ATLANTA — In a rare case of a parent being charged after a school shooting, a judge on Tuesday granted a $500,000 bond for the father of a 14-year-old boy accused of a deadly attack at a north Georgia high school.
Colin Gray has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Sept. 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder.
Gray, 54, and his son, Colt Gray, were both indicted in the shooting that killed two students and two teachers and injured several others. Both have pleaded innocent to the charges they face.
Colin Gray had given his son the assault-style weapon as a Christmas gift and was aware that the child’s mental health had deteriorated in the weeks before the shooting, investigators testified at an earlier hearing. The father also was aware that his son was obsessed with school shooters and even had a shrine above his home computer for the gunman in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school massacre, Florida, prosecutors say.
At Tuesday’s hearing, several relatives of the dead and injured spoke, with some breaking down in tears as they described the loss of their loved one. They pleaded for the father to remain jailed without bond as he awaits trial.
“I feel that the sheer irresponsibility of Mr. Gray as a parent robbed my family of the chance to raise my son,” said Breanna Schermerhorn, whose 14-year-old son Mason was killed in the attack.
“What you, the families, are going through, what the community is going through is undeniable pain, and I understand that,” Judge Nick Primm said.
“This case is an open sore, it’s a wound that continues to hurt the community,” he added.
Colin Gray’s lawyer, Jimmy Berry, said the state has not proven that the father would pose any threat if released on bond.
“The purpose of the pretrial bond is not to punish him before his conviction,” Berry said.
The judge said he’s constrained by the law in deciding bond. Gray is presumed innocent and the law “does not permit me to be emotional,” he said.
Georgia law in bond cases involves weighing whether there’s a risk that Gray would flee, whether he would pose a danger to the community and whether he would try to influence or threaten witnesses. There’s been no evidence that any of that would occur if bond were to be granted, the judge said. Gray was ordered to have no contact with witnesses. If he’s unable to post the money, then he will remain jailed.
The judge said he does not believe Gray could return to Winder, a small town northeast of Atlanta, while awaiting trial. “In the court of public opinion, he bears a scarlet letter,” he said.
Before Primm issued his ruling, Colin Gray testified that if bond were granted, he would live with his sister in Cherokee County, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Winder.
Colt Gray is charged as an adult and indicted on 55 counts, including murder and 25 counts of aggravated assault at the high school. His father faces 29 charges, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Both also face multiple counts of cruelty to children.
The shooting killed teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.
Colin Gray is the first adult known to be charged in a school shooting in Georgia. His indictment is the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley, the first to be convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.
Investigators have said Colt Gray carried a semiautomatic assault-style rifle onto a school bus, with the barrel sticking out of his book bag, wrapped up in a poster board. They say the boy carefully plotted the shooting at the 1,900-student high school northeast of Atlanta, drawing diagrams and listing potential body counts in a notebook. He left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle before shooting people in a classroom and hallways.