathy's relationship.
<v Speaker 1>He was a violent teenager who didn't like authority or responsibility.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, who does really. Both Grandma Susan and Kathy
<v Speaker 1>were afraid of him. But what do you do where
<v Speaker 1>a seventeen year old You can't control ladies any ideas? Man,
<v Speaker 1>This society is cooked, isn't it.
<v Speaker 2>He also told me in detail four months ago, how
<v Speaker 2>he wanted to murder his mother and he really wanted
<v Speaker 2>to literally see the blood squirt out of her neck.
<v Speaker 2>That's what he wanted.
<v Speaker 12>He told you this four months ago.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, weren't anything else he wanted that I mean,
<v Speaker 2>he talked about strangling earth, and he said, but I
<v Speaker 2>could do that, But really, what I want to do
<v Speaker 2>is I want to watch the blood squirt out of
<v Speaker 2>her and watch the life squirt out of her. I said,
<v Speaker 2>that's not really good. He goes, yeah, but it's what
<v Speaker 2>I want to do. And so I just let the
<v Speaker 2>kid go and be like, well, tell me more, tell
<v Speaker 2>me more. This sounds interesting. Yeah, Oh, I want to
<v Speaker 2>see the gore. I want to watch it pump out
<v Speaker 2>of her.
<v Speaker 12>Wow, if you are the.
<v Speaker 2>Puppy, he goes, yeah, it did, well, that'd be a
<v Speaker 2>lot of power. He goes yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Detectives were building a case. The story of the fight
<v Speaker 1>and falling on a knife was way too far fetched.
<v Speaker 1>Colin seemed to be troubled, and there were records of
<v Speaker 1>this with every interaction he had with law enforcement and
<v Speaker 1>the Department of Children and Families. Even his own grandfather
<v Speaker 1>saw him as a danger to those around him, and
<v Speaker 1>there was a big reason for this, As if the
<v Speaker 1>murder of a woman by her teenage son wasn't horrific enough.
<v Speaker 1>The Polk County Sheriff held yet another press conference to
<v Speaker 1>inform the public of the rest of the story.
<v Speaker 16>A cold blooded murder of a thirty nine year old
<v Speaker 16>mother by her seventeen year old son. It all started
<v Speaker 16>on September the eighth, which was this last Sunday, when
<v Speaker 16>we got a nine to one to one call from
<v Speaker 16>Colin Griffith, who's seventeen years of age. Here's what he said.
<v Speaker 16>He said he and his mother had a very long
<v Speaker 16>fight and she fell on a knife and killed herself
<v Speaker 16>when the deputies arrived. He met the deputies outside and
<v Speaker 16>he was calm, cool, collected, not upset, and he had
<v Speaker 16>blood on him. What we found inside was this knife.
<v Speaker 16>This knife is twelve inches long, and of the twelve inches,
<v Speaker 16>eight inches of that it is the blade. So he
<v Speaker 16>said that his mother fell on this knife. The medical
<v Speaker 16>examiner said it is not reasonable or plausible that she
<v Speaker 16>died the way that he said she did.
<v Speaker 4>Just didn't happen.
<v Speaker 16>There were witnesses outside the mobile home that actually saw
<v Speaker 16>Colin dragged his mother into the house by the hair
<v Speaker 16>on her head. Colin is about six foot and one
<v Speaker 16>hundred and sixty pounds.
<v Speaker 1>That wasn't even the most damning evidence that Colin had
<v Speaker 1>purposefully killed his mother.
<v Speaker 16>But let me go through some details because as we
<v Speaker 16>start to peel back the layer of this onion. We
<v Speaker 16>find out that this is not just a singular event,
<v Speaker 16>with Colin stabbing his mother in the neck and ultimately
<v Speaker 16>killing her. Here's what we found, and follow me as
<v Speaker 16>I read a timeline to you. February fourteenth, twenty twenty three,
<v Speaker 16>on Valentine's Day, Lincoln County, Oklahoma, Colin said that his
<v Speaker 16>dad pulled a knife on him and he shot and
<v Speaker 16>killed his dad. That's right. His father was named Charles.
<v Speaker 16>He shot him once in the chest and once in
<v Speaker 16>the head, and he claimed self defense.
<v Speaker 1>That's right. Colin had killed his father just nineteen months
<v Speaker 1>earlier in Oklahoma. But the pieces starting to fit together yet.
