Suspect in Georgia high school shooting makes no confession at his first court appearance

The 14-year-old Apalachee High School student charged in connection with a shooting that left two students and two teachers dead made no confession during his first court appearance Friday.

Colt Gray was arraigned in a Barrow County courtroom on four counts of murder stemming from a school shooting that left a small northern Georgia community in deep mourning.

The officers led the teenager into the courtroom in handcuffs. His long hair covered parts of his face throughout the hearing.

LIVE UPDATES: The latest on the Georgia high school shooting

Judge Currie Mingledorff informed Gray of his rights and sentenced him to the maximum penalty for the crimes he was charged with: life imprisonment.

Prosecutors allege the teenager fired an AR-style rifle on campus Wednesday morning, killing four people, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Nine other people were injured, all but two of whom were shot, the GBI said.

Gray’s father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, is scheduled to appear in the same courtroom later Friday morning to face charges of four counts of manslaughter, two counts of first-degree murder and eight counts of child abuse, court officials said.

“A young person brought a gun into a school and committed an evil act. He took lives and hurt many other people – not only physically, but emotionally as well,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a press conference Thursday evening.

The families of the victims of the shooting sat in the front row of the small courtroom. One woman held a doll of the Disney character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit while others wiped tears from their eyes.

Wednesday’s mass killing was the 45th school shooting of 2024 and the deadliest school shooting in the United States since the Covenant School massacre in Nashville in March 2023, which left six people dead.

Here’s what we know so far:

• Teenage suspect to be tried as an adult: Colt Gray, who is being held in the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, is expected to remain in custody there until he turns 17, although his case has been transferred to the adult system, department spokesman Glenn Allen told CNN on Thursday. Under Georgia law, a juvenile between the ages of 13 and 17 who commits a serious crime is automatically tried as an adult. Colt Gray is cooperating with investigators, authorities said.

• The four killed were identified: Wednesday’s fatal shooting at Apalachee High School left two 14-year-old students dead — Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn — and two teachers — 53-year-old math teacher Cristina Irimie and 39-year-old assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, who also taught math. Authorities said Irimie was celebrating her birthday with her students the day she was shot, according to a family friend.

• The nine injured are expected to make a full recovery: Of the nine other injured, seven — six students and a teacher — were shot, the GBI said Thursday. The other two — both students — suffered additional injuries, the GBI said. The nine people are expected to make a full recovery from their injuries, Smith said Thursday.

• Mass shooting suspect questioned about online threats in the last year: In May 2023, police officers questioned Colt Gray and his father about “online threats to commit a school shooting” that included photos of guns, according to a joint statement from the FBI Atlanta and Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Colt Gray, who was 13 at the time, told investigators during that interview that “someone accused him of threatening to shoot at a school and stated that he would never say such a thing, even in jest,” authorities said. Authorities could not confirm the threats and the investigation was closed, according to the sheriff’s office.

• Other schools also received threats, investigators say: Apalachee High School received a phone threat Wednesday morning before shots were fired on school grounds. The threat warned of shootings at five schools, including Apalachee High, several law enforcement officials told CNN. It’s unclear who made the call, and investigators found no evidence that other schools were targeted. However, they are “following up any leads about possible connections of the shooter involved in this incident,” Hosey said.

• The suspect’s father bought the gun involved in the shooting as a gift: Before charges against Colin Gray were announced Thursday, two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said he told authorities he purchased the AR-style rifle used in the Apalachee High School shooting as a Christmas present for his son in December 2023. That would mean the gun purchase came months after authorities first contacted Colin Gray and his family while investigating a school shooting threat last year.

CNN’s Elise Hammond, David Williams, Sara Smart, Dalia Faheid, Zenebou Sylla, Devon Sayers, John Miller, Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Nick Valencia, Rebekah Riess, David Williams, Dakin Andone, Sharif Paget, Melissa Alonso, Andy Rose, Caroll Alvarado, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Shawn Nottingham, Curt Devine, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.

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