The father of the 14-year-old suspect accused of killing four people on Wednesday during a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., has been arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder.
State authorities announced the charges against Colin Gray, 54, on Thursday. He was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Officials said on Thursday the charges were laid because the father “knowingly” allowed his son, 14-year-old Colt Gray, to possess the military-style rifle used in the shooting.
“His charges are directly connected to the actions of his son,” said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, during Thursday’s evening news conference.
If convicted on all counts, Colin could face a maximum prison sentence of 180 years.
The charges against Colin are the most severe ever imposed on the parent of a suspected school shooter in the U.S.
Colt was arrested after authorities said he used an AR-15-style rifle to open fire inside Apalachee High School, about an hour’s drive from Atlanta. He has been accused of killing two students and two teachers, as well as injuring nine others.
The teen has been charged with four felony counts of murder and will be tried as an adult. A potential motive is not clear.
Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said the suspect will face additional charges in the coming days.
Prior to Wednesday’s shooting, Colt was already on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s radar.
Investigators said that in 2023, they traced online threats about executing a school shooting to Colt, who denied the allegations. The posts, which authorities said were made to the platform Discord, contained photos of guns.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office interviewed the father and son, but determined there was no probable cause for arrest or additional law enforcement action. Officials could not definitively link the threats to the suspect, who was 13 at the time. The father said his son did not have unsupervised access to hunting rifles that were stored in the home.
Both Colt and Colin appeared in court on Friday morning.
During Colt’s hearing, Superior Court Judge Currie Mingledorff said the teen would not be eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted, because he is under 18 years old.
He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, with or without parole.
Colt’s hearing lasted less than 10 minutes, the New York Times reported. His public defender did not request bond.
Legal counsel for Colin also did not request bond.
Students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and staff members Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were killed in the shooting on Wednesday. The nine others left injured, eight students and one instructor, are expected to make a full recovery.
The suspected shooter surrendered to two school police officers briefly after allegedly opening fire in a hallway of the high school, authorities said.
Family members of the father and son have spoken publicly and condemned the shooting.
The teenager’s maternal grandfather told the Washington Post that Colt should be held responsible, but likely became violent because of his tumultuous home life.
“My grandson did what he did because of the environment that he lived in,” Charlie Polhamus told the outlet.
Polhamus told the Washington Post that Colt “wouldn’t have gone and killed anybody” if he “didn’t have a damn gun.”
The boy’s aunt told the outlet Colt had been “begging” for mental health help in recent months.
Colin is not the only parent of a suspected school shooter to be charged in connection with the violence allegedly carried out by their child.
In April, the parents of a Michigan teen who shot and killed four classmates at Oxford High School were each sentenced to serve 10 to 15 years in prison on involuntary manslaughter charges.
Jennifer and James Crumbley, Ethan Crumbley’s parents, were found criminally negligent for providing their 15-year-old son a gun as a Christmas present. The court also determined the parents ignored signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health and signs that he was potentially violent.
In 2022, Ethan pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, alongside other charges, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in December.
The shooting at Apalachee High School was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Conn., Parkland, Fla., and Uvalde, Texas.
The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. Little has been done to move the needle on national gun laws.
Before Wednesday, at least 127 people had died in 29 mass killings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. According to AP and the FBI, a mass killing is quantified as an incident in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer.
— with files from The Associated Press