SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The father of a high school shooter in Georgia has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Colin Gray was convicted by a jury in March of second-degree murder for supplying the AR-15 his son used in the attack. Earlier this week, the son, Colt Gray, was sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to killing four people and injuring nine others. Chase McGee, with Georgia Public Broadcasting, has been in the courtroom for these proceedings and joins us now. Hi, Chase.
CHASE MCGEE, BYLINE: Hi. How's it going?
PFEIFFER: Would you first remind us the facts of this shooting?
MCGEE: Yeah. Colt Gray carried out the shooting at Apalachee High School on September 4 of 2024 when he was 14 years old. Prosecutors said he'd been planning a school shooting for nearly two years before that. During his sentencing, the state presented messages from the social messaging app Discord, where he communicated specific details, like what venue he'd prefer to target, desired number of victims and comparisons he made between his plan and those of other mass shooters.
Ultimately, Colt Gray shot and killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Barrow County. Nine others were also injured, and his father, Colin Gray, was arrested shortly after the shooting. Shayna Aspinwall's husband, Richard, was one of those teachers killed in the shooting. She addressed Colin in court this morning.
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SHAYNA APINWALL: (Crying) My now 7-year-old, who is a daddy's girl, spends time going to therapy because she struggled with the grief of losing her dad. Colin could not take his son to therapy, therefore, I have to take mine.
MCGEE: Last Friday, Colt Gray pleaded guilty to the 55 charges he was facing, including four counts of malice murder and avoiding what would have been a high-profile jury trial.
PFEIFFER: And the end result was a life sentence without parole. So what other factors did the judge consider when making that sentencing decision?
MCGEE: Yeah, Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith targeted Gray's involvement in something called the True Crime Community, or TCC for short. It's a decentralized internet subculture across several social media sites, and their fans can sometimes form these unhealthy attachments, often parasocial relationships, with those who carry out the worst and most public acts of violence. According to the evidence presented, Gray himself participated in the TCC. He idolized and tried to emulate other mass shooters.
Once he committed the shooting at Appalachee, he spent dozens of jail calls with his mother, Marcee Gray, discussing his rising celebrity in the True Crime Community. Ultimately, it seemed like that lack of remorse and desire for notoriety convinced Judge Nicholas Primm to hand down a sentence of life without parole. Here's what he said.
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NICHOLAS PRIMM: Your crimes do reflect permanent incorrigibility, and I will sentence you to life without parole for each of the malice murders that you committed.
MCGEE: That phrasing is important because the U.S. Supreme Court has held for more than a decade that children should not receive mandatory sentences of life without parole, but they can be sentenced if a judge determines they are, quote, "permanently incorrigible or incapable of reform."
PFEIFFER: And that's the term, as you said, the judge used. We mentioned earlier that Colt Gray's father, Colin Gray, got a sentence of 15 years for providing the rifle his son used. Tell us a little more about the father's case.
MCGEE: So Colin Gray's case is not the first in the nation where a parent has been held criminally liable for their child committing a school shooting. In early 2024, James and Jennifer Crumbley, whose son shot and killed four classmates at a Michigan high school, were charged with manslaughter and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.
In this Georgia case, the Barrow County district attorney I mentioned earlier, Brad Smith, emphasized throughout Colin Gray's trial is that he's being prosecuted for what he didn't do, not the actions his son took. Gray was convicted of both second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter by a jury in March, and this afternoon, Judge Primm handed down that 15-year prison sentence. This is certainly the first case of its kind in the state of Georgia, and should Gray appeal his conviction, it'll go straight to the state's Supreme Court. Murder convictions are sent there on appeal.
PFEIFFER: That is Georgia Public Broadcasting's Chase McGee. Thank you.
MCGEE: Thank you.
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