Judge to decide parole option for Georgia high school shooter

WINDER, Ga. (CN) — A Barrow County judge weighed evidence Monday as he determines the appropriate sentence for Colt Gray, the 16-year-old charged in the 2024 mass shooting at Apalachee High School.

Gray pleaded guilty Friday to all 55 counts against him, including malice murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to children. After previously pleading not guilty, Gray agreed to a nonnegotiated guilty plea, meaning Piedmont Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Nicholas Primm must decide whether to sentence him to life in prison with the possibility of parole or without.

His defense attorney, Charlton Allen, urged the judge to grant him life with parole in light of the Miller v. Alabama Supreme Court decision, which held juveniles couldn’t be sentenced to life without parole, even in homicide cases.

For more than 20 years, the high court has repeatedly stressed juvenile defendants should be treated differently than adults, citing findings from neuroscience and developmental psychology showing the reasoning and decision-making parts of their brains are not fully developed and work differently than those of adults.

Gray was just 14 years old when the fatal shooting occurred two years ago.

Kevin Richards, an expert in clinical and forensic psychology, emphasized adolescents are more vulnerable and likely to make “dumb” choices, especially when there is abuse and neglect involved, but that this leaves them more impressionable to changing behavior with meaningful treatment.

“To say at this age ‘we know it’s pointless’ kind of ignores how development works,” Richards said.

Richards provided in-depth testimony about his mental evaluation of Gray, whom he interviewed over roughly 15 hours.

“I thought he was kind of an odd kid,” Richards said of his first impression of Gray.

His testimony shed light on what started as a mutual true crime fascination online that developed into a strange and dysfunctional idolization of mass shooters, exacerbated by other online users.

Richards described the online community Gray became deeply involved with as mostly teenagers who liked to research and find new information about mass shooters to the point it became “obsessive” and even sexual at times.

“It’s pretty disturbing,” Richards said.

He added Gray didn’t have a normal childhood and was constantly surrounded by chaos, with both parents using drugs and experiencing persistent financial issues.

Gray’s family moved homes frequently and had been visited by the Division of Family and Children Services for failing to enroll their children in school for an entire year. His mother, Marcee Gray, was temporarily incarcerated and lost custody of the children, leaving them in the care of their father, who spent most of his time away at work.

“I think there was a fair amount of abuse and neglect,” Richards said.

This left Gray not only anxious and depressed but extremely isolated, Richards said.

The teen found solace online, where he was able to take on a different persona and communicate with others, who may have also felt lonely and shared similar interests, on Discord chat servers.

“His entire social world was happening on Discord, not out here with us,” Richards said.

It was to the point that Gray’s ability to form relationships with people outside of the online world became impaired, and he grew increasingly paranoid about people following him or talking about him, he added.

“If you’re really isolated and go on the internet and substitute social life online, it can lead you to some dark places,” Richards said.

Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith presented several of Gray’s Discord messages. He argued Gray often exaggerated about his mental health issues to try and fit in with other users online who discussed having schizophrenia, hallucinations and other disorders.

Two years before the shooting, Gray was already talking about a potential attack online, leading some of his messages to be reported to police, who showed up at his home to address the threats but never ensured firearms were out of reach.

“I want to make history. I want people to remember the pain I caused and research me for hours,” one Discord message read.

Richards said it appeared Gray wanted to get the attention of Nikolas Cruz, the perpetrator of the Parkland high school shooting in Florida, and was upset he did not respond to the letter he sent to him in prison.

Smith claimed Gray was imitating what other convicted shooters did and copied what Cruz said after his arrest, claiming he blacked out and heard demons. He also played Gray’s phone calls from jail after his arrest with his mother, in which they discuss the possibility of him being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

“I believe the paranoia impacted his judgment and thinking," Richards said. But he never believed Gray had a realistic insanity defense, he added.

“I never thought he did the shooting because he was hallucinating things," Richards said.

Smith argued Gray is not remorseful, pointing to one of his Discord messages about the victim impact statements given in Cruz’s trial, in which he called one of the victims a “bitch.”

Shayna Aspinwall, whose husband, Richard Aspinwall, was killed in the Apalachee shooting, asked the judge Friday not to sentence Gray to life with the chance for parole, saying the parole hearings would be “continued torture” for her family.

Ismael Angulo, whose 14-year-old brother, Christian Angulo, was also killed, asked the judge to sentence Gray to life without the possibility of parole, as he described “every day as a nightmare.”

The sentencing hearings will resume Tuesday.

Gray’s guilty plea avoids the long-awaited trial that was set to begin in October and the rehashing of much of the same grisly evidence and emotional testimony presented during his father’s February trial.

Colin Gray was found guilty on all 27 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter, for gifting his teenage son the assault rifle and ammunition used in the Sept. 4, 2024, mass shooting that left four people dead and several others injured. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

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