WINDER, Ga. (AP) — A teenager has pleaded guilty to all 55 counts in a deadly shooting nearly two years ago at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Colt Gray, 16, entered the plea Friday without having reached a deal with prosecutors. He had previously pleaded not guilty to charges in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting that killed two students and two teachers, and left several others wounded, at the high school about 45 miles (73 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.
Before accepting the plea, Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm asked Gray a series of questions meant to ensure that the teenager was aware of the consequences of his plea and was entering it voluntarily. To each question, Gray responded, “Yes, your honor.”
Because he pleaded guilty to murder, Gray faces a minimum sentence of life in prison. The judge must decide whether he should be eligible for parole.
Once the plea was entered, victim family members began testifying about their loved ones and the losses they experienced as a result of the shooting. The judge plans to hear each side’s summary of the case, evidence and sentencing recommendation before deciding the sentence.
Gray’s trial had been scheduled to start in mid-October in Columbia County, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where the shooting happened, after the judge agreed to a defense request for a change of venue.
A jury in March convicted his father, Colin Gray, on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, and he is scheduled to be sentenced next week. Prosecutors said the elder Gray gave his son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school.
Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.
AP Photo/Charlotte Kramon
Gray sat at a table in the courtroom with his feet chained together and sat at a table with his attorney. Members of the community, including some relatives of victims, were on hand in the courtroom.
Prosecutors have indicated in court filings that during sentencing they intend to call teenage victims and witnesses to testify and to show surveillance video and crime scene photos during Friday’s hearing. They have also noted that they may introduce a slew of records, including 911 calls and Colt Gray’s school, medical and social media records.
Gray’s defense attorney wrote in a court filing that he plans to call a psychologist, a counselor at the juvenile detention center where he has been held and his grandmother to testify.
Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult with the 55 total counts, including murder in the four deaths and 25 counts of aggravated assault.
Investigators testified that the teenager carried the rifle onto the school bus with the barrel wrapped in a poster board. They said he left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle, shooting people in a classroom and hallway.
Investigators have said Colt Gray carefully plotted the shooting at the high school of 1,900 students. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the teen left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step instructions and a diagram to prepare for the assault, including an estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others.
Sheriff’s deputies interviewed Colt and Colin Gray in May 2023 about an online threat linked to the son. Colt Gray denied making the threat. He skipped eighth grade, enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the academic year had begun and then had a spotty attendance record.
Investigators found a shrine in Colt Gray’s bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, prosecutors said.
An investigator testified during Colin Gray’s trial that he had been aware that his son’s mental health had deteriorated and sought help from a counseling service weeks before the shooting, citing anger, anxiety and volatility. But the father never followed through on getting help for his son, the investigator said.
His mother, Marcee Gray, who was separated from Colin Gray, told investigators she had urged him weeks before the shooting to secure his guns and restrict their son’s access to them. Instead, over time, Colin Gray bought the boy ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories, records show.