Georgia school shooter Colt Gray made his first court appearance on Friday, a day after his father was also arrested for allowing his son to have a gun.
The 14-year-old is accused of killing two students and two teachers with a semi-automatic assault rifle at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta, on Wednesday.
Gray has been charged as an adult with four counts of murder in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
Gray, 14, appeared in person at the Barrow County Superior Courthouse in shackles, wearing a green T-shirt and gray sweatpants. He was handcuffed across his body.
He spoke only to Judge Mingledorff and replied “yes sir” when asked to confirm his name, that he could read and write and that he had the right to an attorney.
Georgia school shooter Colt Gray made his first court appearance Friday
Gray was arrested Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, minutes after authorities say he opened fire on students and teachers, killing four. Colt allegedly told police, “I did it” as he was read his Miranda rights.
Dozens of emotional family members packed the courtroom as Gray made his first appearance, some crying before the hearing even began.
Some wore sunglasses to cover their faces and were assisted in the courtroom by detectives.
The teenager is represented by Zain Harman and has been warned he could face the death penalty for the charges.
That happened after he immediately surrendered to officers who confronted him during the violent shooting, which authorities suspect he had been planning for years.
His father, Colin, is scheduled to appear in the same courtroom shortly after his son, charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Relatives of both father and son did not appear to support them in court.
Gray looked down at his feet as he entered the courtroom and looked directly at the judge as he spoke during the brief 8-minute hearing.
His father is receiving alternative legal aid for his son, following his arrest on Thursday afternoon.
His father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, is accused of buying his 14-year-old son Colt the AR-15-style rifle the boy used. He was arrested Thursday on suspicion of second-degree murder, manslaughter and cruelty to children.
The teen’s father, Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting, including involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder, said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“His charges are directly tied to his son’s actions and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said. Colin Gray’s initial court appearance has not yet been set.
Gray was arrested Wednesday, minutes after authorities say he opened fire on students and teachers, killing four. Colt allegedly told police, “I did it” when he was read his Miranda rights.
Public records show that Gray’s mother, Marcee Gray, has a criminal record dating back to 2007 and was jailed as recently as April of this year. She was banned from having contact with her father, Colin, without third-party intervention.
Marcee, 43, has a criminal record in four Georgia counties that includes drug charges, domestic violence and property damage, as well as civil fraud claims.
The family’s home was searched on Wednesday afternoon, with FBI investigators seizing firearms and evidence.
Marcee, 43, has a criminal record in four Georgia counties that includes drug use, domestic violence and property damage, as well as civil claims for fraud
Neighbors saw Colin return to his home Wednesday night, but it is unclear whether he turned himself in to authorities.
A neighbour told DailyMail.com they were ‘terrified’ by the new charges, adding that the family had ‘kept aloof’ and had not integrated into the community in the two years they had lived at the property.
The teen denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities questioned him last year about a threatening social media post, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday.
Conflicting evidence about the origin of the mail prevented investigators from making an arrest, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the May 2023 report and found nothing that would have warranted charges at the time.
Teacher Richard Aspinwall was named as one of the four victims of the shooting. Christina Irimie was also identified as a victim
Mason Schermerhorn, 14, an autistic student at Apalachee High School, was the first victim to be identified. Christian Angulo, 14, also lost his life in the senseless shooting
The teen was questioned after the sheriff received a tip from the FBI that Gray, then 13, “may have threatened to shoot up a high school tomorrow.” The threat was made on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers, according to the sheriff’s office incident report.
The FBI tip pointed to a Discord account linked to an email address associated with Colt Gray, the report said. But the boy “said he would never say something like that, even as a joke,” the investigator’s report said.
The transcript of the interview states that the teenager said, “I promise I will never say anything that…” while the rest of that denial is unintelligible.
The investigator wrote that no arrests were made due to “inconsistent information” on the Discord account. The account contained profile information in Russian and there was a digital evidence trail showing the account was opened in several cities in Georgia and Buffalo, New York.
Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the May 2023 report and found nothing that would warrant charges at the time.
“We made absolutely no mistake in this,” Mangum told The Associated Press in an interview. “We did everything we could do with what we had at the time.”
According to agents, the Discord account had a username in Russian and the letters translated to the name Lanza, a reference to Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.
Gray denied being the author of the threats and told police he had shut down his Discord after being hacked repeatedly. He expressed concern that someone would make such accusations about him.
“He knows how dangerous guns are, what they can do and what not to use them,” the father, Colin Gray, said, according to a transcript obtained by the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff’s investigators closed the case because they could not prove Gray had any connection to the Discord account and found no grounds to seek a court order to seize the family’s guns, according to police reports released by the sheriff’s office on Thursday.
The boy is said to be obsessed with other notorious school shooters, such as Nikolas Cruz, the killer from Parkland, Florida.