Pre-Med UF Student Stabs Mother To Death In Polk County: Sheriff

FROSTPROOF, FL — A pre-med student at the University of Florida fatally stabbed his mother at her Frostproof home Saturday afternoon.

Emmanuel Espinoza, 21, drove from Gainesville to his mother’s home for a family event. When he arrived at 2 p.m., he “stabbed her many times,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a video posted to Facebook.

His mother, Evie Espinoza, 46, a second-grade teacher at Ben Hill Griffin Elementary in Frostproof, was on the phone with a family member at the time of the stabbing.

He called 911 after the stabbing and confessed to killing his mother.

Emmanuel told investigators that he stabbed his mother because “she irritated him,” Judd said.

He decided on his way home from UF that he would “murder her,” according to the sheriff.

He was charged with first-degree murder.