A state investigator testified Tuesday that Colt Gray’s father revealed his 14-year-old son had become aggressive and was in need of mental health counseling in the months leading up to the 2024 deadly rampage at a Georgia high school.
Colin Gray, 55, pleaded not guilty on two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 20 counts of cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct. His son, Colt Gray, is accused of opening fire at Apalachee High School on Sept. 4, 2024, killing two students, two teachers and wounding nine others.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Kelsey Ward, who interviewed Colin Gray about three hours after the shooting, told the court that he said Colt would try to fight him and that he had attempted to get help for his son by contacting counselors and mental health facilities to explore inpatient care options.
But despite this concerning behavior, Gray said he still wanted to get his son into deer hunting to help cope. After a hunting trip in which they bonded, he told his son that maybe “Santa Claus” would gift him a firearm, Gray told Ward, according to a recording of the interview played in court. He added that he purchased a rifle for his teenage son for Christmas.
“He shot a deer for the first time ever in the woods, we bonded, it was like the greatest day ever,” Gray told Ward during the interview. “In my mind, I swear to God I thought he was gonna be perfect from then on.”
Still, Gray told Ward, he saw troubling warning signs.
A couple of days before the shooting, Gray told Ward that he saw a poster of Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz on the wall of his son’s room. Gray said he did not know who Cruz was, but asked his son, who told him, “that’s one of the guys that did that last school shooting.”
Gray recalled giving his son a “pep talk” the day before the shooting and the morning of, encouraging him to go to school after a day of absence, Ward said.
“Let’s make a plan, and we’ll figure this out,” he recalled telling his son, adding that he said he was proud of him.
On the morning of Sept. 4, 2024, Gray recalled receiving texts from his son that concerned him, including, “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault,” and “You’re not to blame for any of it.” Gray told Ward he left work after receiving those messages and attempted to reach his son.
Gray went home and looked inside Colt’s room, and that’s when he realized that the AR rifle he kept in the corner of his room was not there.
Ward said Gray told her he could never imagine his son doing what he’s been accused of.
“I mean, how the hell is he going to walk across the yard with a long rifle and get on a bus? There’s no way this is him,” Gray told Ward.
Text messages displayed in court show Gray asking his daughter, Jenni Gray, if she had heard from her brother Colt on the day of the shooting. Jenni attended Heyman Morris Middle School, which was right next door to Apalachee High School, and told her father she was scared while the building was in lockdown.
“No,” Jenni responded to her father. “But I think we are thinking the same thing and I don’t want to talk about it over text.”
“Yep, 10 four I’ll be there here in just a few,” Gray wrote to his daughter.
Jenni also testified Tuesday, telling the court that her father and brother would sometimes fight, physically and verbally. Jenni is one year younger than Colt, and she now lives with foster parents.
“There would be, you know, punches thrown, a lot of shoving you know, just a lot of contact,” Jenni said about the physical fights between her father and brother, adding that Colt instigated many of them.
She said her father did talk about trying to get mental help for Colt, but “didn’t really know how to take that first step.” Her father would sometimes ask her advice on how to help Colt.
“I didn’t really know how to respond a lot, because I wasn’t really expecting an adult to ask me advice about that,” Jenni said. “But when I did give a response, I just, you know, tried to get him to talk to other adults about it.”
Jenni said her father never stored guns in the house in a secure way or limited Colt’s access to guns despite her raising concerns about her brother having access to them. She also said her brother had pictures of Cruz up on his bedroom wall for a few months.
On the day after the shooting, on the way to an interview with investigators, she said her father told her to “cover for him.” She felt pressured into doing so, she said.
“He told me, like, if they asked me anything, you know, about if he knew that Colt had problems, and that his problems would lead up to this, that I should basically try to cover for him. And specifically about the pictures on the walls, he told me not to tell them that he knew what they were,” Jenni said about the pictures of Cruz.
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