The father of Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was arrested on charges including murder after it was revealed that he purchased the AR-15-style rifle the 14-year-old used to shoot dead four people on campus.
Colin Gray, 54, has been taken into custody by local authorities and charged with two counts of murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Officials confirmed in a press conference that the charges stem from Colin ‘knowingly allowing’ his son to have access to the firearm used in the shooting.
The 14-year-old was apprehended on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, just minutes after he killed two students and two teachers with the semi-automatic weapon.
The dad allegedly purchased the deadly weapon as a Christmas present to his son – just months after they received an initial visit from the FBI.
Colin Gray (pictured left), 54, has been taken into custody by local authorities and charged with two counts of murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight counts of cruelty to children
Officials confirmed in a press conference that the charges stem from Colin ‘knowingly allowing’ his son to have access to the firearm used in the shooting
The family home was raided on Wednesday afternoon, with FBI investigators seizing firearms and evidence.
Neighbors saw Colin return to the family home on Wednesday evening, though it is unclear if he handed himself into authorities.
A neighbor told DailyMail.com that they were ‘terrified’ following the new charges, adding that the family had ‘kept themselves to themselves’ and not integrated with the community in their two years at the property.
‘These charges stem from Mr. Gray knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon,’ GBI Director Chris Hosey said at an evening news conference.
‘His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.’
In Georgia, second-degree murder means that a person has caused the death of another person while committing second-degree cruelty to children, regardless of intent.
It is punishable by 10 to 30 years in prison, while malice murder and felony murder carry a minimum sentence of life. Involuntary manslaughter means that someone unintentionally causes the death of another person.
It´s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings.
Colt Gray was given the gun he used to allegedly shoot dead four people at his Georgia high school as a Christmas present from his father
In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a mass school shooting.
They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison of not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son´s deteriorating mental health before he killed killing four students in 2021 .
The arrest came after sources claimed that the father-of-three bought his 14-year-old son the assault rifle used in the shooting as a Christmas gift in 2023.
This was just months after the teenager and his father were interviewed by local law enforcement in connection with online threats about carrying out a school shooting made on the gaming social-media platform Discord, according to investigators.
The teen was interviewed after the sheriff received a tip from the FBI that Gray, then 13, ‘had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.’ The threat was made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, according to the sheriff’s office incident report.
The FBI’s tip pointed to a Discord account associated with an email address linked to Colt Gray, the report said. But the boy said ‘he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,’ according to the investigator’s report.
The interview transcript quotes the teen as saying: ‘I promise I would never say something where …’ with the rest of that denial listed as inaudible.
The investigator wrote that no arrests were made because of ‘inconsistent information’ on the Discord account, which had profile information in Russian and a digital evidence trail indicating it had been accessed in different Georgia cities as well as Buffalo, New York.
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
Teacher Richard Aspinwall was named as one of the four victims of the shooting. Christina Irimie was also identified as a victim
Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.
‘We did not drop the ball at all on this,’ Mangum told The Associated Press in an interview. ‘We did all we could do with what we had at the time.’
The Discord account had a user name written in Russian, and the translation of the letters spelled out the name Lanza, referencing Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary school tragedy, officers said.
Gray denied he was the author of the threats, telling police he’d shut down his Discord after being repeatedly hacked. He expressed concerns that someone would make those accusations about him.
‘He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them,’ the father, Colin Gray, said according to a transcript obtained from the sheriff’s office.
Colin reportedly assured officers that he would be ‘mad as hell’ if he learned the allegations about his son making threats were true, and that ‘all the guns [would] go away.’
Online, his aunt vowed ‘full throttle blood’ as she claimed he’d been subjected to ‘abuse’ his entire life. Those comments were deleted last night after a barrage of backlash.
The sheriff’s investigators closed the case after being unable to substantiate that either Gray was connected to the Discord account, and did not find grounds to seek the needed court order to confiscate the family’s guns, according to police reports released by the sheriff’s office on Thursday.
Two students view a memorial as the flags fly half-staff after a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
The American and state of Georgia flags fly half-staff after a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
The boy reportedly had an obsession with other infamous school shooters such as Parkland, Florida killer Nikolas Cruz.
Two students and two teachers were dead inside the school building by the time he laid down his AR-style weapon.
Students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, and teachers Richard Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were named as the deceased.
When police searched the teen’s Georgia home following the bloodbath, they reportedly found clues the teenager was ‘obsessed’ with mass shootings – specifically the Parkland massacre in 2018, which left 17 people dead.
Gray was known to the FBI after several tips came in about him last year.
The boy remains in juvenile custody in Georgia, awaiting his first court appearance, which is scheduled for Friday morning. He will be charged as an adult, sheriffs said.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said Gray immediately surrendered when confronted by school resource officers at the scene.
Sheriff Smith revealed that Wednesday was Gray’s first ‘real day’ at Apalachee High.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said Gray immediately surrendered when confronted by school resource officers at the scene
Gray has been charged with four felony counts of murder, and will be tried as an adult, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed
He said: ‘He was a brand new student to Barrow County Schools, he had enrolled about two weeks prior. This was his second day at school. He had been before, he left early, on that day and this was his first real full day.’
According to law enforcement, Gray opened fire at approximately 10:23am, hitting at least 13 people as frantic scenes took over the school.
Images showed students streaming out onto the campus as terrified parents raced to find their children, with one mother describing the scene outside the school as pure ‘chaos.’
A makeshift memorial has been created using a wreath and flowers. On Thursday, families and students stopped by the somber scene to pay their respects to the lives lost in the tragedy.