<v Speaker 13>Dispatch got a call of a shooting. We responded, had
<v Speaker 13>a fifteen year old male caller on the phone said
<v Speaker 13>that his dad had a knife and had him cornered
<v Speaker 13>and he had to shoot him. Dad has a girlfriend
<v Speaker 13>at fiance that was at the grocery store, and so
<v Speaker 13>she's returned since then and we've talked to her, so
<v Speaker 13>she's been notified as well. There are several firearms in there,
<v Speaker 13>so I don't know. We haven't done any kind of
<v Speaker 13>trace or anything on that yet. There is lots of
<v Speaker 13>guns in the house.
<v Speaker 16>The Lincoln County Sheriff's office and the Oklahoma stbuta of
<v Speaker 16>investigations charged Colin with murder in the first degree. They
<v Speaker 16>dropped the charges less than a month later. They said
<v Speaker 16>they could not disprove Collins's assertion of self defense, so
<v Speaker 16>he was released.
<v Speaker 1>He claimed self defense, and a month later all charges
<v Speaker 1>were dropped. He just spent a couple of weeks in
<v Speaker 1>jail and that was it. Shortly after, Oklahoma sent him
<v Speaker 1>to his mother in Florida. There he was arrested for
<v Speaker 1>beating up his mom, ran away, and was put on
<v Speaker 1>psychiatric hold twice. If only humans were good at seeing patterns,
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 16>So now we're to the faithful day on September eighth.
<v Speaker 16>Our investigation clearly and unequivocally shows that that circumstance did
<v Speaker 16>not occur like that. In fact, he used similar language
<v Speaker 16>to when he made the nine to one to one
<v Speaker 16>call what eighteen or twenty months earlier, when he shot
<v Speaker 16>and killed his father.
<v Speaker 1>The authorities did notice a pattern. Well, it was possible
<v Speaker 1>that Colin acted in self defense against one parent. It's
<v Speaker 1>highly improbable that he would have done so again with
<v Speaker 1>a different one for me once, shame on you for
<v Speaker 1>me twice, and we won't be fooled again, or some
<v Speaker 1>shit I don't remember.
<v Speaker 16>It's important to understand. When you look at this, you
<v Speaker 16>see a kid. When I look at him, I see
<v Speaker 16>a psychopath. I see totally erratic behavior, to the point
<v Speaker 16>that he's all ready, at seventeen years of age, shot
<v Speaker 16>and killed his father and got away with it, and
<v Speaker 16>stabbed his mother in the neck so hard that the
<v Speaker 16>knife went all the way through and was to the
<v Speaker 16>back of her neck and she died there. He's being
<v Speaker 16>charged with first degree murder, obviously, and we're asking the
<v Speaker 16>State Attorneys office. It's their decision, but our State Attorney's
<v Speaker 16>office is the greatest to prosecute him as an adult.
<v Speaker 16>Now he's killed two people and killed his mother and father,
<v Speaker 16>and I can assure you beyond into the exclusion of
<v Speaker 16>every reasonable doubt based upon his conduct, had he gone
<v Speaker 16>to live with his grandmother at the end of this
<v Speaker 16>and she crossed him, she would be next. He's violent,
<v Speaker 16>he's dangerous. He showed zero remorse, zero remorse. He is
<v Speaker 16>a dangerous human being. Nothing gives you the right to
<v Speaker 16>unilatterly stab your mother and kill her.
<v Speaker 12>And I'm not.
<v Speaker 16>Convinced based upon what I know now. Now Oklahoma didn't
<v Speaker 16>know this then, there were no witnesses to him shooting
<v Speaker 16>his dad. I'm not sure now that he didn't set
<v Speaker 16>his dad up to murder him.
<v Speaker 1>It turns out that Colin's story was much more complicated
<v Speaker 1>than anyone realized. It started long before he was even born.
<v Speaker 1>Colin's aunt, Christine says it all started back when Kathy
<v Speaker 1>was only thirteen.
<v Speaker 18>Her ex husband actually had to crush on me and
<v Speaker 18>was pursuing me. And when I was like, I am
<v Speaker 18>not interested.
<v Speaker 1>Aunt Christine is talking about Charles Griffith, Colin's father and
<v Speaker 1>Kathy's ex husband, who everyone called Chuck.
<v Speaker 18>But when I finally like, was like, you got to stop,
<v Speaker 18>he well, actually he didn't stop. He kept calling my
<v Speaker 18>house and then he would start talking to my sister.
<v Speaker 18>He just latched onto her.
<v Speaker 1>Chuck pursued Christine and called her house all the time.
<v Speaker 1>But when she told Chuck she wasn't interested, he went
<v Speaker 1>for the next best thing, her younger sister. They became
<v Speaker 1>inseparable in a bad way.
