A Randolph woman pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge alleging she stabbed her boyfriend to death Saturday in the kitchen of a home they shared in town.
Victoria Griffin, 29, was ordered held without bail after entering her not guilty plea to the second-degree murder charge in the death of 44-year-old Concepcion Cruz.
Michael Shane, an attorney representing Griffin during her video arraignment Monday from Windham County criminal court in Brattleboro, did not contest the prosecution’s request that his client be held without bail.
Instead, he told Judge John Treadwell he intended to file a formal motion on the matter and have it argued at a later hearing.
Griffin took part in the hearing via video from inside a room at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
Charging documents released after the Monday hearing provide more details about the killing that took place Saturday afternoon in a Park Street home where Griffin resided with Cruz, her live-in boyfriend.
Four children, between the ages of 12 and 16, all related to either Griffin or Cruz, were in the home at the time stabbing, the documents stated.
Griffin was outside of the home when police arrived at the scene around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, according to the documents. She told the responding Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy that she had stabbed Cruz “multiple times with several knives because the knives kept breaking.”
“Throughout the entire incident, Griffin stated it felt like a ‘dream,’” the charging affidavit stated she said at that time. “Griffin was not able to remember or describe how the stabbing occurred.”
Inside the home, the documents stated, Cruz was found on the floor and bleeding from stab wounds. He was taken to Gifford Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 5:44 p.m. Saturday.
An autopsy conducted by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office showed that Cruz suffered three stab wounds to his torso, including one on his upper chest that penetrated his heart, the documents stated. His death was ruled a homicide.
Griffin, speaking with investigators inside the Vermont State Police barracks in Royalton, told them that she had gone to the store around 4 p.m. Saturday and when she returned home, Cruz became upset with her because she went without him and didn’t buy him beer.
The argument continued, Griffin told detectives, and turned physical. At one point, she said to investigators, Cruz pushed her, causing her to strike him in the face. She also said that Cruz threw her to ground in the living room before the two separated and went back into the kitchen.
As the two continued to argue, Griffin told investigators, she told him to leave or she would kill him and he replied, “you’re not going to do that.”
She added that she remembered standing in the kitchen with Cruz as they continued verbally arguing, and she described seeing knives nearby on a countertop.
“Griffin stated that she then ‘blacked out’ and was not sure what occurred next,” the documents stated. Griffin added that when she “came to” she saw Cruz on the kitchen floor and the children were coming up to her saying, “what did you do?”
Griffin, in speaking to investigators, said that she knew she would be going to jail. She also said that she would “plead guilty” to stabbing Cruz, according to the documents.
After the stabbing late Saturday afternoon, the charging documents, Griffin walked out of the home as she told the children they needed to call someone because she wouldn’t.
Griffin was placed in a cruiser outside the home by the arriving deputy.
She also later told investigators she had been diagnosed with manic depression, and was taking daily medication and had previously been at treatment facilities.
Cruz had been featured in a 2016 Vermont Public Radio piece talking about how he had turned his life around from using drugs and serving time in federal and state prison on charges such as assault and possession of a stolen firearm.
He told VPR in 2016 that he had been five years in recovery, and was helping others as part of a community group coming up with ways to address the drug problem in the town.
A gofundme page was posted online Monday by Amy Sue Cruz who described Cruz as her husband who had been “brutally murdered.”
She was seeking to raise $20,000 to help pay his cremation and funeral expenses, with any leftover funds going to his children. The post added that Cruz, who she refers to as “Coco,” wanted to have his ashes spread in the ocean in Florida.
“Coco was an amazing person and father,” the post stated.
If convicted of the second-degree murder charge, Griffin faces up to 20 years to life in prison.
