Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 New Details Revealed During Georgia School Shooting Investigation

Episode Date: September 15, 2024

Colt Gray, 14, is accused of killing two teachers and two students at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia earlier this month. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says Gray was able to conceal his AR-15-style rifle in a backpack before he opened fire in classrooms. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the most shocking developments with Fox 5 Atlanta reporter Johnny Edwards.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/sidebar to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY 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/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee 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. We are learning new details about how a 14-year-old was able to sneak a rifle into Appalachie High School in Georgia before allegedly opening fire in what is considered one of the more deadly shootings in recent history. Fox 5 TV Atlanta reporter Johnny Edwards will join us to discuss the latest. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Now, as we continue our coverage of the shooting at Appalachy High School in Winder, Georgia from last week, we still have outstanding questions, including how the suspected shooter was able to bring this weapon onto school grounds.

Well, now we seem to know. This, of course, is the case of 14-year-old Colt Gray, who is charged with four counts of felony murder for killing or allegedly killing two students. students. Mason Shemmerhorn, Christian and Gulo, both 14 years old. Two teachers, 39-year-old Ricky Aspenwall and 53-year-old Christina Irmy. His father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, has also been arrested and faces charges of his own of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, cruelty to children for allegedly recklessly allowing his teen son access to the weapon, the weapon that he apparently purchased for him last December. And this is especially heightened and alarming since we have come to learn that the teen was on the FBI and local law enforcement's

radar a year before for allegedly making threats to shoot up a school online. But we now have some new information. And for that, I want to bring on Johnny Edwards, who is a reporter for Fox 5 TV in Atlanta. Johnny, thanks so much for coming on to give everybody a little perspective. We were just talking. You live about 45 minutes away from Appalachie. We're from the Appalachie High School from Winder. And my understanding is you visited a number of different areas in this case. What is the feeling like in the community right now? What's the feeling like in the state right now? Well, I would say it's despair, it's shock, it's sorrow at the loss of life. And frankly, it's terror at how vulnerable this has made us all look. I mean, as you as you just

said there was all kinds of signs and and with all that this still slipped through the cracks and still happened i think that's the thing that we're all still just really reeling from and before we get into the specifics of the gun and how it was brought on to the school grounds in your investigation over the past two weeks or so what have you learned what have you taken away so far from this well sheriff smith told me earlier in the week he told me that the that the shooter brought the gun in his backpack. All we know is this is an AR-15 style rifle. I have not personally gotten any confirmation on exactly what kind of gun or model or manufacturer of this was. You know, my understanding is that an AR-15 can be at least partially broken down. You can take

the stock off, but they're saying it couldn't be broken down that somehow he had it in his backpack in some sort of concealed manner. That's sort of confusing to me. I don't know if there was some other type of gun that I'm not aware of. But, you know, we went to the store where we confirmed that Colin Gray bought the gun, Mike's gun room in Winder. He was not cooperative with us. He says he's cooperated with law enforcement, but that could have told us what kind of gun it was and a little bit more about this father. So that seems to be how he got it. And he might have had the gun with him in class before he left class and came back. So that's what, and by the way, this is not only what the sheriff is saying. This is what the GBI has been saying, too, that he

this gun, wasn't able to break it down, was partially able to conceal it. But I think we've also learned a little bit more about his activities right before the shots rang out, right? Right. I think he asked to be to go to the front office to speak to someone and left. And I believe I've heard he went to the bathroom maybe and then came back. But by that point, the door was locked and they wouldn't let him back into the classroom he was in. And then he went and shot other people. Yeah, and there also there was some warning that morning from somebody. You know, I'm still not clear on who made that call, not the mother's call, but the other call. So, you know, that's right.

Can you amplify that? Because that just came out, too, that we knew about the mother allegedly calling the school and saying to try to look for him, that she had received an ominous text message from her son and that the son had also texted his father. But there was apparently someone else that called in. Right. It's been reported some other call saying that five schools were going to have shootings starting with Appalachia. I don't know who made that call or where that came from, but yet that's just, you know, that's just one more brick in the wall here. Yet another sign, another warning sign that was missed and could have prevented the loss of life possibly. Hey, we really appreciate you guys coming to us on the shooting story.

