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The father of a Georgia teenager who killed four people at his high school in 2024 was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for his role in the mass shooting.
Colin Gray, 56, was convicted in March on 27 counts after a jury found him criminally responsible for the shooting his son, Colt, carried out at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Prosecutors said Gray gave Colt, then 14, access to the firearm and ammunition used in the shooting, despite warnings that his son might harm others.
Colin Gray faced more than 100 years in prison on charges including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, second-degree cruelty to children and reckless conduct.
Two days earlier, the same judge sentenced Colt Gray, now 16, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The shooting and Colin’s role
Colt was a freshman at Apalachee, about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta, when he brought a semiautomatic AR-style rifle to school in his book bag. During second period, he emerged from a restroom and opened fire in a hallway and a classroom.
Students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn and teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie died in the attack. Nine others were injured.
During Colin Gray’s two-week trial, prosecutors claimed he knew his son had a shrine in his bedroom dedicated to the shooter who killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
Instead of seeking psychological treatment for his son, prosecutors said, Gray gave Colt an AR-15-style weapon as a Christmas present — the same gun used in the attack at Apalachee High the following September.
Gray confirmed he gave his son the gun, but testified that it came with rules.
“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,” Gray said he told his son.
Parents charged in school shootings
Gray became the third parent convicted in connection with a school shooting carried out by their child.
In 2024, juries in Michigan found Jennifer and James Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with a 2021 mass shooting by their son, Ethan, that left four students dead at Oxford High School.
Increasingly, prosecutors across the nation are attempting to hold parents responsible for serious crimes committed by their children.
In Wisconsin, Jeffrey Rupnow faces felony charges in connection with a shooting by his daughter, Natalie, at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison in 2024. Natalie Rupnow, 15, killed two people before dying by suicide. Prosecutors say her father gave her the guns and provided her with a code to a gun safe.
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