Port Charlotte teen accused of killing mother

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd held a press conference announcing a homicide investigation involving the death of a mother at the hands of her teenage son.

The case involves 17-year-old Collin Griffith, who stands accused of fatally stabbing his mother, 39-year-old Catherine Griffith, in unincorporated Polk County.

The family is from Port Charlotte.

He came to live with his mother after he was accused of killing his father, Charles Griffith, in Oklahoma in Feb. 2023, where he claimed self-defense.

The 17-year-old said his father had pulled a knife on him, and he shot and killed him.

Sheriff Judd said he was let go due to there not being enough evidence to disprove his claims.

Six months after moving in with his mother, Griffith was Baker Acted.

As he was being released, he told deputies that he would kill himself or his mother by shooting or stabbing her. Collin was then Baker Acted for three more days.

Two months later, his mother took his video games away, and he pushed her to the ground and stomped on her; the grandmother witnessed this and claimed that her daughter did not provoke this.

On Feb. 12, after an argument with his mother, Griffith ran away from Charlotte County to Auburndale, where his grandmother lives, but she wasn’t there.

Deputies found him after a missing person’s report and turned him over to the Department of Children and Families because the grandmother was scared of him.

He was reunited with his mother by DCF on Feb. 14, the anniversary of his father’s death, but he said he didn’t want to return home and said he would even kill his mother to not go home.

This May, Collin graduated from an alternative high school in Charlotte County and began community college.

 On Sept. 6, after an argument about home chores, he fled from his mother’s house and went to his grandmother’s house, but she was in the Keys.

The mother called her son and asked him to come back on Sept. 7, but he said no.

When she got there, witnesses said he grabbed his mother by the hair and dragged her into the house.

He called 911 two hours later and said his mother had slipped and fallen on a knife and was bleeding from her neck.

He is charged with first-degree murder, and the Polk County sheriff has asked the state attorney that he be prosecuted as an adult.

According to the district attorney, if they develop information in Oklahoma about his father, they will reopen the murder investigation in that state. They asked anyone with information to come forward.