RANDOLPH — What police say started as a simple argument over a trip to the grocery store ended Saturday afternoon with 44-year-old father Concepcion Cruz dead on the floor of a Randolph apartment.

His girlfriend, 29-year-old Victoria Griffin, stood over him with two broken steak knives and no memory of what happened, she later told police.

Cruz’s wife, from whom he was separated, said his teenage step-sons had made a futile and bloody attempt to save him, holding his hand as he died.

Griffin pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder during a brief virtual arraignment in Windham Superior Court Monday afternoon. Griffin, who appeared at the arraignment via video from Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt., and did not speak during the hearing, was ordered held without bail on the charge.

Though neither the judge nor prosecutors discussed the specifics of the case during the hearing on Monday, a police affidavit released that morning gave the following account of how an argument on a Saturday afternoon ended in Cruz’s death.

The events started just before 4 p.m. at an apartment on 13 Park Street in Randolph, according to the affidavit written by Vermont State Police Sergeant Tyson Kinney. Griffin told police that she and Cruz got into an argument because he wanted to go to the store with her but she left without him.

Griffin said the argument got more heated and she threatened to stab Cruz if he didn’t leave. At one point Griffin claimed Cruz pushed her against a wall and she hit him in the face.

She and Cruz continued arguing in the kitchen when, Griffin said, she looked over, saw the knife block on the counter top and “blacked out,” according to the affidavit.

When she came to, Cruz was lying on the floor and she was holding two steak knife handles that were missing their blades, police said she told them.

Cruz’s twin step-sons, 16-year-olds Aamir Patrick and Aakash Patrick, and his 12-year-old daughter, none of whom are related to Griffin, were in the house at the time, according to Cruz’s wife, Amy Sue Cruz, the mother of the teen boys. The couple had separated earlier this year but were still on good terms, she said in an interview. Griffin’s 15-year-old sister was also in the house.

Amy Sue Cruz said her sons snapped into action after they saw their step-father had been stabbed; one son took their step-sister out of the room so she wouldn’t see what happened, and the other cut off part of his own shirt, wrapped it around Cruz’s wounds and applied pressure, trying to keep him alive.

But Cruz was beyond saving; the boys held their step-father’s hand and told them they loved him, she said.

“What they did was far beyond what anybody should have to do,” she said. “One of my children has the image in his head and it won’t go away.”

One of the step-sons told police that, while they struggled to resuscitate Cruz, they heard Griffin “bragging” about the incident, saying “I told you I was going to stab you and I did,” according to the affidavit.

In a police interview after her arrest, Griffin told officers that the stabbing was “not justified” because the couple wasn’t physically fighting at the time and said she planned to plead guilty to the crime.

Griffin added that she suffers from manic depression and has been in and out of treatment several times in recent years.

Cruz’s sudden death was a shocking blow to his friends and family, including Amy Sue Cruz, who was married to Concepcion Cruz for 10 years. She said the two had been talking about reconciling after a brief separation this year.

Amy Cruz said she finally admitted to Concepcion Cruz on Friday that she still loved him. The next morning, he told her he felt the same way.

“Where do we go from here?” Amy Cruz remembered asking her husband on Saturday morning. He told her he was “figuring it out.”

Hours later, those hopes had been dashed.

“He had gone through so much in his life, just to be murdered in cold blood. Like he was nothing,” Amy Cruz said, her voice wavering in a phone interview Monday.

Amy Cruz said Concepcion loved being a father. The first time the couple met in 2009, Concepcion was walking down her street, singing Sweet Child of Mine to his newborn daughter.

“I’ll never lose sight of that — how we met,” she said. “At that point I knew he had to be mine.”

Amy Cruz had five children of her own, all of whom loved Concepcion Cruz, she said. But her two youngest sons, twins Aamir and Aakash, had largely been raised by Cruz and considered him their father, she said.

“All of my kids he thought of as his kids,” she said, adding that was true even after the couple separated. “He was absolutely the best father. If a kid needed something he worked to get what they needed.”

She said her late husband was also candid with their children about his own past, and tried to teach them not to repeat his own mistakes.

Cruz was sentenced by a federal judge in 2010 to 37 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges stemming from a residential burglary that year, according to The Herald of Randolph.

After he was released, Cruz started working with restorative justice programs and in 2019 he received his bachelor’s degree in psychology. Amy Cruz said that Concepcion had struggled with addiction in the past but had been sober for years, and that he was eager to understand the psychology surrounding addiction.

His ultimate goal was to work in crisis intervention, helping people who suffered similar addiction issues.

“He was one of those that turned his life around. He was doing the right thing,” she said, adding “There’s no reason he shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas with his kids.”

She said the family plans to hold a small funeral after Christmas, followed by a larger celebration of life once the COVID-19 outbreak dies down.

Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.