<v Speaker 18>We found out that she was pregnant shortly after one
<v Speaker 18>of her mini runaway incidentss and I begged her to
<v Speaker 18>give the baby up for adoption because I knew that
<v Speaker 18>if she hadn't, that her life with Chuck was never
<v Speaker 18>going to be good. So anyway, obviously she didn't. Christopher
<v Speaker 18>is here.
<v Speaker 19>Well, so they end up getting married, and she's married
<v Speaker 19>at a really young age fourteen. He's what now, seventeen
<v Speaker 19>eighteen at that point.
<v Speaker 18>No, no, no, okay, she was nineteen when he got
<v Speaker 18>her pregnant at thirteen.
<v Speaker 1>When Kathy got pregnant at thirteen, her mother gave her
<v Speaker 1>a choice, put up the baby for adoption or mary Chuck.
<v Speaker 1>She chose poorly. She chose to marry Chuck.
<v Speaker 18>So at fourteen, she got her ged and she started
<v Speaker 18>taking college classes. Because Chuck never had a job, never
<v Speaker 18>had a job, but he always girls.
<v Speaker 12>He never was a teacher or anything like that.
<v Speaker 18>Oh no, no, he was a teacher. That's how he
<v Speaker 18>found the little girls. But Kathy got his degree for
<v Speaker 18>him online.
<v Speaker 1>Oh wow, okay, yeah, of course he liked little girls.
<v Speaker 1>He impregnated a thirteen year old after he was already
<v Speaker 1>a legal adult. Kathy and Chuck got married and moved
<v Speaker 1>into their own house to playhouse. Kathy gave birth to
<v Speaker 1>their first son, Christopher, and then attended school online. She
<v Speaker 1>got teaching degrees for herself and for Chuck, but Chuck
<v Speaker 1>used that degree not to teach, but to get close
<v Speaker 1>to underage girls. That is, until he would get caught
<v Speaker 1>and he would get fired. Chuck was unemployed a lot.
<v Speaker 1>The family moved often, presumably for work and to escape
<v Speaker 1>whatever stigma Chuck stirred up being the pedo that he was.
<v Speaker 1>Fast forward to twenty nineteen and the family was in Florida.
<v Speaker 18>But I guess Kathy had a student that she was
<v Speaker 18>kind of kind of adopted for lack of better words.
<v Speaker 4>Her name was Gabby.
<v Speaker 18>Gabby like you move in with them, I mean Kathy.
<v Speaker 18>Kathy called Gabby her daughter, and then it turns out
<v Speaker 18>that Chuck and her were in a relationship, and Chuck
<v Speaker 18>left Kathy for Gabby.
<v Speaker 1>Kathy had taken a sixteen year old student named Gabby
<v Speaker 1>under her wing and into her home. It was an
<v Speaker 1>act of compassion for a young girl with few options. Chuck,
<v Speaker 1>on the other hand, suddenly had a young girl living
<v Speaker 1>in his house. Oh boy. When Kathy discovered the affair,
<v Speaker 1>it was the final straw she had put up with
<v Speaker 1>his infidelity long enough, the divorce was nasty. Colin's older brother,
<v Speaker 1>Christopher was already out of high school, so Kathy and
<v Speaker 1>Charles fought over twelve year old Colin. Eventually, Charles, Colin,
<v Speaker 1>and Gabby moved to Oklahoma. Colin became separated from his
<v Speaker 1>mother and the rest of the family.
<v Speaker 4>Why was dad so bad to Colin?
<v Speaker 14>What did he do well? He isolated him. He wouldn't
<v Speaker 14>allow him to leave the farm, he wouldn't let him
<v Speaker 14>go to school. He refused to have him in Scouts,
<v Speaker 14>and he kept saying, I can't put him in school
<v Speaker 14>because I'm afraid Kathy will come to the school and
<v Speaker 14>bring DHS in and then they'll get involved, which DHS
<v Speaker 14>in Oklahoma did get involved, but all they said was
<v Speaker 14>they need family counseling, and they left it at that.
<v Speaker 14>Colin did have family counseling, it was court ordered and
<v Speaker 14>his father refused to take and he took him once
<v Speaker 14>and then he said, no, I'm not taking him back.
<v Speaker 19>So did they have any type of communication while he
<v Speaker 19>was in oklahom No.
<v Speaker 18>She would not let Colin talk.
<v Speaker 19>To Kathy at all, Like they never spoke or did
<v Speaker 19>she every once in a while, like Chris miss or birthdays,
<v Speaker 19>like how did she talk to him?
<v Speaker 18>Well, usually Chuck wanted extra money and then he would
<v Speaker 18>let her talk to him, but only on speaker phone
<v Speaker 18>in front of him. There was one time where he
<v Speaker 18>got a phone and called Taffy and then when Chuck
<v Speaker 18>found out about it, he really really beat him.
