A new Charlotte County sheriff's body camera shows Collin Griffith getting arrested a year before he is accused of stabbing his mother to death in Auburndale.
Griffith is accused of killing his mother at his grandmother's home in Auburndale back in September of 2024. Just over a year after he shot and killed his father out of self-defense in Oklahoma in 2023.
They ruled that to be in self-defense due to the fact his father treated him poorly, not letting him leave the farm they lived on and only feeding him one meal a day. They discovered he suffered from PTSD and other mental health problems due to that.
Griffth was calm and level-headed when he talked about both attacks, blaming his parents for having problems.
“She has ADHD; she was abused by my dad,” Griffith said. “That set her off.”
That is what Griffith told CCSO deputies about his mom, Catherine, in November 2023. They questioned him after his grandmother said he attacked his mom.
“You stood up and said, OK, let's do it. Let's do it,” his grandmother, Susan Dethman, told him as he sat in the back of a deputy’s car. “Collin, that's not what happened. You never said you wanted to peacefully coexist. You said that in the car, but not there with her.”
Dethman blames her grandson's actions on his mental health.
“I do think that he has anger management problems, and he probably needs to get on medication, but he's not on medication,” she said to a deputy.
Griffith admitted to deputies he killed his father in Oklahoma months before, in 2023.
“He attacked me in Oklahoma,” he said. “I shot him when he tried to kill me.”
Deputies arrested Griffith at his home for domestic battery for hurting his mom in 2023. He spent the night in jail. But on his way home, this comment worried deputies.
“I'm trying to figure out why we would have a corporal at the jail that took you out, say that that you said, 'Don't put me in the car with her. I'm going to kill her,'” a deputy told Griffith.
He told those deputies that he wanted to be put in foster care.
“I'm in a constant state of fight or flight, and I don't know, if I think she's going to do something, even if she's not, I might act,” he said. “I'm not going to, like, go crazy or anything, but I'm not sure.”
One deputy offers advice to the teen.
“So, you got to start thinking about these things,” she was heard saying. “These things impact your future. Nobody's perfect. Every day you look in the mirror, you should be trying to figure out how can I make this a better version of myself?"
Deputies said he followed through with his threat and stabbed his mother to death last September.
His next court appearance is set for Jan. 22 in Polk County.
