Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Disturbing Details of Georgia School Shooting Suspect's Parents Revealed

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Colt Gray, 14, is accused of murdering two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Widner, Georgia. His father, Colt Gray, also faces a number of charges for allowing his son access to the gun. Now, new details about the teen's home life and his parents are coming to light through interviews with family members. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at some of the new information with attorney Christa Ramey in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Christa Ramey  https://x.com/christarameyCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Mr. Gray, these charges stem from Mr. Gray knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon. The father of accused Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray faces charges in connection to the shooting, and now new details are coming to light about a warning from Colt's mother. I look at what we know about Colt Gray's parents and his home life. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's sad that yet again, I have to tell you about a teenager being accused of taking a gun into a school, a place where kids should feel safe,

and shooting and killing classmates and school staff. Colt Gray is a 14-year-old boy who now faces four counts of felony murder. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and its officials say that Colt Gray took an AR-15-style rifle with him to Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia last Wednesday, September 5th, and started shooting. Police raced to the school for what is absolutely one of the worst calls law enforcement can get, a school shooting. Here's Barrow County Sheriff. The nine injured, I am very happy to say will make a full recovery. And that's a testament to the response that we had, in my opinion, the response that medical staff happened, that responded with, in my opinion. And we're very happy to say that they will make a full recovery.

Sadly, two 14-year-old students, Christian Angulo and Mason Shemmerhorn were killed, along with two teachers, 53 year old math teacher, Christina Irimi, and 39 year old assistant football coach, Richard Aspinwall. Those wounded students though, and much of the staff will be forever scarred. Colt Gray appeared in court. The 14 year old faces, as I mentioned, those four counts of felony murder and more charges could be coming. Good morning, sir. Are you Mr. Colt Gray? Yes, sir. My name is Curry Mingledorf. I'm assigned to preside over this morning's proceedings.

Mr. Gray, I do need to inquire as to whether you're able to read and write the English language. Yes, sir. And Colt's father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, faces a number of charges. He gave his son the weapon used in the shooting for Christmas, according to investigators. How old are you, Mr. Gray? 54. And are you able to read and write and understand the English language without any difficulty? Yes, sir.

How far did you go in school? 11th grade, GED. You're currently charged with two counts of felony murder in the second degree. You're charged with four counts of felony involuntary manslaughter. You're charged with eight counts of felony cruelty to children in the second degree. The prosecutor in the case told reporters that this is the second time in the United States and the first time in Georgia that a parent has been charged in connection to a school shooting. The first time, of course, was the Crumbly case in Michigan. While the shooting at Apalachee

High School happened nearly a week ago, the investigation is still fresh, but we're learning some details about what led to the shooting. Colt Gray's home life sounded unstable. His parents were living apart. Gray's mother, Marcy Gray, was convicted of a family violence charge and ordered to have only limited contact with her husband, Colin Gray. The Grays had been evicted from their home. And in May of 2023, the FBI Atlanta said it received an anonymous tip about online threats to commit a school shooting. The Jackson County Sheriff's Office interviewed Colt Gray and his father at the time. Colin Gray claimed his son had been bullied. I can tell you this, I take that very serious and so does he, as a matter of fact. Like, I don't know, I don't know anything about

him saying like that and i'm gonna be mad as hell if he did and then all the guns will go away and they won't be accessible to him you know we i'm trying to be honest with you i'm trying to teach him about firearms and safety and how to do it all and get him interested in the outdoors like on my phone and get him away from those video games. Exactly right. That's the God honest truth. And the picture on my phone is him with blood on his cheeks from shooting his first deer. It was just the greatest day ever.

So he knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do and how to use them and not use them. So it's kind of a little bit of a shock so in whatever y'all telling him please instill in him that what if this is whatever or where this has come from this no joke no like it's no joke well we wouldn't be here it was no I know I know and I'm telling you right now we talked about it quite a bit all the school shootings things things that happened. Are you getting picked on at school? He is. He's getting picked on at school. And is everything OK? That's why

I keep going up there, you know, because you just never you never really know. And I don't want anything to happen to him. Colt Gray denied posting things on Discord and the investigation seems to have ended. Later in 2023, Marcy Gray posted a video on Instagram of Colt Gray hunting with his father, gun in hand. The post read, proud mama right here, all in agreement. I'll follow you, sir. I see white. Holy crap. Look at that, brother. Go ahead and lay your rifle down on it like we had the other way.

Barrel up. Yep. So you get mud in the barrel. OK, it's OK. Lay that gun down like we had it for the picture. Marcy Gray told reporters over the weekend the shooting was absolutely horrific. Meanwhile, Marcy Gray's sister, Annie Brown, Colt's aunt, told the Washington Post that Marcy had called the school to warn of a, quote, extreme emergency 30 minutes before the shooting.

