Episode 346

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

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.

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

My mom now bleeding out.

He helped your mom enjoy what my mom's bleeding out?

He's bleeding out?

Okay.

On the call was seventeen year old Colin Griffith. He told the dispatcher that his mother needed EMS because she was now bleeding out.

How do I with someone?

I didn't get into the hospital with someone?

Okay?

He called number one, So we're going to be an angelus.

He doesn't have time. He's leaking at she chee's fucking nails.

Here's that time.

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.

He's bleeding out.

She's bleeding from my mother, Colin's thirty nine year old mother, Kathy was bleeding from the neck and fading fast.

No peak, unconscious, breathing, No, no.

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.

Wine true screen or wine true straight horror wine too fore moment.

As the dispatcher relayed information to first responders, Colin continued to pump his mother's chest.

The knife to go on it.

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.

There's no more blood coming out of the moon set off.

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.

It felt like he fells.

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.

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.

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.

Deputies cleared the house so fire and rescue could enter. Say they made contact with Colin and immediately noticed something odd.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you see the property, what property are you referring to?

The white house?

Okay, the one that's directly across where the dead bees are at.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now, that white car didn't show up till today.

Do you know whose white car that is?

As a young lady with dark hair.

Have you ever seen her before?

Yeah, I've sent her over there before.

And you don't know who she is.

Susan said, it's her daughter.

Almost immediately after Colin's mother arrived, they started arguing.

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.

I don't know what it was. Looked like clothes and stuff.

And next thing I know, he pulled her by the hair of the head and pulled her back into the house.

This neighbor could hear the argument, but not what they were saying. Another neighbor heard a little more.

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.

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.

You know, I knew some problems as she had rid of runs.

In before and those huh, what are those problems?

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.

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.

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?

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.

And then while you guys are out there doing that, guess get what phone call?

I get?

His probation officer calls, who's that?

Collins called you?

Uh?

Uh?

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.

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?

I said no. I said, what's going on? She said, is oh okay?

And I said yeah.

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.

How was the relationship at the beginning.

In the beginning, it was fine, okay, and then there started to be problems.

Okay? Can you describe the problems?

He didn't want to do what Kathy told him to do. Kathy would basically, you know, harp on him.

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.

So anyway, so I was there and he pushed her and stomped on her hand.

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.

I'm in a constant state of thought.

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.

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.

I said, I.

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.

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.

So he was put on probation.

Okay for that incident. Yes, was he charged with domestic violence?

Yep, he was.

He was. He was put on probation. He was supposed to be getting off of probation this month.

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.

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.

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,

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?

Oh?

Yeah, busically people want to leave.

Did you ask him why he said that, Yes.

I did. It's unusual.

He said, I need to be baker acted because I'm either going to go kill myself or and he said his mother.

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

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.

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.

She wanted Colin to be at home at ten o'clock.

In the morning. In the morning, yes, okay, she said.

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.

I said, don't touch her.

Be nice.

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.

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?

I said, hell no, I just know, but hell no.

Yeah, that boy is thrashed in the head. He is weaponized. He is going to kill you, your mother me.

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.

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.

He told you this four months ago.

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.

Wow, if you are the.

Puppy, he goes, yeah, it did, well, that'd be a lot of power. He goes yeah.

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.

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

Just didn't happen.

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.

That wasn't even the most damning evidence that Colin had purposefully killed his mother.

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.

That's right. Colin had killed his father just nineteen months earlier in Oklahoma. But the pieces starting to fit together yet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

And I'm not.

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.

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.

Her ex husband actually had to crush on me and was pursuing me. And when I was like, I am not interested.

Aunt Christine is talking about Charles Griffith, Colin's father and Kathy's ex husband, who everyone called Chuck.

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.

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.

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.

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.

No, no, no, okay, she was nineteen when he got her pregnant at thirteen.

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.

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.

He never was a teacher or anything like that.

Oh no, no, he was a teacher. That's how he found the little girls. But Kathy got his degree for him online.

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.

But I guess Kathy had a student that she was kind of kind of adopted for lack of better words.

Her name was Gabby.

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.

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

Why was dad so bad to Colin?

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.

So did they have any type of communication while he was in oklahom No.

She would not let Colin talk.

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?

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.

For three years, Colin only had his father and the barely older Gabby to interact with. Things were bad and only got worse.

Go back three years.

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.

Were like crunched up and punched up.

And everything like the shirts and pants and everything that he was wearing like barely fit him where they were too tight.

He was malnourished.

Him just going to like a Walmart with my sister was causing them to have social anxiety and stuff like that, which he said.

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?

He was on a futon mattress in the laundry room.

As Colin got older and entered puberty, he discovered his sexuality, another thing Chuck had a problem with.

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.

Colin felt that he was gay.

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.

Finally, on Valentine's Day twenty twenty three, while Gabby was out of the house, Colin shot and killed his father.

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

Was his dad like backing him into a corner?

Yeah.

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.

Good mother and his grandmother, Susan, knew that he had murdered his father because he admitted it to both of them.

Did he admit to killing him and self defense or did he admit just to killing him.

He admitted to setting the whole thing.

Up, to setting the whole thing up.

Oh yeah, I told Colin, I said, Colin, I don't agree with what you did, but you know what, I thought you of.

Beer and give you a fucking award.

You took the trash out. Thank you.

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

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.

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.

I feel like.

She wanted to get back an eight year old little boy, but that is not what.

She got back.

Yeah, I know she wanted the best for him, but she just pushed so much on him.

He's got to take these college classes.

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.

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.

I don't care if it's.

The same credit or not if a kid who has not been in.

School in three years.

But she just pushed him so hard.

It didn't take long for Colin's teenage stubbornness to outlast Kathy's willpower. Pushing him harder didn't seem to work.

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.

Now, when all of her efforts to teach her son responsibility failed, she decided to teach him some accountability. She turned to punishment.

Here's something about Kathy that I think is really important to know.

When Kathy gets hurt.

She doesn't get sad, like when her feelings are hurt.

She doesn't get sad.

She just gets mad, but like rage mad.

When Kathy punished Colin, she didn't just stop with taking away his phone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So for a while everything seemed to be fine, and then Kathy started having her problems with I want to kill myself.

I hate life.

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.

Kathy had battled with suicidal thoughts in the past, but now they were back, and it was bad. She even made an attempt.

She said, I'm taking all the metaprobrile, all her heart medicine, and Colin took her. I told Colin take her to the er.

But it got to the point where it was almost like psychologically abusive, you know, just the constant I off is so terrible.

Nothing's supposed to be this way.

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.

I mean, it sounds like he's going He went through the same thing on both sides separate times.

Colin's older brother, Chris, witnessed this behavior as well.

She would kick me out of the house, she would get drunk, she would abuse her pills and she.

Which is toxic, and no other way.

To put it.

Unsurprisingly, after his arrest, the state attorney made the announcement everyone was waiting for.

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.

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.

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

The defense portrayed him as a kid unable to escape a toxic mother.

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

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.

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.

They also tried to say that if Colin were a rage filled monster, wouldn't he have killed her? I don't know harder.

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.

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.

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.

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

Oh No, I don't think this was a self defense thing. I think this was he snapped and lost it thing.

That's what I think.

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.

Deal with the consequences too.

Yeah, he needs to be at the end of a rope that we don't use the rope in Florida.

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

Colin wanted to become a lawyer. Why, because he wasn't going to just stop with two bodies. It's just who's next.

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?

Did you?

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, head on over to swordscale dot com or check out our brand new YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash sword and Scale TV. There you can check out our new television based show, which is kind of like a podcast,