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