A Barrow County jury found 55-year-old Colin Gray guilty of 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of manslaughter. He faces up to 180 years in prison. Jurors deliberated for less than a day after the two-week trial.
The case concerns the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. According to investigators, then 14-year-old Colt Gray opened fire with an AR-style rifle, killing two teachers and two students and wounding nine people. A teenager accused of four counts of murder as part of the so-called felony murder, awaiting trial.
Why was the father found guilty of murder?
How many years in prison does the teenager's father face?
What were the charges against Colt Gray?
What did the prosecutor's office say about the father's responsibility?
A 14-year-old from the USA shot four people at school. His father found guilty
As reported by the Washington Post, the prosecutor's office argued that the father was liable because he did not secure the weapon and ignored warning signs about his son's mental state.
He was the only person who could put together all the facts pointing to exactly what Colt was going to do. And he was the only person who could have just taken the rifle, and he didn't
– emphasized Barrow County Deputy Prosecutor Patricia Brooks in her closing argument.
Gray testified in court that he gave his son the rifle for Christmas in 2023 and “didn't see any indication” the gun might be used in a mass shooting. According to his lawyer Jimmy Berry, the defendant is a “loving father” who was “inclined to see the best in his son.”
However, investigators found that in the days leading up to the attack, the rifle had been stored unlocked in the teenager's room. According to the prosecutor's office, the father did not organize psychiatric treatment for his son, despite earlier warning signals.
The case is part of the growing trend in the US to hold parents of perpetrators of school shootings criminally liable. In 2024, Jennifer and James Crumbley were convicted in Michigan of manslaughter in connection with their son's attack at a school in Oxford in 2021. Similar proceedings have been initiated in several other states against the parents of suspected teenage perpetrators.