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You pay as usual using a debit or credit card. You follow the steps in the app and you get paid. To find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download upside or scan the QR code on screen and use our promo code sidebar and you'll get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. Since this announcement that he brought the gun in, his backpack and went out of the classroom and opened fire, has the school said anything about this since this announcement from the sheriff and the GBI? if you know well there's very there's several different school systems involved in this you know this different schools that colt gray had been to um the question we've been trying to get answered is you know there was that interview with the father and son back in may of 2023 and there's some paperwork and email indicating that they were going to warn you know local schools they said now at the time he was still in jackson county in jefferson city schools um we don't think

that warning ever got put out you know much less what that warning would mean what would it mean to monitor this student you know we've tried to ask some of the schools that responded to us as far as whether they got that warning I think Jefferson City Schools put out an email to parents saying they never got this I believe Jackson County did answer our question that said no Barrow County gave us kind of a word salad press release when we asked about that so you know and that's you know that's a little troubling you know this you know they say after a school shooting it's not the time to talk about gun

control I don't know about that but it's definitely definitely not the time for bureaucratic obfuscation. And a lot of people have questions about this. And we really need to know how these warning signs got missed. And I think that that question needs to be answered. I'm so glad you said that. And that very, very well put, because there has, there hasn't been confirmation of certain details that we're looking for confirmation about. For example, the mother of one of the students has come forward and gave information that a school administrator, possibly the assistant principal, was looking. for Colt Gray, but mistook him for another student and searched this other student's backpack,

but that hasn't been confirmed. What is the latest with that? Because we can't get a clear answer about what was the story leading up to the search for Colt Gray. Sheriff Smith confirmed that partially. He said that there was that, you know, that he confirmed that the mother called the school. There was that warning. He said there was another student in the same room who had a name, in his words, eerily similar to Colt Gray and that some time got one.

wasted questioning or he didn't say if they searched the bag or not of this student, but that created some confusion. And in the timeline of events, I suppose by then Colt Gray would have been off doing his thing, getting ready, getting the gun out. So, you know, that, and at the beginning of the school year, Colt Gray is a new student. The sheriff told me, when you add up all the time, he'd been there because there had been some attendance issues. He'd only been there a total of three days. So they didn't, they probably didn't know them that well. And yeah, so there is something to that story. I think the sheriff said, you know, sort of disputed that to some extent. But it's, at least the spirit of that account is consistent with what he told me. And we did on a previous

episode of Sidebar, how Colcray had moved around from school to school and had the almost a transient life. The one thing I will say, that's a new update with the sheriff, and this is important, And we can talk about criticisms of the school, but he was very adamant to highlight the great work of the school resource officers that day, right? Well, absolutely. And there's no doubt that what they did was heroic. And, you know, it's unfortunate, of course, that lives were lost, but they saved more lives from being lost. You know, you compare this to what happened at Uvaldi. It's, you know, it's heroics.

So, yeah, I mean, they talked them down. And this is a school shooting where we have the calls. culprit alive, you know, for a change. So, so that's, of course, excellent police work. Yeah, they took them down immediately because you could have imagined what the loss of life could have been if they didn't. Now, there is something, a new report about that the GBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, might be looking at this hunting video of the suspected shooter and his father, possibly his mother. Can you tell us anything about that? Right. Well, I've seen that on social media that video, and I'm sure the GBI is looking at it. Of course, they'd be looking at it. I think that's the incident where he has the deer blood on his face that the father described in that May 2023 interview on his doorstep, that he added that picture on his phone for shooting his first deer.

You know, what I find significant about that is, you know, of course, hunting is a major sport in Georgia and everyone supports it. You know, it's a good thing. But he knew what a gun could. do he knew that the damage that firing one of these guns into into flesh could do and um you know that i think that says a lot about intent to me i mean the fact he was not just someone one of these kids who played a lot of video games picks up a gun and goes in there and just start shooting like he thinks it's a game and he knew he knew what what he knew about guns and he knew what they could do and in terms of a you know a manslaughter murder case that knowledge particularly after what happened in may of 2023 um although this is before but That knowledge component is going to be key to this case.

I will say in Georgia, if you're under 16 years of age, you can still hunt. You just need an adult to supervise you or be with you. And in that video, I think, if you want to say it's presumably his father, is praising Colt Gray for opening fire with this Bushmaster 450 rifle. You know, it hits this, it's a deer. And he says, you know, what a shot. I love you, son. greatest day. And I believe his mom, Colcray's mom, posted this Instagram where she says,