<v Speaker 1>For three years, Colin only had his father and the
<v Speaker 1>barely older Gabby to interact with. Things were bad and
<v Speaker 1>only got worse.
<v Speaker 12>Go back three years.
<v Speaker 9>I let him to fourteen years old, Like he's still
<v Speaker 9>wearing the same clothes as an eleven year old was
<v Speaker 9>wearing as a fourteen year old. Was is to the
<v Speaker 9>point that one of my siblings are on My mother said, like, hey,
<v Speaker 9>the shoes that he had weren't fitting him there this
<v Speaker 9>is the point that his toes.
<v Speaker 12>Were like crunched up and punched up.
<v Speaker 9>And everything like the shirts and pants and everything that
<v Speaker 9>he was wearing like barely fit him where they were
<v Speaker 9>too tight.
<v Speaker 12>He was malnourished.
<v Speaker 9>Him just going to like a Walmart with my sister
<v Speaker 9>was causing them to have social anxiety and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 9>which he said.
<v Speaker 6>His main food so a week was like a gallon
<v Speaker 6>of milk steak and potatoes. I had to teach him
<v Speaker 6>how to like use a towel after a show because
<v Speaker 6>when he first originally got here, he would just come
<v Speaker 6>out of a show and put his clothes on it
<v Speaker 6>drip rod. In my head, that's triggering, you know, some
<v Speaker 6>type of abuse, because when you're that age, tell do
<v Speaker 6>you not know how to use a shadow?
<v Speaker 14>He was on a futon mattress in the laundry room.
<v Speaker 1>As Colin got older and entered puberty, he discovered his sexuality,
<v Speaker 1>another thing Chuck had a problem with.
<v Speaker 14>Colin said that his dad would have sex sat right
<v Speaker 14>in the next bedroom with him so that he could
<v Speaker 14>hear everything that was going on, because Colin felt that
<v Speaker 14>he was gay, and so the dad was trying to
<v Speaker 14>change him out of being gay.
<v Speaker 12>Colin felt that he was gay.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, okay, yeah, you realize how mentally perverted Barrels was.
<v Speaker 2>He'd beat Kathy, he'd beat the kids. I mean, this
<v Speaker 2>guy was. This guy was a major psychological manipulator and
<v Speaker 2>abuser physically mentally. But this guy was a complete psychopath.
<v Speaker 1>Finally, on Valentine's Day twenty twenty three, while Gabby was
<v Speaker 1>out of the house, Colin shot and killed his father.
<v Speaker 14>The dad refused to let Colin have anything to do
<v Speaker 14>with his mom, but Colin wanted to leave. He wanted
<v Speaker 14>to live with his mom, but the dad cornered him
<v Speaker 14>or either cornered or the wall and had a knife
<v Speaker 14>and said, you're going to stay into this tape recording
<v Speaker 14>that you want to live with me, and that's all
<v Speaker 14>there is to it. I'm not going to to court
<v Speaker 14>and be embarrassed by you saying you want to live
<v Speaker 14>with your mom. And so, as I said, he had
<v Speaker 14>twenty three guns loaded in the house. And so when
<v Speaker 14>he went back, one of the pistols was right there,
<v Speaker 14>and he pulled in and shot him.
<v Speaker 12>Was his dad like backing him into a corner?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Colin called nine one one and explained that his father
<v Speaker 1>had attacked him with a knife and he shot him
<v Speaker 1>in self defense. The police arrested him and pressed charges,
<v Speaker 1>only to drop them a month later. They couldn't prove
<v Speaker 1>it was or wasn't self defense.
<v Speaker 2>Good mother and his grandmother, Susan, knew that he had
<v Speaker 2>murdered his father because he admitted it to both of them.
<v Speaker 19>Did he admit to killing him and self defense or
<v Speaker 19>did he admit just to killing him.
<v Speaker 2>He admitted to setting the whole thing.
<v Speaker 12>Up, to setting the whole thing up.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I told Colin, I said, Colin, I don't
<v Speaker 2>agree with what you did, but you know what, I
<v Speaker 2>thought you of.
<v Speaker 10>Beer and give you a fucking award.
<v Speaker 2>You took the trash out. Thank you.
<v Speaker 1>Let's face it, Chuck was a real piece of shit.
