Father of Georgia Apalachee school shooter sentenced to 15 years in prison

Thursday’s sentencing hearing was part of a growing number of cases in which a parent has been held criminally responsible for a school shooting carried out by their child.

Colin Gray, 55, had been convicted in March of second-degree murder for the killing of two 14-year-olds, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, as well as for manslaughter in the deaths of teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie.

All four were killed when Gray’s son, Colt, now 16, opened fire in his high school on September 4, 2024. Colt was sentenced this week to life in prison without parole.

Judge Nicholas Primm, who oversaw both sentencing hearings, addressed the father directly in his remarks, saying that he had “failed as a parent”.

“The loss here is profound,” Primm said. “But I still have to distinguish your acts from the malignant heart and the acts that Colt Gray committed.”

Primm acknowledged that he could have opted for a lighter suggestion, as Colin Gray’s defence team had suggested. Lawyers for the father had sought 10 years in prison and 10 years of probation.

The judge also expressed sympathy for the families that had testified in the case, sharing the pain they had endured. Some had called for the maximum sentence of 80 years.

“My heart aches for everyone that was there that day, for all of you that have been impacted by it,” Primm told the grieving families, before turning to Gray.

“But the law requires that I set aside emotion. I don’t get to sentence with passion. I have the nearly impossible task of sentencing you without passion despite the immeasurable heartache that you caused.”

In Georgia, second-degree murder can include causing the death of a child through the crime of cruelty to children.

Gray’s actions in the lead-up to his son’s shooting spree have raised questions about parental responsibility in cases of mass shootings.

Gray gifted his son a SIG Sauer SIGM400 rifle as a Christmas present the year before the school shooting.

But family members — including Marcee Gray, Colt’s mother, from whom Colin was separated — had voiced concern about the teenager’s mental state. Marcee Gray later testified she had appealed to Colin Gray before the shooting to lock up the guns and prevent their son from accessing them.

Colt Gray was 14 when he brought the rifle to school, left his second-period class and opened fire in a school hallway and classroom.

In addition to the four victims killed, a third teacher and eight other students were injured in the shooting.

During Colin Gray’s prosecution, Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith pointed to Colt’s mental state as a warning sign, as well as other indications.

Smith pointed out, for instance, that Colt appeared to have erected a shrine in his bedroom to another school shooter responsible for killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“This was the risk that he was ignoring, that there would be a mass shooting of children at a school, and he gave his son the exact tool he would need to accomplish this,” Smith said of Colin Gray.

Family members of the victims echoed that assertion.

“He did not pull the trigger but purchased and left a firearm accessible to a minor,” said Shayna Aspinwall, the spouse of one of the slain teachers.

Colin Gray’s conviction and sentencing echoes a similar case in Michigan, where parents Jennifer and James Crumbley faced criminal charges after their son Ethan Crumbley, then 15, carried out a mass shooting.

His actions resulted in the killing of four students at Oxford High School in 2021, as well as seven people injured.

The Crumbleys had also gifted their son a firearm, and they too have denied forewarning of their child’s attack. Both were sentenced to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

In Thursday’s sentencing, Primm acknowledged that such cases are “divisive”. But he argued that Colin Gray could have taken multiple actions to prevent his son’s actions.

“You were convicted because the warning lights were flashing brighter and brighter, and you didn’t get him help, and you didn’t remove his access to the guns,” Primm said.