Man stabs to death family, then kills self

Web posted May 10, 2000

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By Stephen Gurr
Morris News Service

NICHOLSON, Ga. -- Calvin Griffin, his eyesight failing, his marriage in peril, increasingly withdrew from the outside world in the final months of his life.

On Monday, just hours after picking up his 6-year-old son from a bus stop at the end of the dirt-and-gravel road where the family lived in Jackson County, the 32-year-old unemployed man snapped, police said. He killed his family in the living room of his trailer home, stabbing his two young sons and estranged wife, then ended his own life with a .22-caliber rifle, authorities said.

``In 15 years, I haven't seen anything this bad,'' said David Cochran, an investigator with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department.

Investigator Cochran said there was little that could have been done to prevent Mr. Griffin from taking the lives of his sons Ryley Drake, 6; Joshua Tyler, 4; and his wife, Laury, 25.

``Most of the times in situations like this, you have some warning signs -- a lot of domestic assault reports are filed,'' Investigator Cochran said. ``But in this case, there were not.''

``Calvin stayed pretty much to himself,'' said neighbor Lammie Jarrells, who lived two doors down from the Griffins on Hawks Court, a rural residential neighborhood of modest but well-kept mobile homes in eastern Jackson County. ``He had a riding mower I used to see him on every now and then, but he hadn't been riding it lately. He came back one day and said the doctor told him he was legally blind.''

Every morning, Mr. Griffin, a smallish man with a dark beard and thick eyeglasses, dutifully drove his son Ryley to the bus stop at the end of the road in his old Chevy Nova. Every afternoon at 2:30, he was there to pick him up, Mr. Jarrells said. Mr. Griffin collected a disability pension as a result of his poor vision and had not worked for at least two years.

The only hint of trouble came in September 1998, when Mr. Griffin shot his neighbor's Rottweiler after the dog wandered into his yard. Deputies were called to the home, but neighbor Bruce Hill never pursued charges against Mr. Griffin.

``I don't think he had any dealing with Bruce after that,'' Mr. Jarrells said. ``But I've never known Calvin to say nothing bad to nobody.''

Lamar Langston, principal at Benton Elementary School where Ryley was a kindergartner, said Mr. Griffin seemed like a caring parent.

``He was a very pleasant fellow to talk to,'' Mr. Langston said. ``He would call us to let us know he was available to help in any way.''