<v Speaker 1>Perhaps the police in Oklahoma looked at this meek little
<v Speaker 1>kid and felt pity. Why charge Colin with murder if
<v Speaker 1>no one was going to miss Chuck after all? But
<v Speaker 1>now with his mother's death, it changed the way everyone
<v Speaker 1>saw his self defense claim. Paul County deputies found Colin
<v Speaker 1>Griffith calm after the death of his mother, her lifeless
<v Speaker 1>body just a few feet away. He claimed it was
<v Speaker 1>self defense. She attacked him and stabbed herself in the
<v Speaker 1>neck somehow, but neighbors saw him drag her into the
<v Speaker 1>house by her hair. His grandmother described arguments, fights, and
<v Speaker 1>threats of violence, even murder. After his arrest, the sheriff
<v Speaker 1>revealed this wasn't his first murder. Eighteen months earlier, he
<v Speaker 1>shot and killed his father, one to the chest and
<v Speaker 1>one to the head. Family members described a life of
<v Speaker 1>isolation neglect and abuse at the hands of a pedophile father.
<v Speaker 1>They thought he did it on purpose, but they couldn't
<v Speaker 1>blame him. After charges in Oklahoma were dropped, Colin moved
<v Speaker 1>back in with his mother, Kathy. On the surface, it
<v Speaker 1>looked like stability. She took him on trips bottom clothes,
<v Speaker 1>got him back in school, and tried to give him
<v Speaker 1>the kind of normal teenage life he'd never had.
<v Speaker 3>She was trying to help call and reorient to a
<v Speaker 3>life where he wasn't just stuck out in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of nowhere. So they did things like they went to Washington,
<v Speaker 3>d C. They went to White House, they went all
<v Speaker 3>over DC, saw everything in orders to see there. She
<v Speaker 3>took him on trips to Central America to Caribbean. She
<v Speaker 3>was trying to get him back into as close as
<v Speaker 3>she could in normal life and create opportunities that the
<v Speaker 3>two of them missed for so many years.
<v Speaker 1>But Colin was basically an only child for three years.
<v Speaker 1>He wasn't required to do much. I mean, he didn't
<v Speaker 1>even have to go to school. Besides, he had the
<v Speaker 1>barely older soon to be stepmom, Gabby to pick up
<v Speaker 1>after him. So when Kathy started requiring chores, Colin would rebel,
<v Speaker 1>and Kathy would push even harder.
<v Speaker 12>I feel like.
<v Speaker 18>She wanted to get back an eight year old little boy,
<v Speaker 18>but that is not what.
<v Speaker 1>She got back.
<v Speaker 18>Yeah, I know she wanted the best for him, but
<v Speaker 18>she just pushed so much on him.
<v Speaker 4>He's got to take these college classes.
<v Speaker 18>He's got to do this for bright future scholarship. He's
<v Speaker 18>gotta you know, he's got to help the chores, and
<v Speaker 18>just so much, so fast. And I was like, Kathy,
<v Speaker 18>just let him take normal classes. Don't don't make him
<v Speaker 18>take a college class.
<v Speaker 12>And I said that to my mom, and she was like,
<v Speaker 12>but it was the same credit. And I was like,
<v Speaker 12>you're missing the point.
<v Speaker 4>I don't care if it's.
<v Speaker 18>The same credit or not if a kid who has
<v Speaker 18>not been in.
<v Speaker 5>School in three years.
<v Speaker 18>But she just pushed him so hard.
<v Speaker 1>It didn't take long for Colin's teenage stubbornness to outlast
<v Speaker 1>Kathy's willpower. Pushing him harder didn't seem to work.
<v Speaker 14>Because she said that he wasn't following the rules, he
<v Speaker 14>wasn't doing the chores that she wouldn't. He wouldn't help
<v Speaker 14>her put a bookshelf up on the wall. It was
<v Speaker 14>last bookshelf to put on and she just has had
<v Speaker 14>it with him. She said, you know, he has food
<v Speaker 14>all over his room. He's not supposed to. We have ants.
<v Speaker 1>Now, when all of her efforts to teach her son
<v Speaker 1>responsibility failed, she decided to teach him some accountability. She
<v Speaker 1>turned to punishment.
<v Speaker 18>Here's something about Kathy that I think is really important
<v Speaker 18>to know.
<v Speaker 12>When Kathy gets hurt.
<v Speaker 18>She doesn't get sad, like when her feelings are hurt.
<v Speaker 4>She doesn't get sad.
<v Speaker 18>She just gets mad, but like rage mad.
<v Speaker 1>When Kathy punished Colin, she didn't just stop with taking
<v Speaker 1>away his phone.
<v Speaker 14>I'm selling his car to CarMax. I'm just enrolling him
<v Speaker 14>from school. I'm taking away his computer, and I'm cutting
<v Speaker 14>off his phone.
<v Speaker 1>She wouldn't just take away one thing. She would take
<v Speaker 1>away everything in the world that he loved. She would
<v Speaker 1>even shut off his debit card. But when that didn't work, you.
