Apalachee High School
Colin Gray, father of the Appalachee School Shooting suspect, Colt Gray, has been sentenced to 15 years. Wikimedia Commons - Mallard TV

Colin Gray, the father of the teenager responsible for the 2024 Appalachee High School shooting, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. His son, Colt Gray, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole just two days before.

Colin was sentenced on 29 counts, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, second-degree cruelty to children, and reckless conduct, after providing his son with a rifle and ignoring warning signs that led to the deadly school shooting.

Parents of the victims emotionally testified in court and called for Colin to receive the maximum sentence, to which the 55-year-old father showed little emotion.

Loved Ones Describe the Lasting Impact of the Shooting

The victims of the 2024 Apalachee shooting included 14-year-old students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and teachers Richard 'Ricky' Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

Parents and loved ones of these victims addressed the Barrow County Superior Court in Winder, Georgia, one by one and described how the tragedy impacted their lives.

Aspinwall's wife condemned the father for being an irresponsible gun owner. 'What if another student shot me at school? My kids would have no parents because we were both teachers that aspired to help students learn, not be on the front line,' the fellow teacher added.

Maria Schermerhorn, mother of Mason, stated, 'There is a world of difference between struggling to parent and refusing to parent.'

'Parenting is hard. Parenting alone is even harder. I know that because I lived it,' she said in response to the defence stating Colin was a newly single father.

'Even as a young single mother, I understood something that Mr. Gray apparently did not...I could not control every choice my children would eventually make, but I was responsible for controlling what I put into their hands,' the grieving mother added.

Telling Signs Ignored by Colin

The prosecution also rejected the defence's explanation regarding Colin as a single parent because he had received multiple warnings over an extended period.

Colin was reportedly obsessed with violence, even having a shrine in his room dedicated to the teenager convicted of killing 17 people in Parkland in 2018.

@meghannmcuniff

A judge in Georgia today sentenced the father of a teenager who murdered four people at his high school to 15 years in prison for crimes including second-degree murder. Colin Gray gifted his son Colt the AR-15 used in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, and jurors heard about the boy’s years of mental health problems and fascination with other school shooters. Prosecutors recommended 80 years in prison, but Judge Nicholas Primm emphasized today (Thursday, July 30) that the elder Gray’s crimes are tethered to his son. “But for you failing to get Colt help, but for your failure to remove access to the guns, this doesn't happen,” Primm said. “It's the ‘but for’ that the community has such outrage for you, but it matters that you didn't have actual knowledge that Colt was going to school to do that. It matters that you didn't intentionally commit a crime. It matters that you didn't plan an attack. It matters that you didn't seek to harm anyone. It matters that you didn't pull a trigger,” the judge continued. A jury in March convicted Gray of all counts, including four counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, as well as Richard Aspinwall, 39 and a math teacher and defensive coordinator for the football team; and Cristina Irimie, 53 and a math teacher. Colt, now 16, pleaded guilty to all 55 charges against him last week, including four counts of malice murder. Judge Primm on Tuesday sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Primm said the case against the boy’s father was “the first case of its kind in the state of Georgia” and the second in the nation, referring to the prosecution in Wisconsin of James and Jennifer Crumbley, who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter after their son Ethan murdered four people and injured seven at Oxford High School. They were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. “it's a divisive type of case where a parent is charged in conjunction with the crimes their children committed,” Primm said. You can watch Primm's entire comments on my YouTube channel and Facebook page. #law #crime #court

♬ original sound - Meghann Cuniff

In 2023, the FBI's National Threat Operations Centre traced Discord messages threatening a school shooting to Colt Gray's account, after which local investigators interviewed both him and his father.

However, Colin still gifted Colt an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle for Christmas that year, the same firearm that would eventually be used for the Apalachee shooting.

The defence argued that he believed bonding with Colt through hunting and target shooting would help his troubled son.

'This was the risk 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,' Prosecutor Smith stated.

A Case That Shines Light on Parental Accountability

The case became a landmark because it tested the extent to which a parent can be held criminally responsible for enabling a child who later commits a mass shooting.

As families of the victims accept the sentence handed to Colin Grey, their statements served as a reminder to parents to recognise the potentially life-altering consequences of failing to act.

Read more