Son says he told mom ‘I’m not a murderer’ before slaying

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 02:39:29 +0000

Background: Collin Griffith speaking to cops months before he allegedly killed his mom (WFTX/YouTube). Insets left to right: Collin Griffith and his mother Catherine Griffith, knife used to murder Catherine Griffith (Instagram/Polk County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office).

A teen accused of stabbing his mom to death in Florida — two years after claiming to kill his dad in self-defense — can be heard talking to his grandmother in a newly-released bodycam video about how he told his mother, “I’m not a murderer,” less than a year before allegedly taking her life.

“I was saying, ‘Mom, I’m not a psychopath,”” Collin Griffith, 17, can be heard telling his grandmother in a bodycam video captured by a deputy with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office and released by local Fox affiliate WFTX on Tuesday.

“I’m not a murderer,” he recalled saying to his mother, Catherine Griffith, 39, during a fight they were having in November 2023, which prompted police to be called and led to him being arrested for domestic violence. “I’m just trying to peacefully leave or peacefully coexist. She kept telling me to shut up and shut up, and when I wouldn’t shut up, she hit me.”

Griffith, who is charged with first-degree murder, was in the back of a police car while speaking to his grandmother during the video. He can be heard telling a deputy that he’s “in a constant state of fight or flight” and worried that he may attack his mom.

“If I think she’s going to do something, even if she’s not, I might act,” Griffith says. “I’m not going to, like, go crazy or anything. But I’m not sure, honestly.”

The deputy goes on to ask, “You’re not sure if you’ll hurt your mom?”

Collin replies, “Only if she tries to hurt me.”

Griffith is behind bars in Polk County after allegedly killing his mother on Sept. 8, according to police officials. The slaying took place in a 55-and-over community in Auburndale, some 50 miles east of Tampa, where Griffith’s grandmother is a resident and where the bodycam footage was captured in November 2023.

Griffith allegedly called police after murdering his mom and told a dispatcher that they “had a very long fight and she fell on a knife.” Cops said they found Catherine Griffith stabbed multiple times in the neck. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference in September that her injuries could not have been accidental.

“The medical examiner said it’s just not reasonable or plausible that she died the way that he said she did,” Judd said. “It just didn’t happen.”

In February 2023, Griffith allegedly killed his father in Oklahoma but avoided prosecution after successfully claiming self-defense. When Florida deputies encountered him after his mom’s murder he was allegedly acting “calm, cool, collected,” according to Judd, who said that Griffith showed “zero remorse.”

“He looked the deputy in the eye and said: ‘I know my rights,” Judd recalled Griffith saying. “‘I want an attorney.’”

Griffith’s grandmother can be heard telling police in the bodycam video from November 2023 that the teen didn’t want to live with his mother anymore before she was killed.

“Collin did not want to come back home,” she tells a deputy. “And I said, ‘You don’t have a choice, you have to go back home.’ And he said, ‘No, I want foster care,’ and even the corporal said that foster care isn’t good for you. You have issues you need to work on.”

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Convicted murderer learns fate in killing of witness

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 05:52:46 +0000

Steven Daniel Young (Denver District Attorney’s Office)

A Colorado man serving a life sentence for murder got another life term this week for shooting the only witness six days later and leaving her body in an alley for a bicyclist to find and call 911.

Steven Daniel Young, 48, was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the 2020 death of Charly Lewis, 32. He was convicted of first-degree murder in September, prosecutors said in a news release.

Lewis’ body was found on June 7, 2020. Young killed Lewis because she saw him kill John Cyprian six days earlier in Aurora, a murder he was convicted of in April 2021, authorities said.

He was charged with murder in the first degree and possession of a weapon by a previous offender.

An affidavit released by the Denver District Attorney’s Office spelling out the case said the Denver Combined Communications Center received a 911 phone call at 5:07 a.m. about a body located in the alley behind 1065 N. Federal Blvd.

The caller reported he was riding his bicycle north through the alley and saw the body lying face down next to a fence and blood, so he flagged down an employee of a restaurant before calling 911 and waiting for police to arrive.

Police found the victim lying on her back, slumped against the fence, with a hooded sweatshirt pulled up tight to her chin and around her head. Blood ran down from under the head and neck area. A spent .40 caliber shell casing lay on the ground next to her left foot, and an intact bullet was found lying on the ground under the victim’s head.

Police collected video surveillance from the area and learned through a gunshot detection report that a single gunshot had been heard where the victim was found at 4:23 a.m., 44 minutes before the 911 call.

Authorities quickly learned that the victim had been a witness to a murder and that Young had an outstanding warrant for murder in the first degree out of Adams County that was issued on June 4, 2020.

Aurora police had put out an attempt to locate alert for Lewis because they were in fear for her safety.

Video surveillance from a restaurant showed the victim walking with a Black male who appeared to be the same height and weight as Young into the alley at 2:30 that morning.

In other footage, the man was seen wearing a mask over his face and appeared to be wearing blue latex gloves. He was also wearing a gray baseball hat, a maroon shirt with what appears to be a blue T-shirt draped over his left shoulder, sweatpants with reflective material on the pockets, and black tennis shoes with white soles.

At 4:25 a.m., about 2 minutes after the victim was shot, the man can be seen exiting the alley without the victim, the affidavit said.

Young killed Cyprian, 41, who he saw walking with Lewis in Aurora, prosecutors said.

He pulled up in a large gray SUV, got out of the vehicle and charged at Cyprian, authorities said. Young, who had a 45-caliber handgun, fired the weapon at Cyprian. The bullet struck him in the small intestine and damaged a major artery, officials said. He crawled to a nearby field, where he died while Young returned to the SUV with Lewis and drove off.

Aurora police arrested Young on June 8, 2020, for that homicide. He was convicted of first-degree murder on April 2, 2021, and was ultimately sentenced in that case before he was tried in Denver for Lewis’ murder.

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Son says he told mom ‘I’m not a murderer’ before slaying

Convicted murderer learns fate in killing of witness