<v Speaker 14>Know, she made him bend over. She hit him with
<v Speaker 14>a belt. Then after that she grabbed a big ten
<v Speaker 14>pound or twenty pound weight.
<v Speaker 1>She would make Colin hold this twenty pound weight over
<v Speaker 1>his head for extended periods of time as punishment, and
<v Speaker 1>the belt, well, it didn't hurt as much as it humiliated.
<v Speaker 1>So life went on for eighteen months. It was a
<v Speaker 1>cycle of failed responsibilities and humiliating punishments. Then Kathy started
<v Speaker 1>to crack.
<v Speaker 14>So for a while everything seemed to be fine, and
<v Speaker 14>then Kathy started having her problems with I want to
<v Speaker 14>kill myself.
<v Speaker 4>I hate life.
<v Speaker 14>She kept saying that her life just wasn't the way
<v Speaker 14>it was supposed to be, that Colin wasn't the way
<v Speaker 14>he was supposed to be, that he was too much
<v Speaker 14>like his dad.
<v Speaker 1>Kathy had battled with suicidal thoughts in the past, but
<v Speaker 1>now they were back, and it was bad. She even
<v Speaker 1>made an attempt.
<v Speaker 14>She said, I'm taking all the metaprobrile, all her heart medicine,
<v Speaker 14>and Colin took her. I told Colin take her to
<v Speaker 14>the er.
<v Speaker 18>But it got to the point where it was almost
<v Speaker 18>like psychologically abusive, you know, just the constant I off
<v Speaker 18>is so terrible.
<v Speaker 12>Nothing's supposed to be this way.
<v Speaker 18>I can't do this anymore. She was drinking, she was drugging,
<v Speaker 18>she was yelling at him, she was being mean to
<v Speaker 18>him physically, mentally, all the things.
<v Speaker 19>I mean, it sounds like he's going He went through
<v Speaker 19>the same thing on both sides separate times.
<v Speaker 1>Colin's older brother, Chris, witnessed this behavior as well.
<v Speaker 9>She would kick me out of the house, she would
<v Speaker 9>get drunk, she would abuse her pills and she.
<v Speaker 17>Which is toxic, and no other way.
<v Speaker 2>To put it.
<v Speaker 1>Unsurprisingly, after his arrest, the state attorney made the announcement
<v Speaker 1>everyone was waiting for.
<v Speaker 20>I'm Brian Hawes, State Attorney for the ten Judicial Circuit
<v Speaker 20>of Florida. The Polk County Grand Jury indicted Colin Griffith
<v Speaker 20>on the charge of first degree murder for the killing
<v Speaker 20>of his mother in Olmerdale last week. I made the
<v Speaker 20>decision to charge this seventeen year old as an adult
<v Speaker 20>based upon the egregious facts and circumstances of this case.
<v Speaker 20>Polk County Law Enforcement continues to work with the authorities
<v Speaker 20>in Oklahoma to be sure they are provided all relevant
<v Speaker 20>information and evidence that will allow them to continue to
<v Speaker 20>evaluate their case as they deem necessary. My prosecutors and
<v Speaker 20>the deputies from the Polk County Sheriff's Office will continue
<v Speaker 20>to work together to pursue justice in this case and
<v Speaker 20>hold Colin Griffith accountable for his murder.
<v Speaker 1>Colin pleaded not guilty to one count of kidnapping, for
<v Speaker 1>dragging his mother inside by her hair, and one count
<v Speaker 1>of premeditated murder. His eventual trial would last five days.
<v Speaker 1>The prosecution portrayed him as a cold and calculated killer.
<v Speaker 17>This bloodlust, the defendant sits there a guilty person who
<v Speaker 17>stabbed his own mother in the neck and then watched
<v Speaker 17>her bleed out in front of him. That death was
<v Speaker 17>not instantaneous. She bled internally, she bled externally. She was
<v Speaker 17>fighting to get up. She's got a gaping open wound
<v Speaker 17>in her neck. Compliments of her song, Thanks Colin Griffith,
<v Speaker 17>appreciate that the lady that brought him into this world
<v Speaker 17>here on earth, he took out of this world and
<v Speaker 17>this earth. The reality of what that person did to
<v Speaker 17>his mom is a second by second nightmare for her.
<v Speaker 17>She left this world knowing that the person that took
<v Speaker 17>her out was the sun that she gave everything to.
<v Speaker 17>But the reality of it for what the defenders accomplished,
<v Speaker 17>which is exactly exactly what he wanted to do. For
<v Speaker 17>so the writing was on the wall, ladies and gentlemen,
<v Speaker 17>The writing was on the wall. The defendant knew what
<v Speaker 17>he wanted to do, and it was just a matter
<v Speaker 17>of time. If nothing else. He's a man of his word.
