Teen Accused Of Fatally Stabbing His Mother Was Once Charged In Father's Death

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A teenager who is accused of stabbing his mother to death in Florida was freed last year after charges were dropped in the fatal shooting of his father in Oklahoma.

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

“And it’s not just a singular murder,” Judd said, explaining that the teen was charged in the Feb. 14, 2023, death of his father in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. The murder charge was dismissed after authorities in Oklahoma could not find evidence that disputed the teen’s claim of self-defense, Judd said.

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

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

Since then, he had attacked her multiple times, the sheriff said, including a case of domestic violence in which he “stomped” on her.

At one point, the teen was briefly held for mental health services under a Florida law that allows such detentions. As he was being released, the teen threatened to kill either himself or his mother, Judd said. Authorities then held him for three more days.

On Sunday, the teen called 911 from his grandmother’s home in Auburndale, telling the dispatcher that he and his mother got into a “very long fight” and she fell on a knife and was bleeding.

When he met arriving deputies in the front yard, “he was calm, cool and collected, not upset, and