Share and Follow
In Georgia, second-degree murder is characterized by causing a child’s death through the act of child cruelty.
In a tragic incident, another educator and eight students sustained injuries. Gray faced convictions for several charges, including reckless conduct and cruelty to children.
Gray gifted his son a firearm for Christmas, permitting him access to it and its ammunition, despite the boy’s declining mental health. Authorities noted he had ample warning that Colt Gray posed a risk to others’ safety.
At the age of 14, Colt Gray faced 55 charges, including murder, to which he pleaded not guilty. A judge has scheduled a status hearing for mid-March.
Authorities revealed that Colt meticulously orchestrated the shooting on September 4, 2024, at a school with an enrollment of 1,900 students.
He boarded the school bus with a semiautomatic, assault-style rifle in his book bag, the barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board, investigators said. He left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the gun and shot people in a classroom and hallways, investigators said.
Jurors took less than two hours to find Gray guilty of all charges in shooting. Gray now joins a growing number of parents being held responsible in court after their children were accused in shootings.
Gray showed little emotion as the verdict was read and each juror was polled by the judge. Deputies then cuffed his hands behind his back as he stood at the defence table, speaking with his lawyer. He will be sentenced at a later date.
Second-degree murder is punishable by at least 10 but no more than 30 years in prison, while involuntary manslaughter carries a penalty of one to 10 years in prison.
Some relatives of victims wept as the verdicts were read.
“We talk a lot about rights in our country,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said after the verdict. “But God gave us a duty to protect our children, and I hope that we remember that, as parents, as community members, to protect our children because that is our God-given duty.”
She and Colin Gray were separated in the months leading up to the shooting, and Colt Gray lived mostly with his father during that time. She declined to comment when reached by phone after the verdict.
“It wasn’t like one parent missed one warning,” Smith told reporters.
“This was multiple warnings over a lengthy period of time and, like we said, you just had to do one thing — take that rifle away and this would have been prevented.”