March 18, 2025 • 41 mins
Collin Griffith shoots his father to death at 15 and claims self-defense. 18-months later, Collin Griffith kills his mother, he is now 17 and claims self-defense again. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack take on the story of the teen who killed both of his parents, in different states and in different years and used two different types of weapons to kill his parents and claims self-defense. It is a story can only be understood when the forensic evidence is brought to the front. Collin Griffith, 15, is charged with killing his father on February 14, 2023 in Oklahoma. Judge drops charges. Same teen, now 17, charged with killing his mother September 8, 2024, jury decision Not Guilty. What Happened!
Transcript Highlights00:00.23 Introduction
03:04.77 The Fickle Finger of Fate, defined
04:59.94 Boys kills dad when he is 15 and mother when he is 1709:53.26 The prosecution walking a tight wire talking about age of suspect
15:44.30 Finding a weapon doesn't tell the whole story
20:25.10 Kills dad with a gun, claims self-defense
25:42.92 Judge drops the charges against the boy30:23.32 How does a teen kill both parents, time and distance apart35:22.38 What evidence is left behind in the blood40:13.23 Griffith claims long fight leading up to fatal injury
43:03.56 Conclusion
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body dyings. But Joseph's gotten more. There are many things
that have happened to me throughout my life where I
didn't think I shot at it. Thankfully, some really cool
things came about as a result of those things coming
to fruition that never saw it really happening for me.
(00:25):
But you know, when you begin to think about the
rules or laws of probability, there are certain things within
the physical realm that you look at and you just say,
I just don't know how that's physically plausible. I'm thinking
(00:48):
right now about the Courtney Clinny case that's going on
down in Florida, where she alleges that she took a
knife through it and stuck it into the chest of
her rather ample sized boyfriend and led to his death
almost immediately. Chances of that happening her, I guess slim
(01:13):
and none. But there's another case out of Florida too
that has recently been adjudicated, and it involves a story
of a young man and his mother, and his claim
is that his mother slipped and fell upon a knife
(01:36):
blade that wound up creating a fatal injury in her neck. Plausible, possibly, possible, unlikely.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Bags. I've
(01:58):
seen a lot of bizarre things over the course of
my career as a medical legal debt investigator, Dave. Some
things just defy explanation. Some of the more bizarre things,
you know, I'm thinking about right now, wrong place, wrong time.
(02:19):
I guess we could probably do an entire episode on
some of these oddities, because they do exist. You you know,
you look at it and you think, wow, you know
that could have been me, or you know, you can't
tell you how many times I've been surrounded by cops that, uh,
you know, they would start off a conversation with what
(02:42):
are the odds, you know, while we're standing over over
a body, you know, just over and over again. Where
uh you know, my old friend doctor Parker, who I've
quoted before on this program, he used to refer to
it as the fickle finger of fate. But you know,
(03:02):
most of the time, particularly when it comes to homicides, Dave,
fickle finger or fate doesn't necessarily apply. And in this
case today, I think that this is one of these
instances where I can say I've never actually worked a
case where somebody kind of accidentally fell on a blade
(03:22):
and it struck them in the neck. It just seems
odd to me.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
It seems like something a third grider would come up with.
I was talking to you about this before we started.
It's the only person who's going to believe this explanation
is another child that she accidentally fell on knife and
it must have been sticking up out of the floor.
And I don't know how it happened, but it happened.
And I'm sorry, you're going to have to believe this
(03:47):
because that's all I got. But the reality here is
Colin Griffith is a teenage boy who has been accused
of killing his mother and by the way, his father,
not at the same time, actually separated by a year
and a half, and two different modes of murder. One
used a knife, the other a gun. Now, Joe, you've
(04:10):
pointed out to me that oftentimes a killer or alleged
killer has they have a certain thing they like to
use when they're killing a knife person or a gun person,
or a strangle person, whatever it happens to be. But
in this case, we are dealing with a son who,
(04:30):
for whatever reason, has both of his parents die in
very violent ways, and the only person who has been
accused is their son. He was fifteen at one of
the murders, one of the deaths, and seventeen at the other.
And I don't we don't have to say alleged death
(04:51):
because they are both dead, both of his parents, and
he was the only person who was or he there
is nobody else alleged to have been involved in either
of the deaths. Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, you're absolutely correct, Dave. And can I add one
more element.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
To everything you want? Because this is already so jacked up,
I'm gonna take not.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well, you know, now we've got we've got also a
geographic oddity here, because these two deaths, if you will, occurred.
You know, I guess we could say write it about
one thousand miles apart, or maybe in excess to that,
(05:35):
I guess wherever you're you know, you're talking about geographically
one of the deaths, of course, is in Oklahoma, and
then the other one is in Florida, Uh, which you know,
it just adds another level of of oddness. I guess
you will. And it's not it's not like we're talking
(05:59):
about somebody that's hitchhoking with truckers and traveling all about
the country, you know, with you know, in hell followed
in his wake. It's not like that. It's it's you know,
we're talking about a kid who with the initial death
was fifteen and now you know, seventeen. It's just it's
(06:22):
super super odd. As far as I'm concerned, I don't
recall ever having having been involved in a case you
know like this. Certainly is an investigator.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Let's do this, Joe, because you and I both were
struck by the idea that somebody would actually claim that
the stabbing of his mother, that his mother, Colin Griff's
mom died of a knife to the neck. Is that correct? Yes, okay,
And his explanation was that she fell and landed on
(06:57):
it that way. That was what he actually said to police.
And he stayed with that from beginning to end, did
he not?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, yeah he did, and that was what he had
alleged had happened.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Now. You mentioned Courtney Clinty in the opening.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I tell you, friends, if you haven't listened to that show,
go do it because I learned so much and that
I there were so many things I can't even explain
to you because it was so the way you explained
that wounding that led to his death is amazing to me.
But that one, at least on the surface, made you know,
(07:37):
some kind of sense. I mean, to the lay person,
it's like, Okay, that could happen, But this one, I'm
looking at it going not even in a cartoon, you know,
this is not how things happen.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. Again, it's a matter of what are the odds
now Listen, I'm not saying that that everybody's pure as
the driven snow here. Okay, let's you know, let's dispel that.
