Colin Gray, whose son shot and killed four people at a northern Georgia high school in 2024 with a gun Gray had bought him, was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison.
“Mr. Gray committed crimes, but his crimes are tethered to the tragedy committed by his son, and that makes the situation a little unique,” Chief Judge Nicholas Primm, of the Piedmont Circuit Superior Court, said during the sentencing.
Gray was convicted of second-degree murder earlier this year, a landmark verdict in a larger effort to hold parents of school shooters accountable. The elder Gray had given his son an AR-15-style rifle and left it unsecured in the boy’s bedroom even though the teenager was displaying psychological problems and a fixation with school shootings.
His son, Colt Gray, 16, pleaded guilty last week to 55 charges related to the massacre — a list that included multiple counts of felony murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to children in the first degree. He was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Nearly two years ago, Colt Gray, then 14, entered Apalachee High School, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, armed with the rifle. He fatally shot 14-year-old freshmen Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, as well as teachers Cristina Irimie, 53, and Richard Aspinwall, 39. Nine other students were also injured.
During his trial, the elder Gray testified that he had given his son the rifle for Christmas in 2023 and saw no warning signs of a shooting to come. Jimmy Berry, an attorney for Gray, said he is a loving parent who struggled at times but was “wired to see the best” in his son.
Gray and his wife, Marcee, struggled with drug addiction and were inattentive to their son’s problems as Colt Gray allegedly developed paranoia and a fascination with school shootings, The Washington Post previously reported.
In the days before his son became the youngest mass school shooter in a quarter-century, Colin Gray kept the rifle unsecured in his son’s room, according to prosecutors.
During Thursday’s sentencing, family members of the shooting’s victims offered tearful testimony, many imploring Primm to give Colin Gray the maximum punishment. Prosecutors asked Primm on Thursday to sentence Gray to 80 years behind bars.
Breanna Schermerhorn, Mason’s mother, said the shooting had committed her family to “life sentences of grief.” She called the shooting preventable and said Gray could have intervened.
“He saw the warning signs. He heard about the disturbing behavior. He knew his son was in crisis,” Schermerhorn said, pausing to wipe her eyes. “Instead of acting, he chose to look away.”
Aspinwall’s widow, Shayna Aspinwall, told the judge that one of her daughters still believed her husband was at football practice. Shayna Aspinwall, herself a former teacher, said she can no longer enter a classroom for fear of leaving her two daughters orphaned.
“He was a single parent by choice,” she said of Gray. “I am now a solo parent because of his actions.”
Months before the September 2024 shooting, prosecutors in Michigan won convictions for involuntary manslaughter against Jennifer and James Crumbley, whose son committed a school shooting in that state in 2021. Since then, officials in several states have followed in criminally investigating parents of school shooters, including in Wisconsin and Texas.
Brian Hobbs, Gray’s attorney, asked Primm for a 20-year sentence with 10 years in prison, similar to the Crumbleys’ punishments in Michigan. Hobbs argued that Colt concealed his plans from his father.
“No parent is trained to look at his own child and see a school shooter,” he said.
Prosecutors presented posters of previous school shootings that Colt Gray had kept in his room in the month before he carried out the attack.
“This was the risk that was staring him in the face every day,” prosecutor Brad Smith said.
Primm, who two days before called Colt Gray’s actions “evil” before sentencing him to life in prison, struck a more deliberative tone with the elder Gray.
“Never before have I found my position less enviable than I do today,” Primm said.
Brady Dennis and Daniel Wu contributed to this report.
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