WINDER, Ga. — The teenager who used the assault-style rifle he acquired for Christmas to kill two college students and two lecturers at his Georgia highschool will spend the remainder of his life in jail.
Colt Gray, 16, was sentenced Tuesday to life without parole for the lethal Sept. 4, 2024, taking pictures at Apalachee High School that additionally left one other trainer and eight extra college students wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.
Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm handed down the sentence days after Gray pleaded responsible to all 55 counts in opposition to him, together with homicide.
“You do not seem to be tormented by what you did, you seem to relish following in the footsteps of the murderers you idolize,” Primm instructed Gray. “You aren’t wracked with guilt. You’re proud of yourself.”
Primm added, “There’s no joy here.”
“It’s only a measure of closure,” the decide stated. “The slain will not return to life. The injured will not forget their wounds, and a 16-year-old, 16-year-old boy, will live and die in prison.”
Gray, who was 14 on the time of the taking pictures, was charged as an grownup. His trial had been scheduled to begin in mid-October.
But Gray entered the plea without having reached a cope with prosecutors. And he declined to tackle the court docket at his sentencing listening to Tuesday.
That left it to the decide to determine whether or not Gray must be eligible for parole after listening to sufferer statements and all sides’s abstract of a case that has loomed massive over the Atlanta suburb of Winder.
Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and college students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, each 14, died in the shooting.
Their survivors urged the judge to impose the utmost sentence in sufferer impression statements delivered in court docket Friday.
“It is a life sentence of grief and trauma for those left behind,” Aspinwall’s spouse, Shayna, instructed the court docket. She stated their daughters have been 2 and 5 when their father was killed and their lives can be “forever marked by his absence.”
Breanna Schermerhorn, whose son Mason was killed, stated that whereas Gray might have been failed by the adults in his life, it was his resolution to commit mass homicide.
“Those decisions were his and his alone,” she stated.
Psychologist Kevin Richards, a witness for the protection, described Gray as a “lonely, dysfunctional kid” who had a “chaotic” childhood.
“I thought he was kind of an odd kid,” Richards stated on the sentencing listening to Monday.
His dad and mom abused medicine, had monetary issues, and fought quite a bit, Richards stated. The household moved often and there have been lengthy stretches when Gray wasn’t enrolled in class, he stated.
So Gray immersed himself on-line with the “true crime” neighborhood and have become obsessive about college shootings, Richards stated.
Previously, investigators stated they present in Colt’s bed room what they described as a shrine to Nikolas Cruz, who was sentenced to life without parole 4 years in the past for the 2018 taking pictures at a Florida highschool that left 14 college students and three employees members lifeless.
Gray, investigators stated, additionally grew to become obsessive about the gunmen accountable for 1989 mass taking pictures in Colorado at Columbine High School and 2012 killings of principally youngsters at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Gray was “kind of obsessed” with them, Richards stated.
Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the Barrow County District Attorney’s Office, testified Tuesday that Gray had greater than 2,000 pictures of Cruz saved on his cellphone and extra pictures of Cruz printed and posted on his bed room wall.
Gray, Gilleland stated, hoped “to gain some sort of fame or notoriety from” attacking his classmates at college.
To additional buttress that argument, the state performed recordings of jail calls between Gray and his mom Marcee Gray from October and November 2024 throughout which Gray sounded thrilled to be in contrast to Cruz and different mass killers.
“I’m in the big leagues, bro,” he said in one call.
Gray’s grandmother, Debbie Polhamus, testified that her grandson spent lengthy stretches of time together with her as a result of his dad and mom have been so unstable.
“Well, they always had issues,” Polhamus stated. “They were doing a lot of drinking at that time, and then they got way behind on their bills.”
Polhamus stated Gray’s dad, Colin Gray, saved dozens of weapons in the home and never all of them have been locked up. She stated he purchased the Gray the gun he used to assault his classmates so as to bond along with his son.
“He really wanted to find something that they could do together,” she stated.
Colin Gray was convicted by a jury in March on prices together with second-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter for giving his son what turned out to be a a number of homicide weapon.
Just earlier than 10 a.m. on the day of the taking pictures, Gray instructed his second-period trainer that he wanted to see a disaster counselor however as an alternative went to a rest room to prepare to assault the college, police stated.
When he was unable to re-enter his classroom, Gray marched down the corridor to one other classroom and opened hearth and likewise shot at different folks within the hallway, police stated.
Gray surrendered to legislation enforcement officers, and prosecutors performed a recording of his interview with investigators throughout which he sobbed hysterically and repeatedly apologized, calling what he did “horrible” and “the worst nightmare for everyone involved.”
The teenager additionally described having uncontrollable urges and stated he was supposed to see a physician. “I was so close to getting the help I need and the medication I need,” he instructed investigators.
But Gray, prosecutors stated, had methodically deliberate the college taking pictures, and investigators described discovering a pocket book by which the teenager detailed a step-by-step plan on how he would get himself prepared within the toilet.
It additionally got here out within the pre-trial investigation that sheriff’s deputies had interviewed Colt and Colin Gray in May 2023 about an internet risk linked to the son. Colt Gray denied making the risk.
During Colin Gray’s trial, an investigator testified that he had sought assist for his son from a counseling service weeks earlier than the college taking pictures however failed to comply with by means of.
Marcee Gray, who was separated from Colin Gray, instructed investigators she had urged her husband weeks earlier than the taking pictures to safe his weapons and limit their son’s entry to them.
Over time, Colin Gray purchased {the teenager} ammunition, a gun sight and different taking pictures equipment, court docket information present.
Dan Gallo reported from Winder, GA and Corky Siemaszko reported from New York.