You know, from from Jump Street, you've got a fifteen
year old kid initially that's obviously in a very troubled
(08:11):
set of circumstances. Any kid's going to be troubled. That
that is that doesn't necessarily have this kind of nuclear family,
you know, where you've got the mom and the dad
that are together, and not just that, you've got the
separation of of this geographic separation that's so vast. Can
(08:31):
you imagine being a fifteen year old kid and thinking, well,
my mom is all the way down in Florida, I'm
up here in Oklahoma. I'm not ever going to get
to see her again. And then you've got all of
the logistics of planning a trip to get together with
her or you know, get back to your dad or
you know. So it's a it's a very it's a
sad position for any child. And when this all started, he,
(08:55):
you know, Colin was in fact a child in the
purest sense, you know, defining defining situation. You know, by law,
he's at a great distance. So he's already at this
tremendous disadvantage, I think, and you never know, you know,
if you're cooking up this this kind of relationships, do
(09:18):
familial relationships do those ingredients can make for a real
violent and maybe kind of twisted a situation in any
child's life who's developmentally, you know, the brain is still developing,
you know, so a lot at play here and on
(09:40):
both sides of this, both sides of this. Can you
imagine the can you imagine the difficulty the prosecution had
in both of these cases to try to walk that
line when you're talking about somebody of such a young
age that's been a involved in this really bizarre set
(10:02):
of living circumstances.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
When you and I were growing up, we were considered
adults because of the movement that happened in the late
sixties early seventies. You and I when we were in
our high school years, we were treated as young adults
and at eighteen you were considered an adult and you
were treated as an adult. Now it's like in the
last twenty years we've kind of come off of that
(10:25):
and now we're treating young adults like children until they're
twenty five because their brain is still developing or what
have you. But anyway, let's just deal with Cult County,
Florida for just a minute, because one of our favorite
sheriffs is Grady Judd. I say our favorites from the
standpoint of reporting on crime. Grady Judd is very public.
He does not mind holding a press conference, and he
(10:47):
does not mind saying what he thinks, which from our angle,
it helps because we get a lot more information than
normal from him.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, and again with any and he's Paul too, okay,
And you have to you have to measure it with that.
You know. For everybody that wants to make a star
out of a politician, uh, they have they have motives
of their own, you know, when they sit in front
of a bank of microphones. Let's dispel this idea that
(11:18):
they're pure as are driven snow. There's that turn again. Uh,
but yeah, you got to get the votes, and so
you take that with a grain of salt. But you're
right with with uh with with Grady Judd in particular,
I don't know. I don't know of any sheriff in
America really in today's uh today's context that gets that
(11:43):
gets the national attention that he does. He's obviously got
an apparatus behind him enables him to do this.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Joe R. Pile out of America up the county Arizona
used to be you know America. Yeah, I think, yeah,
And we had Clark up in uh in Wisconsin and
now Grady Judd in Florida. But I went ahead and
I pulled an article. This is from the first articles
reporting the arrest in Florida. Here's what it says. According
(12:13):
to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, a seventeen year old
was arrested for killing his mother on Sunday evening. Sheriff
Grady Judd says Colin Griffith of Port Charlotte was charged
with first degree murder, kidnapping, and violation of a no
contact order. Witnesses told detectives that they saw Colin Griffith
and his mother outside the mobile home arguing, and that
(12:34):
they saw him Colin Griffith grab his mother by the
hair and drag her inside the house. Investigators said witnesses
told them that Catherine Griffith repeatedly pleaded with her son
to quote, let me go. According to the Sheriff's office,
when deputies asked Colin Griffith what happened at the scene,
he became immediately uncooperative and asked to speak to a lawyer.
(12:57):
Detectives said, as the investigation continues, they noticed inconsistencies between
what the teen said in his nine one one call
and what was discovered at the scene. That's from the
first articles reporting the arrest of seventeen year old Colin
Griffith and the death of his mother.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, you know, you you rely heavily upon what eyewitnesses
tell you. Sometimes there are none, obviously, but when you
do have them, they're invaluable to an investigation. And so
to take this article, these comments in this article on
its face, you've got something that is that is obviously
(13:37):
violent that kind of kicks this whole thing off. The
status of the of the witnesses to this. Was it
loud enough so that they could have heard it from
within their own home surrounding this particular location, or were
they out in the yard watering the grass and they
look up and here's this young man who has his
(13:58):
mother by the hair of the and he's dragging her
back towards the house, which, by the way, she winds
up being drug back into the house and is never
seen in the world of living again, because it was
following this that a nine to one one call is
made and when police roll up, the scene is bathed
(14:23):
in her blood. The thing about law enforcement and investigators
is that you can see something and take it on
(14:47):
its face, right. You see it at the scene and
you say, okay, well, I've got this woman who has
obviously sustained a horrible injury to her neck throat depend
upon you know what you choose as your descriptor here
(15:11):
super saturated blood and you find a weapon there. But
that doesn't tell the whole story. I can. I would
love to have been a fly on the wall when
when the investigators found out that this young man who
(15:33):
apparently has linkage to the death of his mother one
way or another, you know, because he's saying that, you know,
she fell on the knife as a result of an
argument that they were having, and of course the police
are thinking that, you know, he takes this knife and
inserts it into her neck. I would have loved to
have been a fly on the wall, you know when
(15:54):
they discovered that, Oh yeah, about a year ago, this
kid who is now standing over the body of his
dead mother. Yeah, he shot his father in another state
when he was fifteen. Yeah, you know, can you imagine
(16:15):
being that detective when you first get that information, and
it's weird, Dave. You know, sometimes you'll go out on
these cases like this and you look at the forensic
evidence and what you're kind of surrounded by, and you
have no explanation sometimes for it. Sometimes you do. In
this case, you know, you're looking at a stab one,
but you don't really go any further than that at
(16:38):
that moment in tom And then suddenly, maybe while you're
at the scene, this extra data comes rolling in and
the complexion of everything at the scene suddenly changes. I mean,
just consider it just for a second, if you will.
You're thinking, Oh, this kid's seventeen years old and he's
(17:02):
already been present during the midst of another homicide, you know,
I mean, and he was charged with it. It's super super odd.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
You have to admit, well, okay, when they're covering the crime,
and we started with the mother because that was the
most recent, and you mentioned they find out who they're
actually dealing with, I mean, what do we know? Because
he lawyers up right away from very first conversations. I
want a lawyer, and for a seventeen year old to
(17:35):
say that they watch a lot of crime stuff on TV,
there are a number of different things that come to
my mind, But all I'm thinking is, this is somebody
who has been around the legal system from a criminal
perspective to know that they've already said too much because
he made the nine to one one call and when
the authorities arrive on the scene, they're using the information
(17:56):
given to them by nine to one one to set
the stage, to set the scene. And when they walk
in there and they're like, this does not match up
with what he was saying on the phone to nine
one one. Now, according to Pike County Sheriff's Office, that
he on his nine one one call said that he
and his mother got into an argument. What is it?
