‘I knew it’: Gray feared son was tied to Apalachee shooting, footage shows
Two hours after the mass shooting that killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School, Colin Gray feared his son had done something wrong.
Body camera footage played for jurors on the fourth day of the father’s Barrow County murder trial showed the tense moments when deputies arrived at the Grays’ home that afternoon.
Armed with rifles, their fingers hovering near the trigger, the Barrow deputies appeared to be on high-alert as they walked up his driveway toward the house.
Deputy Anthony Townsend recounted his conversation with the father as he stepped outside. Colin Gray had been texting his daughter, he said, and was aware her nearby middle school was on lockdown.
“He knew something had occurred,” said Townsend, who now works for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. “His daughter had texted him saying the school was on lockdown and he was hoping to God his son hadn’t done anything.”
Asked whether there were any weapons in the home, Gray said he had “a shotgun and an AR” in the top of a closet and that neither gun was loaded.
“God! I knew it, man. My little girl just texted me,” a seemingly distraught Gray told deputies in his driveway. “She’s in middle school. She said we’re in lockdown. I said, ‘God, almighty, please tell me your brother didn’t do something.’”
Gray, who was wearing a collared shirt, jeans and a baseball cap in the video, was instructed to stay put for several minutes until reinforcements arrived.
“We’re trying to get him into counseling,” Gray said of his son. “He just didn’t fit in last year at high school so we let him do online school.”
He said they reenrolled Colt Gray at Apalachee for the 2024 school year and had already been in touch with counselors.
Colin Gray is accused of giving his 14-year-old, as a Christmas present, the rifle allegedly used to commit the deadliest school shooting in Georgia history.
Colin Gray faces 29 charges, including two counts of second-degree murder and 20 counts of cruelty to children related to the victims of the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting.
Those killed were two students — Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn — and two teachers — Cristina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall. Nine others were injured.
So far, the trial has focused largely on the impact the Apalachee mass shooting has had on the surviving students. Jurors have seen graphic photos of the aftermath, including blood-spattered classrooms and hallways. And they’ve heard from students about the fear and anxiety they’ve been forced to live with ever since.
They were also told Colt Gray was obsessed with school shooters, and even built a shrine dedicated to the man who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
On Wednesday, a medical expert testified the victims’ injuries were so severe they would have died even if they’d been shot at a hospital.
The state’s witnesses also included a school counselor and a social worker from Ben Hill County, where the Grays used to live.
Colt Gray’s parents were repeatedly advised to get their son counseling over the years after a series of incidents that occurred while he was still in middle school in Ben Hill and Jackson counties, witnesses said.
In one such incident, from August 2021, Colt Gray apparently searched “how to kill your dad” on a school-issued Chromebook given to students during the pandemic.
And the following year, he was disciplined at two middle schools for drawing swastikas on a calculator and defacing a school bathroom, his former administrators said.
The principal of Jefferson Middle School said the bathroom was so badly damaged she had her husband come in and repaint. The Grays were billed for the supplies.
Colt Gray struggled to fit in at his various schools and was chronically absent over the years, witnesses said. Meanwhile, school administrators said they often struggled getting the teen’s parents on the phone.
“Colt was troubled and needed some help,” said Carol Ann Knight, his former principal.
Prosecutors also played body camera footage from a 2023 interview in which Jackson County deputies interviewed the father and son about a school shooting threat made online.
The threat, which was made on the communication platform Discord, had been reported to the FBI by at least three users, Investigator Daniel Miller testified.
Speaking to law enforcement from the porch of his former home, Colin Gray acknowledged there were guns inside his home but said the ammunition was stored separately. Colt Gray denied threatening to shoot up the school, and no additional steps were taken.
“I gotta take you at your word, and I hope you’re being honest with me,” Miller told the then-middle schooler before leaving.
Colt Gray is not expected to go to trial after his defense attorneys said the teen could plead guilty to his 55 charges. But if that changes, it’s likely prosecutors could end up calling many of the same witnesses.
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