By Joseph Ax
July 24 (Reuters) - A Georgia teenager who killed four people and injured nine others in a 2024 school shooting pleaded guilty in court on Friday to all 55 counts he faced, including murder and assault charges.
Colt Gray, 16, faces up to life in prison without parole after entering the plea in Barrow County Superior Court without having reached a sentencing agreement with prosecutors, leaving the final determination to Judge Nicholas Primm.
Following the plea, the judge heard hours of testimony,
including emotional statements from family members of the victims as well as survivors of the mass shooting.
Prosecutors presented evidence of Gray's planning, including a notebook — not previously made public — in which Gray drew diagrams of his classroom and wrote messages such as "Shoot the teacher first!" and "I can't wait."
The judge also heard hours of interviews that investigators conducted with Gray immediately following the shooting. Gray, at times sobbing, described the attack as "horrible" and told authorities he had mental health problems, including voices in his head.
The sentencing hearing will continue on Monday.
SHOOTER'S FATHER CONVICTED
Gray, a 14-year-old ninth-grader at the time of the September 4, 2024, shooting, brought an assault-style rifle he had received as a Christmas present from his father into Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, hidden inside a roll of poster board.
He killed students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14, and teachers Cristina Irimie, 53, and Richard Aspinwall, 39, and was charged as an adult in the crime.
Gray's father, Colin Gray, was convicted in March on 27 charges, including second-degree murder, for giving his son the rifle despite what prosecutors said were clear red flags. Colt Gray, they said, maintained a shrine to school shooters and exhibited violent behavior at home.
The case was one of the few prosecutions of a parent in connection with a child's mass shooting in the United States. Colin Gray is scheduled to be sentenced next week.
At the conclusion of one interview played in court on Friday, the investigator said Colt Gray would be placed under arrest and that his father would be contacted, before asking the teenager whether he had any message for his father.
"Tell him that it wasn't his fault," Gray replied.
During Friday's hearing, Breanna Schermerhorn, whose son Mason was among the victims, said she did not forgive the teenager for his actions but recognized that the adults in his life did not offer him the help he needed.
"The people that should have protected, guided, recognized the warning signs and intervened when it mattered the most did not do what should have been done," she said. "That failure is real, and it is tragic. I can acknowledge that he was failed without excusing what he did."
Like others who offered victim statements, Schermerhorn urged Primm to keep Gray behind bars.
"Mason was kind, compassionate, funny and fiercely protective of others," she said. "As a child with exceptional needs, he understood what it felt like to struggle and be overlooked by others ... He made people who were typically unseen feel seen, safe and accepted."
Shayna Aspinwall, Richard Aspinwall's wife, told the judge that her grief remains constant.
"The future we planned together no longer exists," she said. "Now our daughters, who were 5 and 2 at the time, must grow up without their father."
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Alistair Bell and Rod Nickel)