Paul County. You said, Pike, Oh, Pike, Okay, Paul County. Sorry,
(18:18):
But the Polk County Sheriff's office is saying, hey man,
he said he and his mother were having a fight
and that she lunged at him with a knife and
fell and the knife went into her neck. So I'm
thinking of all the ways of what we already know
from witnesses of him dragging her by the head of
the hair back into the trailer and her saying let
(18:39):
me go, which means she cannot get free herself. At
what point did she get free to grab a knife
and attack him in the way that he describes. They
also talk about life saving measures that he was given
instructions over the phone that when they got there they
realized he probably didn't do that. You know, they're basing
what they see and what they've been told, and they're
(19:01):
not matching up. So he shuts it all down right
away with his mother, and that's it. Now. Detectives can
only go on the physical evidence that they see, the
story that he's told via nine to one one, and
that's it. There is nothing else, which defense attorneys loved
that they would have much rather him not even made
(19:21):
the nine one one call, because that's the story he's
got to defend, you know, that's why police want to
get that initial statement. So as they're investigating and they
find out, wait a minute, this now seventeen year old
boy who is now charged with the first degree murder
of his mother a year and a half ago in February,
(19:43):
on Valentine's Day of twenty twenty three, he is accused
of killing his father in Oklahoma, but that one was
with a gun. He shot him, and he claims self defense,
which I'm guessing if your mother just died while lunging
(20:04):
at you with a knife and she fell on it
and hit her in the throat, that that also he
was doing nothing. It was self defense. He was backing away,
she tripped and fell on the knife.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, Retreat, retreat, retreat.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
And so I'm thinking the same thing, you know, they're
you know, if you're looking for commonality here in the
dynamics of both of these crime scenes, that's what that's
what's being stated with the murder of his father, which
he you know, he he says that he actually did
(20:39):
in fact shoot his father, And I think that that's
very important for us to understand that he had retreated
to a position where he felt like he was cornered.
But David wasn't. In that particular case, it wasn't sufficient
for him to have merely have you know, shot shot
his father. You know, once he pops his father in
(21:05):
the chest. Okay, shoots his father in the chest. Now
his father's Charles Griffith had shot him in the chest
on you know, Valentine's Day, February fourteen, twenty twenty three,
and then he gets popped in the head one more
time almost you know, it's the coup.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
De gras, if you will, I thought no, I just
thought wrong. So you can actually determine what shots came
first and last when they're that close behind one another.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Well, you know, if you're if you're talking about you know, okay,
I'll put I'll put it to you. In the most
likely scenario, if you shoot somebody in the chest, there's
a higher probability that they'll survive to the point where
you're going to be able to shoot them in the head.
And so if the headshot follows the chest shot, and
(21:57):
it's in quick succession, that you're going to have hemorrhage
in both of the wound tracks. However, if you score
a head shot with the first discharge of the weapons,
there's less of a likelihood that there would be depend
(22:19):
upon antomically, the position of that head shot, there'd be
less of a likelihood that you would see trauma or
hemorrhage in the woundtrack of the chest, okay, because you know,
most of the time headshots are going to be fatal,
and again a lot of that has to do with with,
you know, positioning of the round. But he's only fifteen,
(22:41):
and I'm wondering because you know, it's generally, you know,
two to the chests, one of the head you know,
you've heard that in movies over the years, and that's
kind of the you know, the finishing kind of touch,
and that's something that is trained in the military and
in other organization. So you go, why do you go
(23:03):
to the chest first? Well, you go to the chest
first because it's a bigger target. Okay. So you're looking
at the ideas to fire center mass, which means right
in the heart of things, okay, literally and figuratively. So
if you score a chess shot, there's a chance that
first off, if someone is coming after you and they
have you cornered, they're going to go down, and then
(23:26):
you stand over them potentially and finish them off with
a head shot. Now, I mean, there are people out
there that are really good with a weapon, and they
can do it in quick succession, you know. But I've
worked cases over the years where people have taken multiple
gunshot wounds to the torso and then somebody will have
(23:50):
a finishing shot where they'll come to the head. Because
most people understand that head shots are in fact fatal,
and that's how that would be determined. So if you're
dealing with the first a head shot you have, you
know that's tracking with hemorrhage through it. There's a high
likelihood that you won't have any hemorrhage in a chest
(24:11):
in a chest one. However, reversing that, thinking well, he
shot in the chest first, he's probably still got some
kind of agniral respiration, heart might still be beating, and
there's blood coursing through through the brain and you shoot
him again, then you know you can potentially have a
hemorrhage in that wound. Track either way, you know, the
(24:35):
police I think, Dave and correct me if I'm wrong,
But is it true in saying that you know he
shot he shot his father and they charged him in Oklahoma,
and it was within what a month that they dropped
those charges.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Correct, right, they did. And I looked at this because he,
let's charged, you know, with first degree murder in that case,
and at fifteen years old, shot his father and the
judge ended up having all the charges dropped. I say
the judge, because he come. I guess that's what happens.
(25:16):
Prosecutors can drop charges too. I guess. I'm not a
lawyer or anything like that. We just play it on
the radio, but you're career. So the judge actually kicked
that one to the curve, but he did not do
it in a way where they can't bring the charges
again later. You know, they didn't do it with what
do you call it, with prejudice? You dismissed? Dropped with
(25:37):
prejudice means it cannot be brought again. Dropped it. But
if they just drop it just saying hey, we don't
have enough here. And I think, you know, just in
my mind's eye, I'm thinking, when you start charging a
fifteen year old with murder of his father and he
claimed self defense, you really have to look at a
lot of different things. You've got to consider the relationship
(25:59):
and what you may or may not know about it.
Because he did have at the time a mother in
Florida that was an option for him to go live with,
and he was with his dad in Oklahoma. So the
judge looks at the case and he drops it. Now
a year and a half later, we're in Florida, where
he now takes out his mother. I don't know if
(26:21):
we ever have any kind of situation like this, Joe,
having ever happened. I know we've had children accused of
killing parents, but it's usually at the same time or
at the same general time where they take out one
parent and then the other. But we're talking about eighteen months,
a year and a half in different states. As you
(26:41):
mentioned at the very beginning, this is really different in
terms of how do you defend this, You're I mean,
if I killed two people separated by eighteen months, and
I say it's self defense, I mean, what kind of
life am I living?
Speaker 1 (26:58):
You know?
Speaker 2 (26:58):
What am I doing to put myself in this situation
where the people that I'm around want to take me
out and my only recourse to defend myself is to
kill them? I mean, what am I doing wrong? In life.
That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, I know, I got it. I'm going to be
very curious to see what the authorities in Oklahoma do
with this if they go back to pick this case
up again, and because you know what, what could have
changed between you know, low these many months that have elapsed.
(27:32):
You know what is it? It's less than two years,
eighteen months if.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You're working in twenty twenty three to September twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, and how much how much information could be integrated
into a trial? Now remember he hasn't had a trial
in Oklahoma. What what information from from the trial down
in Florida? And is it possible to integrate that in
(28:03):
because you know he's going to be charged if he's
fifteen years old. My understanding is is that you know,
they could, in fact, you know, charge him and treat
him as an adult up there because of the nature
of this crime. I don't know that it would go
into a juvenile status. But I know that one of
the things that may or may not be mentioned is
(28:30):
what the medical examiner said down in Florida relative to
Colin's mother's murder. What the medical examiner said was that,
in their opinion, there's no way that she slipped and
fell on a knife, bringing an end to her own life.
