In the weeks after killing two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia, the jailed teenage gunman had frequent phone conversations about his online notoriety with his mother, who at one point promised to make him a shrine, prosecutors revealed Tuesday.
Clips of the recorded conversations between Colt Gray and his mother were played during the teenager’s sentencing hearing. Gray, 16, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting. The conversations so alarmed officials that Gray’s mother was later barred from talking to him.
Murder carries a minimum sentence of life in prison in Georgia. Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm must decide whether Gray should have the possibility of parole. The hearing is in its third day.
Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them by gunfire.
Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was convicted in March on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. Prosecutors allege he gave his son the assault-style rifle used in the attack.
Discussions of Notoriety
Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the district attorney’s office, testified that Colt Gray idolized other mass shooters and discussed them online with members of the “true crime community.” He chatted with others online about gaining notoriety through a school shooting and expressed admiration for previous mass shooters.
Gilleland testified that aspects of Gray’s preparation and behavior before and after the shooting mimicked other mass shooters. Gray frequently spoke with his mother, Marcee Gray, by phone from a youth detention center in the months after the shooting. During these calls, he directed her to look up what people were saying about him online. When she described “fan art” drawings or comments about him, he asked about engagement and seemed excited when posts received a lot of attention.
Marcee Gray repeatedly told her son she would print images for him and, during at least one conversation, said she was also going to print photos for herself. "Have you made the shrine?" Colt Gray asked his mother, indicating he wanted her to make a shrine to him. She responded that she needed to get photos printed. "Then I'll make my Colty shrine," she said.
When Marcee Gray described a journalist’s request to make a documentary about the case, Colt Gray told her, “Yes. Go for it.” He also repeatedly asked his mother to pass along messages to an online acquaintance. His mother assured him she would.
In February 2025, about five months after the shooting, the district attorney’s office acknowledged awareness of their calls. Marcee Gray told her son she didn’t believe they had discussed anything inappropriate but that she was being accused of encouraging him.
Contradictory Claims
Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith questioned investigators to discredit claims Colt Gray made during two interviews the day of the shooting. The teenager had spoken of hearing voices, having uncontrollable urges, and acting spontaneously.
When questioned by a sheriff’s office investigator, Gray denied seeking attention, calling it “really childlike” when mass shooters did so. However, his online conversations, a notebook detailing a step-by-step plan for the shooting, and the calls with his mother contradicted these claims, Gilleland testified. This evidence indicated careful planning and an intention to survive the attack, Gilleland stated.
Past Abuse and Neglect
Candice Broce, director of the state Division of Family & Children Services and commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services, testified that Colt Gray had suffered abuse and neglect. Her agency had opened investigations into the family several years prior to the shooting. Broce noted that Gray was unable to recall ever going to a doctor during her initial assessment, stating, “I was really surprised by the complete absence of care.”
Broce testified that Gray appeared to improve with treatment. After Marcee Gray was barred from contact by a July 2025 no-contact order and Colt Gray began medication, staff at the youth detention center told Broce it “changed him essentially into a different child.”