Father of 14-year-old accused in deadly Georgia school shooting pleads not guilty

The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of carrying out a deadly mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia pleaded not guilty on Thursday to the charges against him.

Colin Gray was not in court, but his lawyers told the judge during a brief hearing that their client pleads not guilty and waived formal arraignment. It’s common in Georgia for defendants to enter a plea and waive arraignment.

Gray and his son, Colt Gray, were both indicted in the Sept. 4 shooting that killed two students and two teachers and injured others. Colt Gray is charged as an adult and was indicted on 55 counts, including murder and 25 counts of aggravated assault at the high school. His father was indicted on 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Both also face multiple counts of cruelty to children.

Colt Gray entered a not guilty plea last month and also waived arraignment.

Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile detention center in Gainesville, while Colin Gray, 54, is being held in the Barrow County jail. Neither has sought to be released on bail.

The shooting killed teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.

Colin Gray is the first adult known to be charged in a school shooting in Georgia. His indictment is the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley, the first to be convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.

Investigators have said Colt Gray carried a semiautomatic assault-style rifle onto a school bus, with the barrel sticking out of his book bag, wrapped up in a poster board. They say the boy carefully plotted the shooting at the 1,900-student high school northeast of Atlanta, drawing diagrams and listing potential body counts in a notebook. He left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle before shooting people in a classroom and hallways.

Last month, authorities revealed details from the alleged shooter’s notebooks that included detailed plans of the attack as well as violent drawings. Witnesses testified Colin Gray knew of his son’s struggles with his mental health but purchased a laser sight, tactical vest and ammunition for him in the months leading up to the shooting. 

Investigators also said that the alleged shooter made a “shrine” to school shooters in his room, and hung a picture of the Parkland shooter, who killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. Their testimony revealed his father was aware of his obsession with school shooters, and that the teenager had even discussed the Parkland shooting with his grandmother around a week before the shooting.