(29:06):
You know, you hear people make comments in literature and
movies and things like that all the time about saying,
you know, young man, the world is your oyster and
go forth. You know your future looks bright. What in
(29:28):
the world do you say to someone like Colin Griffith
the worst of it is behind me now and now
I get to move on to a brighter future. I
don't know, I really don't know. I'm genuinely asking how
do you move on from something like this where now
you're absent both both of your parents. I understand, you know,
(29:50):
Colin's got a grandmother, but you know, how do you
move forward in these circumstances and live your life? It
begs that question. And here's another thing, Dave, I got
to throw at you. Who who would feel safe, you know,
(30:16):
entering into you know, entering into any kind of circumstance
with him.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Taking these one at the time. Yeah, they already got
him to trial. Now he's aged, he's alleged to have
killed his mother September eighth, twenty twenty four, and they
got it to trial already. We're talking. I mean that
speedy justice man. I'm thinking about how often crimes will
(30:47):
you know, a crime will occur and then we have
a trial a couple of years later. This one is months,
not even a full year, And I think because of that,
it gives us a little bit better idea of what
we're really looking like. Because there's not a lot of
distance here. We can actually count the number of months here.
And September eighth, Colin Grevith is accused of killing his mother,
(31:09):
and his defense is that she was charging me with
a knife and she fell on the knife a hit
her in the throat. He then lawyered up right away
before talking to police, and boom, there you go. They
got it to court. And this is the part that
begins this whole thing. Most of us are amazed that
a young man could be accused of killing both of
his parents, separated by eighteen months in different states. But
(31:32):
here we've already got a case that's gone to trial
and at the jury, I don't know how much they
got to hear about the Oklahoma case.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Investigator that worked case up in Oklahoma actually came down
to Florida and test foed in this homicide trial down
in Florida. So yeah, I mean even with that knowledge,
you know that's been you know, kind of integrated into
(32:05):
into this and my my from a forensics perspective, I'd
like to know how much how much forensics actually played
into this case. I think I mentioned it to you.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I saw, I.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Saw the knife that was utilized and this is this
knife is a for those that have not seen it,
I encourage you guys to go take a look at
it online. This knife is a smooth surfaced stainless steel knife.
It's got the integrated stainless steel blade with and you
(32:44):
guys are going to know what I'm talking about. It's
also got stainless steel handle on it too, So it's
a smooth, non porous surface that would easily easily bear
bear any kind of prints that might be available on
(33:04):
this thing. How was the knife processed? I think is
going to be one of the one of the big
questions here. And it's a single injury and there is
quite a bit of blood on the surface of both
the blade and the handle itself. One of the problems
that you encounter because I know that this is a
(33:27):
big question many times with with with instruments that are
utilized in a homicide, you want to be able to
have you want to be able to put it into
the hand of the perpetrator if you have the weapon
right and so with blood though, if you're talking about
(33:49):
a transfer of a fingerprint, which we know is generated
by the fatty lipids and our fingertips, can it be
obscured by the blood? Okay? Well if she's bleeding out.
Also one of the things that you're thinking about, Well,
if he left the knife in her long enough, which
(34:09):
obviously it was in her at some point in time
and came out because her blood is on the surface
of the knife, did he leave behind a bloody print
in his mother's own blood, assuming he didn't have any
injuries that transferred onto the surface of the blade that
they could have processed and put that there. Of course,
(34:31):
the defense can easily say, well, you don't understand. You know,
he picked up the blade. He picked it up because
he either wanted it away from his mother, he wanted
it out of you know, out of arm's reach of her,
or he was trying to render aid, which, of course,
you know they're saying that he didn't make it. He
(34:51):
apparently made a little or no attempt to try to
save his own mother's life. But again that bit of
physical evidence there, you know, is critical.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Dave. You know, I'm glad you pointed all that out,
because those are the things that a lot of us
don't know, Joe, I mean, we don't. It's amazing to
me how many times I'll see something happen during a
trial that I think are really important and end up
being nothing. It happens all the time. In this case,
we know that, and that Colin Griffith was acquitted. The
(35:25):
jury said he didn't do it on purpose, or he
was not guilty of murder. And so here we are,
in less than two years time killed his dad in
Valentine's Day twenty twenty three, and before Valentine's Day twenty
twenty four, he's acquitted of the murder of his mother.
(35:45):
Two dead parents in a twenty four month period of time.
One charge is dropped, the other is he's acquitted. And
I guess we're thinking about this as reasonable human beings
and whether or not you can believe that. And based
on they streamed the closing arguments on Court TV, I
think for this case and in and that it was
(36:07):
one of those things where the prosecution or the defense,
that the prosecution has no proof of what happened inside
the home the day Catherine was killed. They were able
to paint this picture Joe, that she was unbalanced, that
she had pointed a gun at Colin's face before. And
I'm thinking, okay, let's just say, for the sake of argument,
that that had happened in the past. Let's just say,
(36:29):
for the sake of argument, that he begged for foster care.
Please send me to foster care to get me away
from this crazy woman. Well, when it comes right down
to it, he said she was lunging at him with
a knife and it landed in her neck when she fell,
And the medical examiner says that couldn't have happened. Now,
(36:51):
when you testify, Joe, that this couldn't have happened the
way he's describing it to me, he's lying. And if
he's lying about what happened, I can't believe anything else
he's claiming, including self defense. Obviously I'm wrong, But isn't
that Doesn't that make sense to you?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, yeah, on one level, it does. I'm fascinated by
something else that came up at trial to day. Did
you did you know, did you know that the defense
how many times? Let me ask you something, how many
times have you heard the term suicide by cop?
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah? I have, yeah, bunch, bunch, and I know what
they did at trial.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, and they're they're they're alleging that this is suicide
by son. That's what defense is actually saying, because.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
You know he was affluenza boy. You know remember that one.
Oh yeah, it's similar. I mean it's like you come
up with a crazy defense. How do you do y'all
just sit around and drink and can come up, Hey,
this will work. Suicide?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, I know, And it's it's a you know, highly implausible.
But again, you know, with the prosecute, I mean, forgive me.
But with defense, you know, it's a matter of reasonable doubt.
All it takes is one. The difference though, is that,
you know, with suicide by cop is that you have
(38:26):
to have a firearm involved, right, and it's an allegedly
as sure thing. You know that if you act provocatively
toward a police officer, you know, presenting a weapon that
they're going to draw, they're going to tell you to
stand down. You refuse, you continue to advance or do
whatever you're doing. It's being aggressive in order to, you know,
get them to initiate fire upon you and in your life.
(38:51):
Griffith alleges that there had been a long fight that
had preceded, you know, this atal injury that she had sustained,
that the mother had sustained to the neck, you know,
and you're seeing this that this is kind of an
exhaustive event, you know, where they're both tired. They'd been fighting.
(39:14):
We do have an eyewitness that saw him dragging her,
according to the witness, back into the house by the
head of three two, by the hair of the head,
and then a fight ensues after that. This knife looks
like something you would have gotten out of a knife
block and a kitchen, you know, that comes in a
(39:36):
set that's just sitting up there on the counter. Somehow
that knife was accessed during this. Now who put their
hands on that knife first, I really don't know. But
after this very long fight, suddenly she formulates in her
mind that she's wanting, of all things, to commit suicide
(40:01):
at the hand of her own son, and that she
engineers this with a knife as opposed to a weapon,
and a knife is very nonspecific. Okay, there's no guarantee.
There's no guarantee with any weapon out there, but with
a knife you have to hit just in the right spot.