The Post reported that Marcy texted her sister, I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school. The paper said it had a screenshot of the exchange. The message continued, I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find to check on him. The Post story also claims that a counselor told Marcy Gray that her son had discussed a school shooting that morning, and Marcy Gray was quoted as saying that her son had told her in a text message that he was sorry. Much remains unclear about what prompted that call, and the sheriff's office is referring all calls about this to the DA's office, I know, because I reached out. Meanwhile, Colt Gray's

grandfather spoke to the New York Post over the weekend, laying much of the blame on Colt's father, Colin Gray, describing him as screaming and hollering every day. He's evil. They couldn't, they didn't survive in it. Colt has to pay for what he did, but I'm telling you, he was driven, no question in my mind. He was driven by his father to do what he did. That's as plain as I can put it. And I know I'm right. Annie Brown, Colt's aunt, also told the Washington Post that her nephew had begged for mental health help for months. So many questions remain as the community grieves the loss of two students and two teachers as they try to find a way forward to heal. We cover so many terribly heartbreaking

stories here on Crime Fix, and many of them show how sometimes in life you may need a lawyer. The Appalachian High School shooting is a good example of that. Morgan & Morgan is a law firm that can help you if you are ever injured in an accident or another type of incident. Morgan & Morgan has more than 1,000 lawyers working for the firm who are ready to fight for you and stand up for your rights. Just recently, the firm has secured and won many multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements that were much larger than the largest insurance company offer. Starting a claim is easy and can be done in eight clicks or less using your smartphone. So if you need help submitting a claim, you can do it today in eight clicks or

less. Log on to ForThePeople.com slash CrimeFix. I want to bring in Krista Ramey. She's an attorney who represents children against school districts. Krista, your thoughts on just another tragic shooting this time with Colt Gray being the accused shooter in Georgia. You know, as the story has developed, Anjanette, it is such a troubling story and one that we're hearing far too frequently. There's actually websites now that track school shootings in our country.

And if you look at the statistics from before COVID, there was not near as many as there are now. They've more than doubled after COVID. This is an epidemic right now. If you go back to 2010, 2011, there was less than 50 a year. Now you're having over three and up to 400 school shootings every calendar year. There is something seriously wrong. And every time I hear about another one, I think, why haven't we solved this problem yet? There were a lot of red flags here,

as far as I'm concerned. In just the little bit, we're gleaning from this case and what we know so far. In 2023, the sheriff's office in Jackson County, Georgia, went and interviewed Colt Gray's father and Colt. And they're like saying that there was a threat on discord or discussion about a school shooting. Colt denied it. But then the father is saying his son was bullied and that he had been up to the school and talked with the school about this in the past. Then this investigation is closed out. Nothing happens. But then the law enforcement officials are saying GBI says Colt Gray, despite this whole incident, goes out and buys his son a gun. That to me is just beyond the pale. Yeah. It reminds us of the crumblies too, right? The case in Michigan and it is beyond the pale.

So you've got someone who has, is having issues at school, by the way, middle school is awful for all children. They go through a lot. This is when most of the bullying happens. It's about power struggles that our kids are having. They're going through puberty. They are trying to gain independence from their families and find out who they are. And you see a lot of instances of bullying and how schools react to it plays a pivotal role. But what the parents do in response to it is also critical. And it seems like that this family had, you know, a lot of experiences with hunting and, and, you know, it was a way that family bonded.

Look, I'm from Texas, my family, you know, hunters, you know, I know how to make venison a bunch of different ways, but you don't go over the extreme. When you've got a child that has mental issues, you treat those mental issues. And when you have a child that is having, you know, a crisis, you don't buy him an AR style rifle. And, you know, this is where, you know, I get a little frustrated when I'm hearing, you know, a lot of people saying how Colin Gray was arrested for what his son did. No, Colin Gray is arrested for what Colin Gray did that led to his son doing the school shooting. There is a direct and approximate relationship between what he knew

about his son's mental illness and the purchase of that weapon and then the school shooting last week. Krista, the prosecutor had indicated that there would be more charges filed in this case, possibly against like Colt Gray and Colton Gray. So what are you seeing unfold in this case? From what we know now, there will be a grand jury that's going to meet and that has been convened to look at this case. So right now, both the father and the son have only been charged in relationship to the individuals that died. And there were several other individuals that were injured and that are still recovering from their injuries. And they are waiting to see what happens with those

