Father of teen school shooter sentenced to 15 years in prison
"It is clear you failed as a parent," the judge told Colin Gray, who was found guilty earlier this year on charges stemming from the deadly 2024 school attack.
The father of a teenager responsible for a fatal shooting at a Georgia high school has received a 15-year prison sentence for murder, manslaughter, and other related offenses.
Colin Gray, 55, was convicted in March on multiple charges stemming from the 2024 incident in Winder, Georgia, which resulted in the deaths of two teachers and two students. His son, 16-year-old Colt Gray, admitted guilt to the murders last week. Investigators revealed that the rifle used in the attack was a gift from his father.
Prosecutors asserted that Colin Gray was "the one person who could have prevented" the shooting. The victims of the Apalachee High School attack, located near Atlanta, were identified as Christian Angulo, 14, Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
According to CBS News, the prosecution of Colin Gray marks the third instance in the US where a parent has been held criminally accountable for a mass shooting perpetrated by their child.
Judge Nicholas Primm delivered the sentence on Thursday, imposing 15 years for each second-degree murder conviction and 10 years for each involuntary manslaughter conviction, all to be served concurrently. Georgia prosecutors had sought an 80-year maximum sentence, while the defense requested a more lenient 10-year term.
Before announcing the sentence, Judge Primm directly addressed Gray, criticizing him for not sending his son to counseling, failing to monitor his online activities, and neglecting to secure the firearms in their home. "It is clear you failed as a parent," Primm stated. "The warning lights were flashing brighter and brighter...and you failed to do the simplest things to prevent this." However, Primm also acknowledged that Colin Gray "didn't seek to harm anyone" and "didn't pull a trigger" himself.
During the trial, the jury learned that the father had purchased an AR-style rifle for his son as a Christmas gift the year before the attack, despite the boy having been questioned by police seven months prior regarding online threats to commit a school shooting. Prosecutors contended that Gray disregarded numerous warning signs, including a notebook detailing his son's plans to kill students and teachers.
Barrow County Assistant District Attorney Patricia Brooks told jurors, "After seeing sign after sign of his son's deteriorating mental state, his violence, his school-shooter obsession, the defendant had sufficient warning that his son was a bomb just waiting to go off. And instead of disarming him, he gave him the detonator."
Gray's lawyers attempted to shift responsibility to his son. His lawyer, Jimmy Barry, told jurors, "This is the person who went into the high school and shot and killed four people he didn't even know and injured scores of others. This is the person who needs to be punished. He made a conscious decision to do this - a secretive decision."
Charges against parents of school shooting suspects are a relatively recent development in the US, with at least two other cases having gone to trial recently. In April 2024, the parents of a Michigan teenager who killed four students with a gun they had bought for him days before the shooting were sentenced for their involvement in the attack. That case was widely reported as the first time parents of a child who carried out a mass shooting in the US were held criminally liable.