Colt Gray, 16, pleads responsible in 2024 school taking pictures
Winder, Georgia
Colt Gray, {the teenager} who killed 4 folks at his Georgia high school in September 2024, wrote in messages earlier than the assault about his want for infamy and his obsession with Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz.
“(I) wanna make history to put it short,” he wrote on the messaging platform Discord greater than a 12 months earlier than the taking pictures. “I want people to remember the pain I caused and research me for hours.”
“My love for Nik has formed into something in which I can find no other resort that can prove my love and affection towards him,” he wrote in one other message days earlier than the taking pictures.
The messages have been learn aloud in courtroom as a part of a multiday sentencing listening to as prosecutors and protection attorneys debated whether or not Colt, 16, can ever be rehabilitated. He faces a sentence of life in jail, both with or with out parole.
The listening to comes about two years after the attack at Apalachee High School, the deadliest school taking pictures in Georgia historical past. Just 14 years outdated on the time, Colt took an AR-15-style rifle to school and fatally shot lecturers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie and college students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. He additionally wounded 9 others.
On Friday, he pleaded guilty to 55 charges, together with four counts of murder. In courtroom, victims’ families and shooting survivors faced him and spoke about their bodily and emotional scars.
Several extra witnesses are anticipated to testify Monday, and the listening to might stretch into Tuesday. Colt could have a chance to deal with the courtroom earlier than the decide delivers the sentence.
His father, Colin Gray, was discovered guilty of murder and manslaughter charges in March for buying his son the firearm and conserving it unsecured regardless of warnings that Colt was a hazard to others. He faces many years in jail and shall be sentenced later this week.
The father’s trial revealed the extent of Colt’s tumultuous childhood. His mom struggled with drug and alcohol dependancy, and the household moved repeatedly. Family members spoke about Colt’s spiraling psychological well being, and school data show he was repeatedly absent from class, together with lacking his complete eighth-grade 12 months.
Dr. Kevin Richards, a forensic psychologist, testified for the protection Monday about Colt’s psychological well being points. He stated the teenager’s paranoia, despair and anxiousness have been exacerbated by neglect and abuse at dwelling and a web-based fixation with mass shooters.
“He was a lonely, dysfunctional kid who was anxious, paranoid, depressed and immersed in this highly dysfunctional world with these people who were obsessed with folks who had done school shootings,” Richards stated.
Richards stated he reviewed case recordsdata and interviewed Colt for about 15 hours whole for his evaluation. While in custody, the teenager was recognized with a temper dysfunction — despair with psychotic options — an unspecified persona dysfunction and post-traumatic stress dysfunction, Richards testified.
He testified that Colt might enhance with correct interventions and medicine.
“He’s still an adolescent. His personality is still not done. His character is still not done. His brain is still developing,” Richards stated. “So there’s, I think, still room to intervene at this point to make some headway to undo some of that stuff.”
But on cross-examination, Richards stated Colt had exaggerated his psychological well being signs and made issues as much as attempt to get a extra critical analysis. Colt didn’t have any indicators of madness, schizophrenia or bipolar dysfunction, Richards stated.
“My evaluation didn’t reveal any actual mania or any diagnosis of schizophrenia,” he stated. “They can talk about it until the cows come home, but there was no evidence for it.”
The US Supreme Court has dominated that juveniles can’t be sentenced to dying and can solely be sentenced to life in jail with out parole in uncommon circumstances.
Victims and survivors discover their voices
Mason Schermerhorn’s mom says she does not forgive Colt Gray, however she is aware of he was failed by the adults in his life.
Friday’s sentencing listening to belonged to the victims. One after one other, relations and survivors stood earlier than the courtroom, describing who they were before September 4, 2024, and who they’ve change into since.
“I started to hate myself because I couldn’t truly live anymore, because I let you take every piece of joy I had away from me,” stated Nautica Walton, who was in ninth grade when she was shot within the leg.
“I hate everything about you,” she told Colt. “I hate the scars you left on my body. I hate that you took innocent lives in front of innocent people. Most of all, I hate that I let you live in my mind.”
Others acknowledged Colt’s tough childhood circumstances, as revealed during his father’s trial, whereas making clear it might by no means justify his actions.
“Two things can be true at the same time,” stated Sarah Beaver, the mom of taking pictures survivor Jaxson Beaver. “He was a child who was failed. He was also the person who failed countless innocent children and their families.”
“The defendant’s family will still get to see their son, talk to him and know he is breathing,” said Ismael Angulo Jr., the oldest sibling of sufferer Christian Angulo. “My mother (and) my father don’t get that privilege. The only way to visit Christian now is by standing over his grave. There is no fairness in that reality.”
What Colt Gray stated earlier than and after the taking pictures
After the sufferer influence statements Friday, prosecutors introduced never-before-seen proof from Colt’s non-public notebooks and interviews with police that supplied the general public its clearest look but into his mindset.
Barrow County Sheriff’s Office investigator Jason Smith learn aloud from notebooks recovered after the taking pictures that outlined Colt’s plans in hanging element.
One pocket book present in his bed room contained pleas to flee what he referred to as a “cruel world,” drawings of firearms, sketches depicting a school shooting and references to Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz. Investigators additionally discovered what they described as a shrine to Cruz in Colt’s bed room.
In one other pocket book, he wrote, “Stop I’m scared! I’m not a killer!” and repeatedly filled pages with the word “why.”
Colt Gray instructed investigators he believed he needs to be in a psychological well being unit
As Smith learn Colt’s writings, {the teenager} remained expressionless, typically gently rocking and twisting in his chair.
The courtroom then heard recordings of Colt’s interview with investigators lower than an hour after the taking pictures. Sobbing and struggling to talk, the then-14-year-old described pausing in a school bathroom earlier than finishing up the assault.
“I had a moment in the bathroom of like, I probably shouldn’t do this … next thing I know I’m f**king shooting in a classroom, dude,” Colt stated.
Colt repeatedly apologized all through the interview. “I’ve probably affected thousands of people; this was just f**king horrible,” he stated.
He stated he heard voices in his head and believed lecturers have been plotting in opposition to him. He additionally instructed investigators he believed he needs to be in a psychological well being facility.
He insisted his father was not accountable, and when officers arrested him, Colt requested them to ship a message to his dad: “Tell him that it wasn’t his fault and that I know he tried his hardest.”
NCS’s Rebekah Riess and August Phillips contributed to this report.