The charges against the father mark the first time state authorities have held the parent of a suspected school shooter responsible
HANDOUT/Barrow County Sheriff’s Office/AFP via Getty (2)
Colt Gray (left, in mugshot) and Colin Gray (right, in mugshot).
A 14-year-old and his father have both been indicted on dozens of charges connected to the Apalachee High School shooting in which four people were killed in Winder, Ga., on Sept. 4.
A Barrow County grand jury returned separate indictments – both obtained by PEOPLE – against the father and son.
Colt Gray, 14 – who will be tried as an adult – is indicted on 55 criminal counts, among them four counts of malice murder for the deaths of two students – Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14 – and two teachers – Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. (Another nine people were injured in the shooting.)
The teen is additionally charged with 18 counts of first-degree cruelty to children and multiple counts of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.
Brynn Anderson-Pool/Getty
Colin Gray at his first court appearance at Barrow County Courthouse, Sept. 6, 2024.
His father, Colin Gray, is indicted on 29 counts, among them two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of reckless conduct.
The Grays are due in court for arraignment on Nov. 21, Chief Assistant District Attorney Patricia Brooks confirms to PEOPLE.
The elder Gray’s lawyers – Jimmy Berry and Brian Hobbes – were not immediately available for comment. PEOPLE was not immediately able to contact the teen’s lawyer.
The charges against the elder Gray are the first ever in the state filed against the parent of an alleged school shooter, Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said in September, per NBC News.
Related: 4 Killed in Georgia School Shooting Identified: ‘Truly Heartbroken’
The elder Gray is accused of gifting his son the AR-15-style rifle – used in Georgia’s deadliest ever school shooting – for Christmas, The New York Times reports.
After the Sept. 4 shooting, investigators allege they recovered a notebook from the teen’s first-period class in which he mapped out the classrooms and hallways and estimated how many people he could wound or kill in a shoot-out, investigators said in court, per The Times.
Reading aloud from the notebook in court, a Georgia Bureau of Investigations special agent testified that in a notation by the hallway the teen allegedly said: “I’m thinking three to four people killed. Injured? Four to five.”
He allegedly also surmised that he could kill between 15 and 17 people in a single classroom and a few more in another. In parentheses, he allegedly noted to the side of the map: “Surprised if I make it this far,” the agent testified, per The Times.
In another note following the shooting, per The Times, the teen allegedly told his family, “It’s not your fault,” and begged their forgiveness, saying, “It’s out of my control.”
Brynn Anderson-Pool/Getty
Colin Gray at his first court appearance at the Barrow County Courthouse, Sept. 6, 2024.
The Sept. 4 shooting was not the first time the shooting suspect had come to the attention of authorities, the FBI’s Atlanta Division has said in a statement. In May 2023, law enforcement interviewed him about allegedly threatening to shoot up a school.
In an audio transcript of investigators’ interview with the father – obtained by The Times and PBS – Colin said that he had started teaching his son about guns and hunting to get him out of the house and playing fewer video games. In that interview with authorities, he recalled the day his son shot his first deer as “the greatest day ever.”
FBI Atlanta said in the statement that Colin Gray confirmed he “had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them,” and that his son had “denied making the threats online.”
Ultimately, authorities had determined that there was no probable cause for an arrest or additional law enforcement action, but FBI Atlanta said that local schools had been made aware of the allegations for “continued monitoring of the subject.”
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