(40:22):
So what's it going to be defense? Is it that
it was a long fight, that they're exhausted, and that
suddenly she formulates this idea of suicidal ideation and decides
to use her son as a means to that end.
(40:43):
Or is it something else, the fact that maybe, just
maybe he decided to end the life of his mother
because he didn't want to be there. We don't know.
We know that he has been found not guilty. There's
one other thing that we know. Colin Griffith is now
(41:04):
without either parent, one dead in Oklahoma, admittedly at his
hand by gunfire, and his mother who wound up with
a large, sharp force injury to the neck. I'm Joseph
(41:25):
Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks
Body dyings. But Joseph's gotten more. There are many things
that have happened to me throughout my life where I
didn't think I shot at it. Thankfully, some really cool
things came about as a result of those things coming
to fruition that never saw it really happening for me.
(00:25):
But you know, when you begin to think about the
rules or laws of probability, there are certain things within
the physical realm that you look at and you just say,
I just don't know how that's physically plausible. I'm thinking
(00:48):
right now about the Courtney Clinny case that's going on
down in Florida, where she alleges that she took a
knife through it and stuck it into the chest of
her rather ample sized boyfriend and led to his death
almost immediately. Chances of that happening her, I guess slim
(01:13):
and none. But there's another case out of Florida too
that has recently been adjudicated, and it involves a story
of a young man and his mother, and his claim
is that his mother slipped and fell upon a knife
(01:36):
blade that wound up creating a fatal injury in her neck. Plausible, possibly, possible, unlikely.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Bags. I've
(01:58):
seen a lot of bizarre things over the course of
my career as a medical legal debt investigator, Dave. Some
things just defy explanation. Some of the more bizarre things,
you know, I'm thinking about right now, wrong place, wrong time.
(02:19):
I guess we could probably do an entire episode on
some of these oddities, because they do exist. You you know,
you look at it and you think, wow, you know
that could have been me, or you know, you can't
tell you how many times I've been surrounded by cops that, uh,
you know, they would start off a conversation with what
(02:42):
are the odds, you know, while we're standing over over
a body, you know, just over and over again. Where
uh you know, my old friend doctor Parker, who I've
quoted before on this program, he used to refer to
it as the fickle finger of fate. But you know,
(03:02):
most of the time, particularly when it comes to homicides, Dave,
fickle finger or fate doesn't necessarily apply. And in this
case today, I think that this is one of these
instances where I can say I've never actually worked a
case where somebody kind of accidentally fell on a blade
(03:22):
and it struck them in the neck. It just seems
odd to me.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
It seems like something a third grider would come up with.
I was talking to you about this before we started.
It's the only person who's going to believe this explanation
is another child that she accidentally fell on knife and
it must have been sticking up out of the floor.
And I don't know how it happened, but it happened.
And I'm sorry, you're going to have to believe this
(03:47):
because that's all I got. But the reality here is
Colin Griffith is a teenage boy who has been accused
of killing his mother and by the way, his father,
not at the same time, actually separated by a year
and a half, and two different modes of murder. One
used a knife, the other a gun. Now, Joe, you've
(04:10):
pointed out to me that oftentimes a killer or alleged
killer has they have a certain thing they like to
use when they're killing a knife person or a gun person,
or a strangle person, whatever it happens to be. But
in this case, we are dealing with a son who,
(04:30):
for whatever reason, has both of his parents die in
very violent ways, and the only person who has been
accused is their son. He was fifteen at one of
the murders, one of the deaths, and seventeen at the other.
And I don't we don't have to say alleged death
(04:51):
because they are both dead, both of his parents, and
he was the only person who was or he there
is nobody else alleged to have been involved in either
of the deaths. Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, you're absolutely correct, Dave. And can I add one
more element.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
To everything you want? Because this is already so jacked up,
I'm gonna take not.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well, you know, now we've got we've got also a
geographic oddity here, because these two deaths, if you will, occurred.
You know, I guess we could say write it about
one thousand miles apart, or maybe in excess to that,
(05:35):
I guess wherever you're you know, you're talking about geographically
one of the deaths, of course, is in Oklahoma, and
then the other one is in Florida, Uh, which you know,
it just adds another level of of oddness. I guess
you will. And it's not it's not like we're talking
(05:59):
about somebody that's hitchhoking with truckers and traveling all about
the country, you know, with you know, in hell followed
in his wake. It's not like that. It's it's you know,
we're talking about a kid who with the initial death
was fifteen and now you know, seventeen. It's just it's
(06:22):
super super odd. As far as I'm concerned, I don't
recall ever having having been involved in a case you
know like this. Certainly is an investigator.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Let's do this, Joe, because you and I both were
struck by the idea that somebody would actually claim that
the stabbing of his mother, that his mother, Colin Griff's
mom died of a knife to the neck. Is that correct? Yes, okay,
And his explanation was that she fell and landed on
(06:57):
it that way. That was what he actually said to police.
And he stayed with that from beginning to end, did
he not?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, yeah he did, and that was what he had
alleged had happened.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Now. You mentioned Courtney Clinty in the opening.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I tell you, friends, if you haven't listened to that show,
go do it because I learned so much and that
I there were so many things I can't even explain
to you because it was so the way you explained
that wounding that led to his death is amazing to me.
But that one, at least on the surface, made you know,
(07:37):
some kind of sense. I mean, to the lay person,
it's like, Okay, that could happen, But this one, I'm
looking at it going not even in a cartoon, you know,
this is not how things happen.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. Again, it's a matter of what are the odds
now Listen, I'm not saying that that everybody's pure as
the driven snow here. Okay, let's you know, let's dispel that.
You know, from from Jump Street, you've got a fifteen
year old kid initially that's obviously in a very troubled
(08:11):
set of circumstances. Any kid's going to be troubled. That
that is that doesn't necessarily have this kind of nuclear family,
you know, where you've got the mom and the dad
that are together, and not just that, you've got the
separation of of this geographic separation that's so vast. Can
(08:31):
you imagine being a fifteen year old kid and thinking, well,
my mom is all the way down in Florida, I'm
up here in Oklahoma. I'm not ever going to get
to see her again. And then you've got all of
the logistics of planning a trip to get together with
her or you know, get back to your dad or
you know. So it's a it's a very it's a
sad position for any child. And when this all started, he,
(08:55):
you know, Colin was in fact a child in the
purest sense, you know, defining defining situation. You know, by law,
he's at a great distance. So he's already at this
tremendous disadvantage, I think, and you never know, you know,
if you're cooking up this this kind of relationships, do
(09:18):
familial relationships do those ingredients can make for a real
violent and maybe kind of twisted a situation in any
child's life who's developmentally, you know, the brain is still developing,
you know, so a lot at play here and on
(09:40):
both sides of this, both sides of this. Can you
imagine the can you imagine the difficulty the prosecution had
in both of these cases to try to walk that
line when you're talking about somebody of such a young
age that's been a involved in this really bizarre set
(10:02):
of living circumstances.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
When you and I were growing up, we were considered
adults because of the movement that happened in the late
sixties early seventies. You and I when we were in
our high school years, we were treated as young adults
and at eighteen you were considered an adult and you
were treated as an adult. Now it's like in the
last twenty years we've kind of come off of that
(10:25):
and now we're treating young adults like children until they're
twenty five because their brain is still developing or what
have you. But anyway, let's just deal with Cult County,
Florida for just a minute, because one of our favorite
sheriffs is Grady Judd. I say our favorites from the
standpoint of reporting on crime. Grady Judd is very public.