<v Speaker 17>He said he would kill his mom, and he took
<v Speaker 17>her out. But you know what, now he's in a
<v Speaker 17>court of law. Now he has to suffer whatever comes
<v Speaker 17>his way in the form of a verdict, and that
<v Speaker 17>verdict is guilty.
<v Speaker 1>The defense portrayed him as a kid unable to escape
<v Speaker 1>a toxic mother.
<v Speaker 5>I think about this all the times that you've heard
<v Speaker 5>about Colin saying I don't feel safe. If my mom
<v Speaker 5>attacks me, I'll defend myself. If she comes at me,
<v Speaker 5>if she pulls a gun on me, if she punches me,
<v Speaker 5>I'll defend myself. Remember, Colin told people that he would
<v Speaker 5>rather be in the Baker Rack facility. He would rather
<v Speaker 5>be in jail, He would rather be in foster care
<v Speaker 5>than at home with his mond. And the state wants
<v Speaker 5>you to believe that Colin is just a brat who
<v Speaker 5>didn't like the discipline he gut, so he murdered his mom.
<v Speaker 5>That's also absurd because, as the state has pointed out
<v Speaker 5>many times, Colin had what they think is a great
<v Speaker 5>life with mom. Right, so he gets to go on trips,
<v Speaker 5>absolutely got to go on trips. He lives in a clean,
<v Speaker 5>nice organized home with plenty of food. Yes, he has
<v Speaker 5>a phone, he has an Xbox, he has a computer.
<v Speaker 5>He gets to go to college. Don't you think Colin,
<v Speaker 5>as smart as he was to be able to graduate early,
<v Speaker 5>would know that if he actually were to be placed
<v Speaker 5>in the baker Ac facility, or remain in jail, or
<v Speaker 5>went into foster care instead of going home with his mom,
<v Speaker 5>with whom he didn't feel safe, he would get none
<v Speaker 5>of those wonderful things, none of them. He would not
<v Speaker 5>have a phone, he would not have an Xbox, he
<v Speaker 5>would not go on trips all over the country or
<v Speaker 5>the world. And yet he still said, please rebakeer act me.
<v Speaker 5>Please don't send me home from jail with my mom. Please,
<v Speaker 5>I'd rather go to foster care.
<v Speaker 1>They blamed the I mean they brought up Kathy's mental
<v Speaker 1>health struggles, is what I meant to say as proof
<v Speaker 1>of her toxicity, while also providing another what if scenario.
<v Speaker 5>Isn't it also reasonable that Kathy knew what the outcome
<v Speaker 5>was going to be. She picked up a knife and
<v Speaker 5>threatened calling with it. You've heard of suicide by cop.
<v Speaker 5>Isn't it reasonable to think that Kathy committed suicide by son?
<v Speaker 5>She had never been able to successfully commit suicide before,
<v Speaker 5>despite her many attempts.
<v Speaker 1>They also tried to say that if Colin were a
<v Speaker 1>rage filled monster, wouldn't he have killed her? I don't
<v Speaker 1>know harder.
<v Speaker 5>They tried to get you to believe that Colin was
<v Speaker 5>rage filled and hate filled, and all of these malicious
<v Speaker 5>thoughts were geared towards his mom. If you believe that,
<v Speaker 5>beyond a reasonable doubt, don't you think there'd be more
<v Speaker 5>than just one wound on Kathy? Don't you expect that
<v Speaker 5>there would be five, ten, twenty stab wounds. That's something
<v Speaker 5>you can consider too.
<v Speaker 1>After the closing arguments, twelve of Colin's peers retired to
<v Speaker 1>the jury room. They would deliberate for eleven hours, pushing
<v Speaker 1>proceedings into the following day before returning a verdict. When
<v Speaker 1>Colin entered the courtroom, he smiled at his grandma Susan
<v Speaker 1>in the gallery before sitting between his defense attorneys. Then
<v Speaker 1>the jury entered the room.
<v Speaker 21>State of Florida Versus Colin Griffin, with the jury fin
<v Speaker 21>as follow as to the defendant in this case, the
<v Speaker 21>defendant as to come one, The defendant is not guilty
<v Speaker 21>as to come two. The defendant is not guilty, So say,
<v Speaker 21>will this fifth day of February twenty twenty.
