BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — After less than two hours of deliberation, a jury found Colin Gray guilty of 27 crimes in connection with the Apalachee High School shooting.
Gray is the father of Colt Gray, the student deputies accuse of killing four and hurting nine others when he opened fire inside the school Sept. 4, 2024.
Prosecutors accused the dad of buying his son the rifle used in the shooting and failing to lock it up or restrict his access to guns in the home, despite knowing his son could hurt people.
Jurors found the father guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of child cruelty related to the deaths of two children: students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
The guilty verdict included two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless conduct for the deaths of two adults: teachers Cristina Irimie and Ricky Aspinwall.
The verdict includes 23 counts of child cruelty in connection to the children who survived but were hurt mentally and physically.
This is the first time a parent has been charged or convicted in connection to a shooting at the hands of their child.
“We talk a lot about rights in our country, and we’re proud of our rights, and our rights were given to us by our forefathers,” District Attorney Brad Smith said. “But God gave us a duty to protect our children, and I hope that we remember that.”
Families of the children killed during the school shooting cried when hearing the jury’s decision Tuesday. They were not ready to comment immediately after court.
Gray did not look at jurors during the verdict reading.
The district attorney said he spoke to jurors after the judge released them from the case.
“I think it was the fact that it was multiple pieces of evidence over a lengthy period of time that really showed them what was happening inside that house and all the warnings that were missed,” said Smith.
The jury heard from 66 witnesses over 11 days of trial.
The prosecution called 65 of them. They included a teacher, David Phenix, and six students injured with bullets and shrapnel. Jurors heard from deputies who stopped the shooting and pulled children out of the building.
They saw evidence and surveillance video gathered after the shooting.
Prosecutors also called teachers and school counselors from Colt Gray’s past.
Department of Family and Children Services case workers described meeting with the family after the mother tested positive for drugs and the father gained full custody of the children.
They described urging him to get the children into therapy.
Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, testified that she told the father their son needed inpatient therapy. She said she told him to remove the guns from the home. However, he never got his son help or locked up any of the guns in the home.
The defense called one person to the stand, and that was Colin Gray himself. The dad tried to explain why he never restricted his son’s access to guns.
He said he never knew his son had an interest in school shooters. He said his son’s mother never informed him that his son sent money to Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland school shooter, in prison.
“We find what she did to be morally reprehensible. We do not believe she is a good mother, in my opinion,” Smith said. “But at the end of the day, she did not have custody of Colt, and she was not the one who provided him the firearms.”
Smith said he would have never given a 14-year-old the rifle when his father did. It came months after the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office sent deputies to his home to investigate accusations that his son threatened to shoot up a school there.
The dad told jurors deputies led him to believe it was not a true threat, and his son said he was hacked online.
Defense attorneys Brian Hobbs and Jim Berry have not responded to requests to comment since the verdict.
They told jurors during closing arguments Monday that convicting a parent in a state where failing to lock up a gun is not a crime in a case like this is a slippery slope.
“The defense talked about a slippery slope. It wasn’t like one parent missed one warning. It was multiple warnings over a lengthy period of time, and, like we said, you just had to do one thing: take that rifle away,” Smith said.
When asked about the historical significance of the case, Smith pointed out what the mother, Marcee, testified to on the stand. He said she admitted she researched what happened to other parents charged in connection to school shootings.
Smith said perhaps this verdict will grab parents’ attention as well.
“We don’t know how many tragedies it did stop, and we hope we’ve moved the needle a little further,” he said.
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