He does not mind holding a press conference, and he
(10:47):
does not mind saying what he thinks, which from our angle,
it helps because we get a lot more information than
normal from him.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, and again with any and he's Paul too, okay,
And you have to you have to measure it with that.
You know. For everybody that wants to make a star
out of a politician, uh, they have they have motives
of their own, you know, when they sit in front
of a bank of microphones. Let's dispel this idea that
(11:18):
they're pure as are driven snow. There's that turn again. Uh,
but yeah, you got to get the votes, and so
you take that with a grain of salt. But you're
right with with uh with with Grady Judd in particular,
I don't know. I don't know of any sheriff in
America really in today's uh today's context that gets that
(11:43):
gets the national attention that he does. He's obviously got
an apparatus behind him enables him to do this.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Joe R. Pile out of America up the county Arizona
used to be you know America. Yeah, I think, yeah,
And we had Clark up in uh in Wisconsin and
now Grady Judd in Florida. But I went ahead and
I pulled an article. This is from the first articles
reporting the arrest in Florida. Here's what it says. According
(12:13):
to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, a seventeen year old
was arrested for killing his mother on Sunday evening. Sheriff
Grady Judd says Colin Griffith of Port Charlotte was charged
with first degree murder, kidnapping, and violation of a no
contact order. Witnesses told detectives that they saw Colin Griffith
and his mother outside the mobile home arguing, and that
(12:34):
they saw him Colin Griffith grab his mother by the
hair and drag her inside the house. Investigators said witnesses
told them that Catherine Griffith repeatedly pleaded with her son
to quote, let me go. According to the Sheriff's office,
when deputies asked Colin Griffith what happened at the scene,
he became immediately uncooperative and asked to speak to a lawyer.
(12:57):
Detectives said, as the investigation continues, they noticed inconsistencies between
what the teen said in his nine one one call
and what was discovered at the scene. That's from the
first articles reporting the arrest of seventeen year old Colin
Griffith and the death of his mother.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, you know, you you rely heavily upon what eyewitnesses
tell you. Sometimes there are none, obviously, but when you
do have them, they're invaluable to an investigation. And so
to take this article, these comments in this article on
its face, you've got something that is that is obviously
(13:37):
violent that kind of kicks this whole thing off. The
status of the of the witnesses to this. Was it
loud enough so that they could have heard it from
within their own home surrounding this particular location, or were
they out in the yard watering the grass and they
look up and here's this young man who has his
(13:58):
mother by the hair of the and he's dragging her
back towards the house, which, by the way, she winds
up being drug back into the house and is never
seen in the world of living again, because it was
following this that a nine to one one call is
made and when police roll up, the scene is bathed
(14:23):
in her blood. The thing about law enforcement and investigators
is that you can see something and take it on
(14:47):
its face, right. You see it at the scene and
you say, okay, well, I've got this woman who has
obviously sustained a horrible injury to her neck throat depend
upon you know what you choose as your descriptor here
(15:11):
super saturated blood and you find a weapon there. But
that doesn't tell the whole story. I can. I would
love to have been a fly on the wall when
when the investigators found out that this young man who
(15:33):
apparently has linkage to the death of his mother one
way or another, you know, because he's saying that, you know,
she fell on the knife as a result of an
argument that they were having, and of course the police
are thinking that, you know, he takes this knife and
inserts it into her neck. I would have loved to
have been a fly on the wall, you know when
(15:54):
they discovered that, Oh yeah, about a year ago, this
kid who is now standing over the body of his
dead mother. Yeah, he shot his father in another state
when he was fifteen. Yeah, you know, can you imagine
(16:15):
being that detective when you first get that information, and
it's weird, Dave. You know, sometimes you'll go out on
these cases like this and you look at the forensic
evidence and what you're kind of surrounded by, and you
have no explanation sometimes for it. Sometimes you do. In
this case, you know, you're looking at a stab one,
but you don't really go any further than that at
(16:38):
that moment in tom And then suddenly, maybe while you're
at the scene, this extra data comes rolling in and
the complexion of everything at the scene suddenly changes. I mean,
just consider it just for a second, if you will.
You're thinking, Oh, this kid's seventeen years old and he's
(17:02):
already been present during the midst of another homicide, you know,
I mean, and he was charged with it. It's super super odd.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
You have to admit, well, okay, when they're covering the crime,
and we started with the mother because that was the
most recent, and you mentioned they find out who they're
actually dealing with, I mean, what do we know? Because
he lawyers up right away from very first conversations. I
want a lawyer, and for a seventeen year old to
(17:35):
say that they watch a lot of crime stuff on TV,
there are a number of different things that come to
my mind, But all I'm thinking is, this is somebody
who has been around the legal system from a criminal
perspective to know that they've already said too much because
he made the nine to one one call and when
the authorities arrive on the scene, they're using the information
(17:56):
given to them by nine to one one to set
the stage, to set the scene. And when they walk
in there and they're like, this does not match up
with what he was saying on the phone to nine
one one. Now, according to Pike County Sheriff's Office, that
he on his nine one one call said that he
and his mother got into an argument. What is it?
Paul County. You said, Pike, Oh, Pike, Okay, Paul County. Sorry,
(18:18):
But the Polk County Sheriff's office is saying, hey man,
he said he and his mother were having a fight
and that she lunged at him with a knife and
fell and the knife went into her neck. So I'm
thinking of all the ways of what we already know
from witnesses of him dragging her by the head of
the hair back into the trailer and her saying let
(18:39):
me go, which means she cannot get free herself. At
what point did she get free to grab a knife
and attack him in the way that he describes. They
also talk about life saving measures that he was given
instructions over the phone that when they got there they
realized he probably didn't do that. You know, they're basing
what they see and what they've been told, and they're
(19:01):
not matching up. So he shuts it all down right
away with his mother, and that's it. Now. Detectives can
only go on the physical evidence that they see, the
story that he's told via nine to one one, and
that's it. There is nothing else, which defense attorneys loved
that they would have much rather him not even made
(19:21):
the nine one one call, because that's the story he's
got to defend, you know, that's why police want to
get that initial statement. So as they're investigating and they
find out, wait a minute, this now seventeen year old
boy who is now charged with the first degree murder
of his mother a year and a half ago in February,
(19:43):
on Valentine's Day of twenty twenty three, he is accused
of killing his father in Oklahoma, but that one was
with a gun. He shot him, and he claims self defense,
which I'm guessing if your mother just died while lunging
(20:04):
at you with a knife and she fell on it
and hit her in the throat, that that also he
was doing nothing. It was self defense. He was backing away,
she tripped and fell on the knife.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, Retreat, retreat, retreat.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
And so I'm thinking the same thing, you know, they're
you know, if you're looking for commonality here in the
dynamics of both of these crime scenes, that's what that's
what's being stated with the murder of his father, which
he you know, he he says that he actually did
(20:39):
in fact shoot his father, And I think that that's
very important for us to understand that he had retreated
to a position where he felt like he was cornered.