<v Speaker 1>Five not guilty on both counts? Can you believe that
<v Speaker 1>it's important to note that the jury was made aware
<v Speaker 1>of Colin's previous claim of murder by self defense, they
<v Speaker 1>just weren't told it was his other parent. I wonder
<v Speaker 1>if that would have made a difference. Also, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>meaning to sound sexist here, but I so very much
<v Speaker 1>wonder about the gender breakdown of that jury. I'll have
<v Speaker 1>to look into that, but I'm assuming it was made
<v Speaker 1>up of mostly women. I guess look it up yourself
<v Speaker 1>if you want to play. Regardless, a jury of so
<v Speaker 1>called peers acquitted him. Colin killed both of his parents
<v Speaker 1>and was deemed not responsible and not a threat. Nuts right.
<v Speaker 1>His family, though, that I assume knows him best, has
<v Speaker 1>different opinions.
<v Speaker 18>Oh No, I don't think this was a self defense thing.
<v Speaker 18>I think this was he snapped and lost it thing.
<v Speaker 6>That's what I think.
<v Speaker 19>I think he clearly just didn't want to go home
<v Speaker 19>to mom and this was the last straw. And you're right,
<v Speaker 19>I think he snapped and unfortunately he's going to have
<v Speaker 19>to deal with the consequences, and unfortunately, you guys are
<v Speaker 19>gonna have to.
<v Speaker 4>Deal with the consequences too.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he needs to be at the end of a
<v Speaker 2>rope that we don't use the rope in Florida.
<v Speaker 1>So Colin was released from jail later that evening. The
<v Speaker 1>sun had already set. Outside, news cameras waited for him. Eventually,
<v Speaker 1>Colin strolled out of the front doors. He was wearing
<v Speaker 1>black rimmed glasses and a stoic expression. He wore a
<v Speaker 1>white dress shirt with no tie and khaki pants without
<v Speaker 1>a belt. His boat shoes muffled his hurried steps as
<v Speaker 1>he stared straight ahead. He walked with a practiced gait,
<v Speaker 1>like a soldier. He purposely ignored the cameras following his
<v Speaker 1>every move just a few feet away. He was free,
<v Speaker 1>but he left two dead parents behind. His family was
<v Speaker 1>convinced he was guilty, but the jury wasn't. As the
<v Speaker 1>seventeen year old walked into the dark parking lot outside
<v Speaker 1>the jail, onlookers couldn't help but wonder where he was
<v Speaker 1>going or if anyone was going to pick him up.
<v Speaker 1>I guess Colin finally got what he wanted. He was alone,
<v Speaker 1>completely alone. I'm sure Grandma Susan eventually picked him up.
<v Speaker 1>She was probably just avoiding the media. But still, that
<v Speaker 1>final image of Colin walking through the darkness dotted with
<v Speaker 1>street lights against the backdrop of barbed wire fences is
<v Speaker 1>an image that stays with me. It's almost poetic, a
<v Speaker 1>boy without parents, acquitted of murder, stepping out of one
<v Speaker 1>cage into the shadows of everything he's done. The only
<v Speaker 1>question now is what he'll do next.
<v Speaker 2>Colin wanted to become a lawyer. Why, because he wasn't
<v Speaker 2>going to just stop with two bodies. It's just who's next.
<v Speaker 1>At the time of this writing, it is unclear if
<v Speaker 1>the investigation in Oklahoma was reopened. It's also unclear where
<v Speaker 1>Colin Griffith is presently, having turned eighteen about a month
<v Speaker 1>after his acquittal. It could be anywhere. He could be
<v Speaker 1>in your town, living next door, buying groceries at the
<v Speaker 1>same place you do. Hell, he might even be bringing
<v Speaker 1>you your groceries on door dash nuts right, did you
<v Speaker 1>order nuts?
<v Speaker 2>Did you?
<v Speaker 1>I don't even know what to say about this one,
<v Speaker 1>so I'm just gonna end it here. Good luck out there, Colin,
<v Speaker 1>try not to kill again. Well, we hope you've enjoyed
<v Speaker 1>that story, it's going to do it for today. I
<v Speaker 1>sure didn't anyway. If you do like stories like this,
<v Speaker 1>head on over to swordscale dot com or check out
<v Speaker 1>our brand new YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash sword
<v Speaker 1>and Scale TV. There you can check out our new
<v Speaker 1>television based show, which is kind of like a podcast,
<v Speaker 1>but it's got moving pictures. I know it's a little
<v Speaker 1>complicated to understand all this new fangled technology, but just
<v Speaker 1>head on over there and subscribe and watch a few
<v Speaker 1>videos and you'll get it all right until next time. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I know they could be annoying, but please try to
<v Speaker 1>not kill your family and we'll see you next week.
<v Speaker 1>Stay safe, I don't under do not be, don't rest,
<v Speaker 1>don't the stone Ston