WINDER, Ga. — On Monday, the trial of a dad whose teenage son is accused of killing two pupils and two teachers at a Georgia high school in September 2024 will start with opening statements.
This case is one of many throughout the country where prosecutors are trying to hold parents accountable when their kids are accused of deadly shootings. Colin Gray is charged with 29 crimes, including two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, and many counts of second-degree cruelty to children in connection with the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder.
The indictment claims that Gray let his son Colt have a revolver and bullets "after getting enough warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another." Prosecutors say that is cruel to children, and in Georgia, second-degree murder is defined as killing a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children.
The trial is taking place in Barrow County, where the incident happened. The defense asked for a change of venue because of the publicity before the trial, and the prosecutors agreed. The judge kept the trial in Winder but chose to have jurors from Hall County, which is close by, hear the case. Last week, jurors were chosen.
Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time, carefully planned the shooting at the school northeast of Atlanta on September 4, 2024. The school has 1,900 students.
Investigators said he got on the school bus with a semiautomatic gun in his book bag, the barrel jutting out and wrapped in poster board. They stated he left his second-period lesson, came out of the bathroom with the pistol, and then fired individuals in a classroom and the hallways.
At a pretrial hearing, an investigator said that Colin Gray had given his son the rifle as a Christmas gift the year before the incident and had acquired a bigger magazine so the gun could store more shots.
Colin Gray knew his kid was obsessed with school shooters. Prosecutors say he even had a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the gunman in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. An agent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that the teen's parents had talked about how much their son liked school shooters but thought it was just a joke and not a big deal.
An investigator said that Colin Gray also knew that his son's mental health had gotten worse and that he had gone to a counseling agency for treatment weeks before the incident.
"We've had a very tough couple of years, and he needs help." Anger, anxiousness, and a tendency to change quickly. Colin Gray wrote about his son, "I don't know what to do."