But David wasn't. In that particular case, it wasn't sufficient
for him to have merely have you know, shot shot
his father. You know, once he pops his father in
(21:05):
the chest. Okay, shoots his father in the chest. Now
his father's Charles Griffith had shot him in the chest
on you know, Valentine's Day, February fourteen, twenty twenty three,
and then he gets popped in the head one more
time almost you know, it's the coup.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
De gras, if you will, I thought no, I just
thought wrong. So you can actually determine what shots came
first and last when they're that close behind one another.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Well, you know, if you're if you're talking about you know, okay,
I'll put I'll put it to you. In the most
likely scenario, if you shoot somebody in the chest, there's
a higher probability that they'll survive to the point where
you're going to be able to shoot them in the head.
And so if the headshot follows the chest shot, and
(21:57):
it's in quick succession, that you're going to have hemorrhage
in both of the wound tracks. However, if you score
a head shot with the first discharge of the weapons,
there's less of a likelihood that there would be depend
(22:19):
upon antomically, the position of that head shot, there'd be
less of a likelihood that you would see trauma or
hemorrhage in the woundtrack of the chest, okay, because you know,
most of the time headshots are going to be fatal,
and again a lot of that has to do with with,
you know, positioning of the round. But he's only fifteen,
(22:41):
and I'm wondering because you know, it's generally, you know,
two to the chests, one of the head you know,
you've heard that in movies over the years, and that's
kind of the you know, the finishing kind of touch,
and that's something that is trained in the military and
in other organization. So you go, why do you go
(23:03):
to the chest first? Well, you go to the chest
first because it's a bigger target. Okay. So you're looking
at the ideas to fire center mass, which means right
in the heart of things, okay, literally and figuratively. So
if you score a chess shot, there's a chance that
first off, if someone is coming after you and they
have you cornered, they're going to go down, and then
(23:26):
you stand over them potentially and finish them off with
a head shot. Now, I mean, there are people out
there that are really good with a weapon, and they
can do it in quick succession, you know. But I've
worked cases over the years where people have taken multiple
gunshot wounds to the torso and then somebody will have
(23:50):
a finishing shot where they'll come to the head. Because
most people understand that head shots are in fact fatal,
and that's how that would be determined. So if you're
dealing with the first a head shot you have, you
know that's tracking with hemorrhage through it. There's a high
likelihood that you won't have any hemorrhage in a chest
(24:11):
in a chest one. However, reversing that, thinking well, he
shot in the chest first, he's probably still got some
kind of agniral respiration, heart might still be beating, and
there's blood coursing through through the brain and you shoot
him again, then you know you can potentially have a
hemorrhage in that wound. Track either way, you know, the
(24:35):
police I think, Dave and correct me if I'm wrong,
But is it true in saying that you know he
shot he shot his father and they charged him in Oklahoma,
and it was within what a month that they dropped
those charges.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Correct, right, they did. And I looked at this because he,
let's charged, you know, with first degree murder in that case,
and at fifteen years old, shot his father and the
judge ended up having all the charges dropped. I say
the judge, because he come. I guess that's what happens.
(25:16):
Prosecutors can drop charges too. I guess. I'm not a
lawyer or anything like that. We just play it on
the radio, but you're career. So the judge actually kicked
that one to the curve, but he did not do
it in a way where they can't bring the charges
again later. You know, they didn't do it with what
do you call it, with prejudice? You dismissed? Dropped with
(25:37):
prejudice means it cannot be brought again. Dropped it. But
if they just drop it just saying hey, we don't
have enough here. And I think, you know, just in
my mind's eye, I'm thinking, when you start charging a
fifteen year old with murder of his father and he
claimed self defense, you really have to look at a
lot of different things. You've got to consider the relationship
(25:59):
and what you may or may not know about it.
Because he did have at the time a mother in
Florida that was an option for him to go live with,
and he was with his dad in Oklahoma. So the
judge looks at the case and he drops it. Now
a year and a half later, we're in Florida, where
he now takes out his mother. I don't know if
(26:21):
we ever have any kind of situation like this, Joe,
having ever happened. I know we've had children accused of
killing parents, but it's usually at the same time or
at the same general time where they take out one
parent and then the other. But we're talking about eighteen months,
a year and a half in different states. As you
(26:41):
mentioned at the very beginning, this is really different in
terms of how do you defend this, You're I mean,
if I killed two people separated by eighteen months, and
I say it's self defense, I mean, what kind of
life am I living?
Speaker 1 (26:58):
You know?
Speaker 2 (26:58):
What am I doing to put myself in this situation
where the people that I'm around want to take me
out and my only recourse to defend myself is to
kill them? I mean, what am I doing wrong? In life.
That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, I know, I got it. I'm going to be
very curious to see what the authorities in Oklahoma do
with this if they go back to pick this case
up again, and because you know what, what could have
changed between you know, low these many months that have elapsed.
(27:32):
You know what is it? It's less than two years,
eighteen months if.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You're working in twenty twenty three to September twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, and how much how much information could be integrated
into a trial? Now remember he hasn't had a trial
in Oklahoma. What what information from from the trial down
in Florida? And is it possible to integrate that in
(28:03):
because you know he's going to be charged if he's
fifteen years old. My understanding is is that you know,
they could, in fact, you know, charge him and treat
him as an adult up there because of the nature
of this crime. I don't know that it would go
into a juvenile status. But I know that one of
the things that may or may not be mentioned is
(28:30):
what the medical examiner said down in Florida relative to
Colin's mother's murder. What the medical examiner said was that,
in their opinion, there's no way that she slipped and
fell on a knife, bringing an end to her own life.
(29:06):
You know, you hear people make comments in literature and
movies and things like that all the time about saying,
you know, young man, the world is your oyster and
go forth. You know your future looks bright. What in
(29:28):
the world do you say to someone like Colin Griffith
the worst of it is behind me now and now
I get to move on to a brighter future. I
don't know, I really don't know. I'm genuinely asking how
do you move on from something like this where now
you're absent both both of your parents. I understand, you know,
(29:50):
Colin's got a grandmother, but you know, how do you
move forward in these circumstances and live your life? It
begs that question. And here's another thing, Dave, I got
to throw at you. Who who would feel safe, you know,
(30:16):
entering into you know, entering into any kind of circumstance
with him.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Taking these one at the time. Yeah, they already got
him to trial. Now he's aged, he's alleged to have
killed his mother September eighth, twenty twenty four, and they
got it to trial already. We're talking. I mean that
speedy justice man. I'm thinking about how often crimes will
(30:47):
you know, a crime will occur and then we have
a trial a couple of years later. This one is months,
not even a full year, And I think because of that,
it gives us a little bit better idea of what
we're really looking like. Because there's not a lot of
distance here. We can actually count the number of months here.
