Colin Gray, 55, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday for his role in the 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that left two teachers and two students dead. Gray was found guilty in March of murder, manslaughter, and other charges stemming from the attack carried out by his son, Colt Gray.
Colt Gray, 16, pleaded guilty to the murders the previous week. Investigators stated that the AR-style rifle used in the shooting was a gift from his father. During the sentencing, Judge Nicholas Primm admonished Colin Gray for failing to seek counseling for his son, monitor his online activity, and secure the firearms in their home.
"It is clear you failed as a parent," Judge Primm told Gray, noting that "warning lights were flashing brighter and brighter." The judge also acknowledged that Colin Gray did not intend to harm anyone and did not pull the trigger himself. Gray received 15 years for each second-degree murder conviction and 10 years for each involuntary manslaughter conviction, to be served concurrently.
Prosecutors had sought the maximum sentence of 80 years, while the defense requested 10 years. During the trial, the jury heard that Colin Gray purchased the rifle for his son as a Christmas gift the year before the shooting. This occurred despite the son having been questioned by police seven months prior regarding online threats to commit a school shooting. Prosecutors argued that Colin Gray ignored numerous warning signs, including a notebook detailing his son's plans.
"After seeing sign after sign of his son's deteriorating mental state, his violence, his school-shooter obsession, the defendant had sufficient warning that his son was a bomb just waiting to go off," Barrow County Assistant District Attorney Patricia Brooks told jurors. "And instead of disarming him, he gave him the detonator."
The victims of the attack were Christian Angulo, 14, Mason Schermerhorn, 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Colin Gray's prosecution marks a developing trend in the U.S. where parents have been held criminally responsible for mass shootings committed by their children. In April 2024, the parents of a Michigan teenager who killed four students were sentenced for their involvement in that attack, in what was widely reported as the first instance of parents being held criminally liable for a child's mass shooting.