ATLANTA — A 14-year-old boy from Georgia, Colt Gray, who was charged with murder in connection to a mass shooting at Apalachee High School, entered a not guilty plea on Tuesday.
The plea was submitted by Gray’s attorney following his indictment last Thursday, and the scheduled arraignment hearing for November 21 was waived, which is a typical procedure in Georgia where defendants sometimes choose to skip this step.
Gray faces an extensive indictment from a Barrow County grand jury, totaling 55 charges as an adult. These include murder charges for the deaths of four individuals, as well as 25 counts of aggravated assault related to the high school incident. Additionally, Gray’s father, Colin Gray, has been indicted on 29 counts, which include two charges of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter, along with several counts of child cruelty.
As of Tuesday, Colin Gray had not yet entered his plea and is still set to appear for his arraignment on November 21. Colt Gray is currently detained in a juvenile facility in Gainesville, while Colin Gray, 54, remains in custody at the Barrow County jail. Neither father nor son has requested bail, and their legal representatives have not provided any comments to the media.
The tragic shooting on September 4 resulted in the deaths of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. In addition to the fatalities, another teacher and eight students sustained injuries, seven of whom were shot.
Colin Gray has made history as the first adult to face charges in a school shooting incident in Georgia. His indictment showcases the increasing trend of holding parents accountable for their children’s actions in such tragic events. Similar accountability was seen in Michigan, where parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were convicted in a mass school shooting case and received sentences of at least 10 years in prison for failing to secure their weapon and being indifferent to their son’s mental health issues prior to him committing the crime in 2021.
According to investigators, Colt Gray had taken a semiautomatic assault-style rifle onto a school bus, with the weapon concealed in a book bag wrapped in poster board. It has been reported that the teenager meticulously planned the attack at the high school, which has an enrollment of around 1,900 students, by drawing diagrams and noting potential body counts in a notebook. He left his second-period class and entered a bathroom before emerging with the rifle to initiate the attack in both a classroom and the hallways.
In the weeks leading up to the shooting, discussions had occurred between school officials and Colt Gray’s family regarding the possibility of him receiving counseling or even inpatient psychiatric care. His home environment had long been described as unstable. Investigators stated that his mother, Marcee Gray, urged Colin Gray to secure his firearms and limit Colt’s access to guns prior to the incident, noting that Colin and Marcee were living apart.
Furthermore, Colt Gray reportedly created a “shrine” to previous school shooters on his home computer, according to testimonies from Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Kelsey Ward. This shrine included an image of Nikolas Cruz, who was responsible for the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