And September eighth, Colin Grevith is accused of killing his mother,
(31:09):
and his defense is that she was charging me with
a knife and she fell on the knife a hit
her in the throat. He then lawyered up right away
before talking to police, and boom, there you go. They
got it to court. And this is the part that
begins this whole thing. Most of us are amazed that
a young man could be accused of killing both of
his parents, separated by eighteen months in different states. But
(31:32):
here we've already got a case that's gone to trial
and at the jury, I don't know how much they
got to hear about the Oklahoma case.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Investigator that worked case up in Oklahoma actually came down
to Florida and test foed in this homicide trial down
in Florida. So yeah, I mean even with that knowledge,
you know that's been you know, kind of integrated into
(32:05):
into this and my my from a forensics perspective, I'd
like to know how much how much forensics actually played
into this case. I think I mentioned it to you.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I saw, I.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Saw the knife that was utilized and this is this
knife is a for those that have not seen it,
I encourage you guys to go take a look at
it online. This knife is a smooth surfaced stainless steel knife.
It's got the integrated stainless steel blade with and you
(32:44):
guys are going to know what I'm talking about. It's
also got stainless steel handle on it too, So it's
a smooth, non porous surface that would easily easily bear
bear any kind of prints that might be available on
(33:04):
this thing. How was the knife processed? I think is
going to be one of the one of the big
questions here. And it's a single injury and there is
quite a bit of blood on the surface of both
the blade and the handle itself. One of the problems
that you encounter because I know that this is a
(33:27):
big question many times with with with instruments that are
utilized in a homicide, you want to be able to
have you want to be able to put it into
the hand of the perpetrator if you have the weapon
right and so with blood though, if you're talking about
(33:49):
a transfer of a fingerprint, which we know is generated
by the fatty lipids and our fingertips, can it be
obscured by the blood? Okay? Well if she's bleeding out.
Also one of the things that you're thinking about, Well,
if he left the knife in her long enough, which
(34:09):
obviously it was in her at some point in time
and came out because her blood is on the surface
of the knife, did he leave behind a bloody print
in his mother's own blood, assuming he didn't have any
injuries that transferred onto the surface of the blade that
they could have processed and put that there. Of course,
(34:31):
the defense can easily say, well, you don't understand. You know,
he picked up the blade. He picked it up because
he either wanted it away from his mother, he wanted
it out of you know, out of arm's reach of her,
or he was trying to render aid, which, of course,
you know they're saying that he didn't make it. He
(34:51):
apparently made a little or no attempt to try to
save his own mother's life. But again that bit of
physical evidence there, you know, is critical.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Dave. You know, I'm glad you pointed all that out,
because those are the things that a lot of us
don't know, Joe, I mean, we don't. It's amazing to
me how many times I'll see something happen during a
trial that I think are really important and end up
being nothing. It happens all the time. In this case,
we know that, and that Colin Griffith was acquitted. The
(35:25):
jury said he didn't do it on purpose, or he
was not guilty of murder. And so here we are,
in less than two years time killed his dad in
Valentine's Day twenty twenty three, and before Valentine's Day twenty
twenty four, he's acquitted of the murder of his mother.
(35:45):
Two dead parents in a twenty four month period of time.
One charge is dropped, the other is he's acquitted. And
I guess we're thinking about this as reasonable human beings
and whether or not you can believe that. And based
on they streamed the closing arguments on Court TV, I
think for this case and in and that it was
(36:07):
one of those things where the prosecution or the defense,
that the prosecution has no proof of what happened inside
the home the day Catherine was killed. They were able
to paint this picture Joe, that she was unbalanced, that
she had pointed a gun at Colin's face before. And
I'm thinking, okay, let's just say, for the sake of argument,
that that had happened in the past. Let's just say,
(36:29):
for the sake of argument, that he begged for foster care.
Please send me to foster care to get me away
from this crazy woman. Well, when it comes right down
to it, he said she was lunging at him with
a knife and it landed in her neck when she fell,
And the medical examiner says that couldn't have happened. Now,
(36:51):
when you testify, Joe, that this couldn't have happened the
way he's describing it to me, he's lying. And if
he's lying about what happened, I can't believe anything else
he's claiming, including self defense. Obviously I'm wrong, But isn't
that Doesn't that make sense to you?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, yeah, on one level, it does. I'm fascinated by
something else that came up at trial to day. Did
you did you know, did you know that the defense
how many times? Let me ask you something, how many
times have you heard the term suicide by cop?
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah? I have, yeah, bunch, bunch, and I know what
they did at trial.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, and they're they're they're alleging that this is suicide
by son. That's what defense is actually saying, because.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
You know he was affluenza boy. You know remember that one.
Oh yeah, it's similar. I mean it's like you come
up with a crazy defense. How do you do y'all
just sit around and drink and can come up, Hey,
this will work. Suicide?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, I know, And it's it's a you know, highly implausible.
But again, you know, with the prosecute, I mean, forgive me.
But with defense, you know, it's a matter of reasonable doubt.
All it takes is one. The difference though, is that,
you know, with suicide by cop is that you have
(38:26):
to have a firearm involved, right, and it's an allegedly
as sure thing. You know that if you act provocatively
toward a police officer, you know, presenting a weapon that
they're going to draw, they're going to tell you to
stand down. You refuse, you continue to advance or do
whatever you're doing. It's being aggressive in order to, you know,
get them to initiate fire upon you and in your life.
(38:51):
Griffith alleges that there had been a long fight that
had preceded, you know, this atal injury that she had sustained,
that the mother had sustained to the neck, you know,
and you're seeing this that this is kind of an
exhaustive event, you know, where they're both tired. They'd been fighting.
(39:14):
We do have an eyewitness that saw him dragging her,
according to the witness, back into the house by the
head of three two, by the hair of the head,
and then a fight ensues after that. This knife looks
like something you would have gotten out of a knife
block and a kitchen, you know, that comes in a
(39:36):
set that's just sitting up there on the counter. Somehow
that knife was accessed during this. Now who put their
hands on that knife first, I really don't know. But
after this very long fight, suddenly she formulates in her
mind that she's wanting, of all things, to commit suicide
(40:01):
at the hand of her own son, and that she
engineers this with a knife as opposed to a weapon,
and a knife is very nonspecific. Okay, there's no guarantee.
There's no guarantee with any weapon out there, but with
a knife you have to hit just in the right spot.
(40:22):
So what's it going to be defense? Is it that
it was a long fight, that they're exhausted, and that
suddenly she formulates this idea of suicidal ideation and decides
to use her son as a means to that end.
(40:43):
Or is it something else, the fact that maybe, just
maybe he decided to end the life of his mother
because he didn't want to be there. We don't know.
We know that he has been found not guilty. There's
one other thing that we know. Colin Griffith is now
(41:04):
without either parent, one dead in Oklahoma, admittedly at his
hand by gunfire, and his mother who wound up with
a large, sharp force injury to the neck. I'm Joseph
(41:25):
Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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