Proud Mama right here, right? Right. And that's not surprising in, you know, in Southern culture. I mean, when you're going to be a hunter, that's what you got to do. I mean, you don't want to go hunting with a guy like me that would probably not be able to shoot the deer at the last minute, even though I buy meat from the supermarket. So, you know, the fact that they're proud of him for shooting the deer and being a good hunter and carrying through with it, that alone, I think is anything significant it's more that i think it's more that the father is teaching the son about guns teaching them how to operate guns and despite all that you know this heinous act still takes place yeah and the post just to continue it says uh all are in agreement he gets his shooting abilities

from his mama plus he's hunting with my gun of choice first hunt ever first shot ever one and done dead deer down colt is 12 but he has two and about 15 pounds of me he's been through so much in his life, but he's going to be a force to be reckoned with, I love you baby boy. Now, it's interesting hearing this because this week, and we talked about it as well, Marcy Gray, his mother, released a letter to CNN where she talked about how he wasn't a monster, but she talked about to the parents and families of those affected by the events of the shooting. She wanted to say, I'm so sorry from the bottom of my heart. Has there been reaction in the community to that letter from Marcy Gray? Well, there's certainly been.

reaction, it's another piece of the story that has happened. I think the only reaction to that letter that really counts is from the victims and their families, not just the fatal victims, but also the people that were injured or traumatized. Most of them that I know of have asked for privacy, so I think a lot of the news media has respected that. You know, it's the kind of sentiment that's usually expressed in court, you know, saying you're sorry, you wish you could take the place of the victims, of course, is well and good, but then saying he's not a monster, you know if i were one of these families that has an empty child's bedroom an empty side of the bed you know an empty seated thanksgiving and christmas coming up i mean i don't know that i'd

appreciate hearing he's not a monster because these families you know i think they're they're obviously still grieving and probably will be forever grieving so um i want to hear from them at some point talking about the um the other parent in this case colin gray i i've just saw this update that his legal team is requested that he be separated from other inmates in jail right what can you tell us about that right yeah that's right right here his attorneys uh his attorneys barry and hobbs filed that i think yesterday a day before um yeah they're asking they're saying that because this has touched the community in every way and that everyone knows about it it's ubiquitous that he's in danger being locked up the father is um you know that's

going to be an interesting argument i i don't think it's been done yet that he's he's been separated yet. I don't think we've been able to get any comment from the sheriff's office of the jail where he's being held. You know, I can certainly see that with the shooter himself being in danger from inmates. You know, I don't know how much jail inmates see the nuance of, you know, the father being charged for the acts of another person with these child cruelty underlying charges, you know, piggybacking into the other charges. So, you know, that's going to be interesting argument why he needs to be separated from other inmates when he's not the actual killer they said in their filing that he's receiving an incalculable number of threats and quote

it is certain that those feelings of anger and retribution manifested in the collective psyche of both the public and the community at large are not also represented in the individual individuals currently incarcerated with the defendant at the barrow county detention center that's uh really you know again so they're trying to address what he could be going through as well um yeah I mean, I'm not surprised about that. That may justify that right there. That's a good point. Yeah.

And they say that given the trauma that's happening in the community, be reckless for the court to assume that there are no inmates at the facility who might not want to harm Mr. Gray. So we'll see how that shakes up. I am curious about the school. My understanding is other school districts, other schools in the district have returned back to school, but not Appalachie? I think they are slowly starting back. I think there was a message to students recently that, you know, if you're not ready to come back, you know, call the school and tell us and we'll work with you on that. I'm not sure of the exact date of returning to school, but that slowly is beginning to happen.

And, you know, I imagine there's going to be a lot of kids that are ready to go back. I mean, good Lord, if this was my child, you know, my child's an adult now, but if she was at that school, I wouldn't be ready to send her back. So, you know, it's. Well, unfortunately, this is not the. first school shooting and there's been other schools that have had to deal with this issue about when do the kids come when do the students go back how do they go back you know does you do you find alternative classroom spaces do you wait for the funerals to be finished for all the

victims before you go back do you have empty seats for where the victims once were do you know if appalachee high is planning on doing anything in terms of how they're going to to have their students come back in a way that is most appropriate and it's not traumatic and because it seems like a very very difficult position to be in but i know that there are other principals and other superintendents who have been in that same position but do we know anything about how the administration at appalachie high is planning on having students come back i don't know those and by the way staff members too teachers too right oh absolutely absolutely i don't know the fine details of that other than like i just said

that they're allowing some people to opt out if they're not ready. You know, yeah, absolutely. You wouldn't want to just fill all those seats right away. And there are still funerals going on. I mean, I know they're having a lot of, you know, there's been vigils. There's been, you know, services, things like that. There's, you know, there's just still, you know, the people that are up there still are just up there to grieve so far, you know,

and getting back into a learning environment, in a rigorous scholastic environment. I mean, that's not going to be an easy thing at all. And, Johnny, one other update that I wanted to talk with you about is, will there be change in Georgia, in the law? And I have read that the state House Speaker, John Burns, is pushing forward with some initiative here in the aftermath of the shooting at Appalachia High. Is there anything you can tell us about that? Right. Well, one component of that, I think, was to.

to beef up the penalties for making terroristic threats. And that's an interesting aspect to this, because one of the problems in this whole sequence of events that led to what happened at Appalachia High School was that the, you know, the sheriff's investigators went to the home, and we can surmise that he had made a terroristic threat, but he's denying it, saying, you know, shuffling on his feet. You know, if that's, he could have been identified right there from mental health counseling to be sort of watched and helped, and this might not have happened.

