BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — A jury found Colin Gray, the father of the suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting, guilty on all charges Tuesday. The guilty verdict included second-degree murder charges.
Gray is the father of Colt Gray, the student accused of killing four and hurting nine others at the Georgia high school on Sept. 4, 2024.
The jury took only an hour and 48 minutes to deliberate before they found Gray guilty on 27 charges. Two other cruelty to children charges had previously been dropped.
Gray will be sentenced at a later date. No trial date has been set yet for his son.
The reaction from families of the victims who were in the courtroom, on Channel 2 Action News starting at 4:00 p.m.
THE CHARGES
Colin Gray faces 27 charges related to the mass shooting. A judge dropped two additional charges of child cruelty were dropped on Monday after two students who were in the classroom did not testify.
The Barrow County District Attorney’s Office accuses Gray of being reckless when he did not restrict his son’s access to guns despite knowing his son could cause harm.
THE TRIAL
The trial began with attorneys on both sides giving opening statements to jurors on Feb. 16 followed by the first day of testimony on Feb 17. Prosecutors called students and teachers who survived the 2024 rampage.
Investigators took the stand on Feb. 18 to show the AR-style rifle used in the mass shooting. The state showed receipts as evidence that the father bought the gun for the son in Nov. 2023. Prosecutors argued that was about seven months after Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies showed up at the father’s home to investigate accusations that the child threatened to shoot up a school.
The father’s defense team argued the father bought the son the rifle to shift his focus from computers and gaming and get him interested in the outdoors, hunting and target shooting.
On Day 4, prosecutors showed jurors a Barrow County Sheriff’s Office deputy’s body camera video. The deputy showed up at the father’s home after the school shooting. When the father came out of the home, he said “I knew it.”
Prosecutors showed jurors what they call a shrine to a school shooter on the fifth day of trial. Investigators argue the son posted pictures of Nicholas Cruz on his wall months before the school shooting. The father’s defense team argued he never saw it. During his interrogation, the father told deputies he did not recognize the collage of pictures or know the person in them. On the witness stand, the father said his son did inform him who was pictured on his bedroom wall.
On Day 5, the mother of the suspected school shooter, Marcee Gray, took the stand. She and Colin Gray are separated. She testified that she knew her son sent money to Cruz in prison and wrote him an e-mail. She said she did not tell his father.
She said she did inform his father that she thinks he needs inpatient therapy treatment for anxiety, depression, cutting and mania. She testified the son had been physical violent with her and his father.
She said the family had plans to drop the child off at a treatment facility in Athens the Saturday before the shooting. She said the father ended up ignoring her calls. Instead of taking him to the treatment facility, the father took him to a guitar shop in Athens.
On Day 7, Colin Gray’s daughter testified. She was in middle school at the time of the shooting. She said she knew her brother was capable of a school shooting, and she believes her father did, too.
The defense team argued that is a stark difference from what she told investigators after the shooting.
Jurors spent Day 8 of the trial watching a deputy questing Colin Gray in the interrogation room after the shooting.
By the end of Day 9, prosecutors walked jurors through a timeline that started when Gray bought his son the rifle and ended on the day of the shooting. They argue the dad had months, weeks or days to get his son help and lock up the guns in the house.
On Day 10 of trial, the father took the witness stand to testify in his own defense.
On Monday, March 2, prosecutors and defense attorneys presented closing arguments to jurors.
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