individuals and how serious their injuries are. And if any of them are life-threatening, if any of them are life-threatening and other people die as a result of those injuries, then there might be more charges for second degree murder and manslaughter. If not, it will just be attempted murder and, you know, negligent, you know, homicide, attempted homicide with respect to the father. So I think that that's why the forecast of there's going to be more charges has to do with those other victims that there has been no charging documents with respect to those. So what I suspect is that a grand jury will be impaneled. And as they're gathering evidence or presenting it to that grand jury, they're probably going to find out a lot more information about what the school knew, what the parents knew, what the mom

knew. I suspect that the mom is going to be under scrutiny for reasons we just talked about. She obviously knew that there was something wrong with her child. There is a lot of evidence that I've read about the mother that is very disturbing as well in terms of some charges that had to do what Colt Gray did, but there was a lot that contributed to it. And the home environment was certainly one of those things. And so I suspect that the D.A. is going to be looking into that as well and presenting evidence to the grand jury with respect to both mom and dad and what they knew or what they should have known with respect to their son. And let's turn to mom now. Marcy Gray, she was not living with Colt at the time that this happened, but there's been some reporting over the weekend, in particular from the Washington Post, in which they interviewed Marcy Gray's sister.

And she said that her sister called the school probably 40 minutes or so, a half hour before this happened. And there was a 10-minute phone call on the phone log. And she said that there was an extreme emergency. She warned the guidance counselor that she needed to go and find her son, that there was an emergency. And she also said that her son had texted her that he was sorry. So mom tried to warn the school. We don't know what the extreme emergency was, if there was more detail given about that. But mom did try to warn the school. So what do you make of that? That tells me that the mom had some knowledge that her child had some mental health issues, that maybe he spoke to his mother about his desires to inflict harm on others that were maybe harming him.

And that I'm sorry text was probably as a result of a conversation that she had with her son and where he informed her of what his felonious desires were with respect to how he was going to respond to how others were treating him. It would have done her a lot more good to intervene, to talk to her. You know, I think that they're estranged. I'll call them. I don't know if they're still married or not, but talk to Colin, the father, and say, you know, this is what he told me. What can we do? You know, I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but you don't just say, you know, I, you know, when your son texts you, I'm sorry, you don't immediately lead to,

there's going to be a major emergency. I've got to get to my son immediately. You know, when my children, we kind of talked about this earlier, you know, say, I'm sorry. I, you know, react. My reaction was, what did you do wrong? Might fail a test or, you know, skip school even on the worst scenarios. You don't, as a parent, go immediately to others might be in danger. So I think that the mother knew something or suspected something. Whether or not that leads to criminal culpability, I think that's yet to be seen. It certainly is yet to be seen.

And Marcy Gray told reporters over the weekend, she said this is totally horrific. As any human being with any ounce of compassion or empathy would say, a counselor apparently, according to the Washington Post reporting, and this is all being relayed by the aunt, by Marcy Gray's sister. A counselor told Marcy Gray apparently that morning that her son had been talking about a school shooting. There's also some reporting in this story that the school had been in contact with the family about his mental health, possible homicidal and suicidal thoughts. So it just in the week before the shooting. So I just don't understand why this child wasn't or why he was even in school. If he's having these thoughts, you would think that these thoughts would be addressed with a mental health professional immediately instead of having him sit in a classroom and continue to go to school. Absolutely. In California, it'd be an involuntary hold, 5150 holds, we call them. And then that would turn into an extended period of time of hospitalization and intense therapy. This is

the right reaction to something like that. And then with respect to the school being on notice here as well, I keep going back to that, but the school was aware of things that were going on because these were, according to the audit, at least they were being relayed to the school. And before the morning of the shooting, the school stands in the place of a parent, in loco parentis is the Latin expression. And when you send your child to school, they don't need probable cause to search your backpacks. They don't need probable cause to search your locker or your persons. They stand in the place of your parent. They can open that up anytime they want.

So why wasn't the school taking steps? I think that a lot of times now we look at protecting the social, emotional learning of children, and we should be doing that. But you should also be making sure that you're protecting the other students from potential harm when a child is having homicidal fantasies or suicidal fantasies, making sure that you're talking to the parents and saying, right now, we're going to suspend him maybe for a couple of weeks. You get him some mental health treatment, and then let us know how he's doing, and he'll be welcomed back into our school. And I think that everybody has failed here. It seems like a lot of failures and we are still, you know, needing to confirm a lot of this reporting. But I just want to be clear about what I just said. I want to clarify the reporting here. it said that the sister, I guess the aunt of Marcy Gray told a relative,

the teen was having homicidal and suicidal thoughts, but the school had been in touch with the family about his mental health in the week before the shooting. So there's a lot that we still don't know and a lot that I think we will learn that will reveal major failures in this case. Krista Ramey, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.