You know, if you beef up the penalty for that, you know, I don't know, that's a discussion that I think needs to be had and will be had. You know, one thing you're, I personally don't think you're gonna see is any sort of stringent gun control measures or the things they always talk about

when these things happen. I mean, I think the Biden administration got something's done early on in his term, but, you know, there's been that discussion for the longest time. How do you, how do you, how do you weigh Second Amendment rights against preventing these things?

And that's what's so scary about this entire story is that with all these warning signs, all these missed opportunities, this still happened. You know, you had warnings to the school that morning. You had sheriff's investigators on his doorstep after he allegedly said something online. And, you know, still this all happened. So it's kind of like even with if you had red flag logs,

even if you had, you know, even you've had mental health interventions, you know, all of the, All of that, and this still happens. So, you know, yeah, there are some proposals being made. There's some discussion at the Georgia Capitol, whether it's gonna mean anything, change anything, prevent anything, remains to be seen.

I mean, really, again, with all the things you could do, even if you did crack down on gun control and gun rights or whatever, how do you stop a kid from taking his dad's gun, going into a school, you know? That's a very fair, a very fair question. And one of the things that I, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that what Mr. Burns is trying to do is he's trying to push for greater access to mental health care and make it a requirement in the state for mental health and behavior monitoring of students. So that particularly if we have a situation where the FBI was alerted a year ago to what, they didn't have enough to ultimately move forward with criminal charges or move forward with anything first. or taking the guns out of the home, but the fact that this was on their radar, if there

is a way to monitor students' mental health regularly or consistently and have that conversation between the administration and authorities and the students, that seems like a pretty, a pretty understandable proposal. Right. But even here, again, you had a sheriff's captain saying, we're going to alert the schools and we're going to watch this kid. And everything we can tell, that didn't get done. So even if you had that requirement, if the people in charge just don't do it, you know, that's what makes this so scary. And I don't know, do you pass laws to penalize people who don't do it, you know, and how do you? And to be fair, we don't know what all those investigators were dealing with, how many threats like this they're looking into on a routine basis.

You know, they've been criticized for not going past the door. So, you know, you get into that, too, the pure volume of threats. some point become sort of like rolling your eyes cynical okay another one another one so it's it's a very complicated thing like to try and intervene on these early and stop these things when before they happen so johnny before i let you go um i want to continue the conversation with you as you continue your investigation into this what are you what are your next steps for you what are you going to be looking out for what are you going to be trying to find answers to in this shooting because again there's still a lot of question marks we have well as an

Investigator reporter, you know, my big focus is always going to be on accountability. And we still want to know, you know, like I've been talking about what happened to that tip, what happened to that, that in writing email to the FBI saying we will tell the schools and we will follow up with this kid. We're still trying to get confirmation. That didn't happen. You know, interestingly, that captain later got fired for an unrelated incident. That's an entirely different issue. You know, we'd love to talk to him at some point. But it's, you know, we've reached out. to them, of course. You know, so that's, I think that's the big question here is how this got missed, because what you were talking about, passing laws, new regulation, I think that's doing that correctly, you know, I hate to say there's a silver lining here, but this almost makes a good case in point, you know, a good blueprint for how do you stop these things. So that's where we'll be looking. And of course, any other developments is any other records are released, you know, new tapes, new videos will be on top of that too. So Johnny Edwards, as you continue your work with Fox 5 TV Atlanta,

where can people find you to learn more information, to see the work that you do? Well, we're streaming on Fox Local, on an app online. We're also, you know, W-A-G-A, Fox 5 Atlanta, and online at our website, Fox 5. And what's your X-Handle so people know? At John Edwards, Fox 5. There we go. There we go. I'm sorry on X. Yeah, there we go.

Well, I encourage everybody to check out, Johnny, see the work that he's doing. Thank you so much for coming on, breaking down the latest updates in this case with me. Oh, thank you. Thank you for all your work as well. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.