Teen charged with killing mother in Florida

A teenager accused of stabbing his mother to death in Florida was released last year after charges were dropped in the fatal shooting of his father in Oklahoma.

Polk County, Florida, Sheriff Grady Judd described what he called the “cold-blooded murder” of the teen’s 39-year-old mother Sunday at her grandmother’s home in Auburndale.

“And this isn’t just a singular murder,” Judd said, explaining that the teen was charged with killing his father on Feb. 14, 2023, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. The murder charge was dropped after Oklahoma authorities could not find evidence to challenge the teen’s claim of self-defense, Judd said.

Court documents do not indicate why the charge was dropped, and Lincoln County Prosecutor Adam Panter did not immediately return a phone call or email for comment Thursday. The teen’s attorney in the Oklahoma case also did not immediately respond to a message left by The Associated Press.

In March 2023, the teenager came to Charlotte County, Florida, to live with his mother.

Since then, he had assaulted her several times, the sheriff said, including in one domestic violence incident in which he “stomped” on her.

At one point, the teen was briefly detained for mental health treatment under a Florida law that allows such detention. Upon his release, the teen threatened to kill himself or his mother, Judd said. Authorities then detained him for three more days.

On Sunday, the teen called 911 from his grandmother’s house in Auburndale, telling the dispatcher that he and his mother had been arguing for a “very long time” and that she had fallen on a knife and was bleeding.

When he met deputies arriving in the front yard, “he was calm, collected and collected, not upset, and he had blood on him,” Judd said.

Inside the house, police found the woman and a knife. The grandmother was not home at the time.

“He didn’t say, ‘Mom’s here, mom’s bleeding out, mom needs help,'” the sheriff said. “He looked the deputy in the eye and said, ‘I know my rights. I want a lawyer.'”

The sheriff said he did not know who the teen’s attorney was.

Judd said the teenager showed “no emotion.”

According to Judd, neighbors told investigators that the mother and son began arguing after he arrived home that afternoon. They said the teen grabbed the mother by the hair and “dragged” her into the house.

The medical examiner told investigators that based on an autopsy, “it was neither reasonable nor plausible that she died the way he said she did,” Judd said.

The teen is being held at a Polk County juvenile facility on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and violating a restraining order. He is not listed on jail records. The sheriff has asked the state attorney’s office to charge him as an adult.

Judd questioned why Oklahoma authorities dropped the charges in 2023.

“Because she took him away and tried to do what a mother should do, she’s now dead,” he said of the teen’s mother. “Everybody who should have been special to him in his life died when they upset him.”

An Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent testified under oath that the teen’s explanation of what happened did not match the evidence and that there was “probable cause to believe” the teen committed first-degree murder in the shooting death of his father. The agent testified under oath that the investigator attempted to interview the teen, who invoked his right to an attorney.

Judd said he hoped that if anyone had information about the father’s death, they would come forward.